02 Search and Safari DICTATE YOUR TERMS
TWO IMPORTANT FEATURES ARE NOW MORE POWERFUL THAN EVER BEFORE.
PROACTIVE SUGGESTIONS
Where you previously had to type before Spotlight Search showed anything, iOS 9 proactively assesses what you do and when, and uses that to display things you might need right now. e search page also displays online news for your location.
NEWLY SEARCHABLE
Many more kinds of item show up in iOS 9’s search results. Go to ‘Settings > General > Spotlight Search’ and you’ll see many more built-in apps are listed, including iBooks, Health and Wallet. ird-party apps from the App Store are listed, too. In fact, the rather longer list is indicative of a new capability Apple has placed in the hands of developers, who can make their apps’ contents searchable in Spotlight. If you see unwanted kinds in search results, you can hide them here. However, you can no longer rearrange the list to prioritise things or categories.
DISABLE PROACTIVITY
If you prefer not to see Spotlight’s proactive suggestions, they can be disabled in ‘Settings > General > Spotlight Search’. Switch o Siri Suggestions at the top of that page. ere’s now a microphone icon at the right of the search bar, which enables you to say what it is you’re looking for. is is available even if you’ve turned o iOS’s Dictation feature (which is triggered from the keyboard wherever you can type).
PERFORM CALCULATIONS
You needn’t dig around for the iPhone’s Calculator app to perform basic arithmetic because you can run numbers in Spotlight Search, just like in OS X. An added bonus is that it works on iPad too, even though that device lacks the Calculator app. Type a calculation into the search bar, using * for multiply and / for divide. Try using common functions too — for example, sqrt(144).
ACCESSING SEARCH
Prior to iOS 7, the system-wide search feature was accessed by swiping to the le of the rst Home screen. Later, Search appeared when you swiped downwards on any Home screen. In iOS 9, both methods work, but there’s a subtle di erence to note. e latter method opens the search page with the input focus already in the bar and the keyboard visible, and a list of suggested apps even before you type — but nothing more until you do. Use the former route if you want to see iOS’s proactive suggestions.
CONTENT BLOCKERS
ese days, the size of many web pages has become bloated, and o en you’ll nd them slow to load on your iOS device — even over a good Wi-Fi connection. is is due partly to complex scripts o en used by online advertising, which take time to run. In iOS 9, Safari includes support for content blockers that can be configured to stop content from certain web domains from loading). You can manage content blockers in ‘Settings > Safari’. You’ll only see a Content Blockers item listed under the General heading if you’ve installed an app that adds one (even though the item shows up when you search for it at the top of Settings).
EASIER ON THE EYES
Safari’s Reader feature, which strips away superfluous content on long pages to give you a cleaner, reformatted view of only the actual content, has a bunch of new visual options. It presents text in the San Francisco font by default, which is the system font on all three of Apple’s latest operating systems. e same seven fonts available in iBooks are also available here, along with a choice of page background colours (white, cream, dark grey and black — the third of those is also now available in iBooks). Naturally, the text size remains adjustable.
DO THINGS WITH A PAGE
e bottom row of the share sheet contains a couple of new things besides Safari’s Request Desktop Site. Add to Favourites, which was previously tucked away with Request Desktop Site, is found here, along with a more explicit Find on Page action as a convenience for anyone who is unaware of the existing, more hidden route of tapping the search eld and then the last item in its suggestions.
PASTE AND GO
It takes fewer steps to paste and go to a web address that you’ve copied to the Clipboard. Hold a nger on the eld and tap ‘Paste and Go’ in the options bar when it appears. With something else on the Clipboard, you’ll get a Paste and Search option instead.
UPLOAD FILES
Got a CV to upload as part of a job application? Wherever you see an option to upload a le to a site, you’ll nd iCloud Drive among the sources from which you can attach and submit a le to an online form.