The rumors had said that the iPhone would pick up some features that had been touted for the Pre. One feature of the Pre: Universal Search. The iPhone does the Pre one better with their Spotlight search -- it not only searches contacts and apps, but will also search within other key applications like Mail and SMS.
Spotlight on the iPhone works thusly: it becomes your new left-most home screen. When you get there, you can just start typing to bring up a list of everything that matches your search. The list will include data from:
- Contacts
- Calendar
- Email (To, From, Subject)
- iPod
- Notes
- Messaging (SMS / MMS)
- Apps (name of App)
The search results get listed in a big, touchable list and each result will have the icon for the app it's from set to the left of the result.
Ladies and Gentlemen: this is the single most important new feature of iPhone 3.0 for me and how I use phones. The ability to 'just start typing' in order to find what I want to get done is my killer app. How about you?
