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Does anyone else find spotlight app suggestions completely useless?

dark_knight177

dark_knight177

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 22, 2010
220
323
I personally find spotlight app suggestions extremely useless and random. What were Apple trying to accomplish with this? Every time I pull down the notification bar, I get seemingly random app suggestions. It does absolutely nothing for me and is a useless feature. All it does is clutters my screen and makes the notification bar stutter.

I can clearly see that Apple tried to imitate Google Now feature of Android. However I believe Apple does a horrible job at machine learning and AI. You can tell this by judging how inferior Siri is to Google Now and you have to repeat things for Siri to understand. I really really hope that Apple doesn't release a self-driving car.
 
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I agree. I find it useless. It shows random apps or apps I just opened. I already have my most used apps on the home page and I bet a lot of people sort their apps the same way. And in Sweden that's all I get in the proactive screen. So I have two spotlight pages that do exactly the same thing.

I do like like the lock screen suggestions though. That usually shows the app I normally use at the time of day.
 
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I use that page more than any other screen on my phone because it has all the recent people I've been in touch with regardless if it was a phone call, message or e-mail and it always lists the most recent apps I've been in so I don't even need to hunt down where they are on the home page.
 
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I agree that it's useless. I have two pages of apps and a folder on the second page for apps I never use. So anything I need to use is within one swipe and one tap which is exactly what app suggestions gets me.
 
I find the concept utterly flawed.

If it is an app I use often, that app likely exists on my home screen already, or I will have set up actions to automate it or access it more readily via widgets and stuff.

And Spotlight suggestions seems to simply suggest apps I have just used. I can't say I have ever clicked on a suggestion for want of it.
 
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While at topic of useless (Spotlight) things, I've already submitted feedback at Apple for giving us an option to disable the left Spotlight homescreen.

It's basically a duplicate of the already existing feature and while News and nearby suggestions aren't available in all countries, it existence is just plain dumb.

If I ever open it it's just by mistake when sliding on the homescreen or tapping that small magnifying glass icon, that indicates homescreens (yeah, you can tap on those to get to a homescreen).
 
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I do find, not only suggested apps, but also the suggested contacts completely useless. I don't understand how someone at Apple didn't think this a little more.
The contacts in the suggested contacts row even change without me contacting anyone in any way.
Or maybe I'm using it wrong.
 
I don't use it very often, but I usually find it quite accurate.
Nearby location seems to work only in some places ....
 
Completely random and useless. Furthermore, most of the time it shows 2-3 apps that are in my dock. That means I have to spend more time swiping to the spotlight screen than simply tapping the button of any other app page.

Oh, and all the other features don't work in Scandinavian countries.
 
Completely useless. The only good thing about spotlight is conversions.
 
I have had these disabled because I know what I want to do when I do it. I place icons on my home screen and I know where they are. I know the names of my contacts so I can just type their name if I need to contact them.

I also hate how Spotlight slides in from the top AND the left side. Pick one.

This feature is as useless as the recents in the iOS 8 app switcher.
 
DoctorKrabs said:
I have had these disabled because I know what I want to do when I do it. I place icons on my home screen and I know where they are. I know the names of my contacts so I can just type their name if I need to contact them.

I also hate how Spotlight slides in from the top AND the left side. Pick one.

This feature is as useless as the recents in the iOS 8 app switcher.
Click to expand...
And yet there were people complaining that that was removed in iOS 9 from the app switcher.
 
I have spotlight suggestions disabled, found it to not be very useful as OP stated.
 
DoctorKrabs said:
Yes, because my words were "Nobody cared about the iOS 8 recents."

Oh, wait. I never said that.
Click to expand...
Seemed like that's what the general statement more or less implied. If it was meant in the sense of "For me" preceding that statement, then what I said doesn't really apply.
Act3 said:
What is your opinion of spotlight suggestions?
Click to expand...
I have them disabled from the beginning as I don't have things I don't care about enabled (if there's a setting for it), so I don't really have an opinion on the suggestions.
 
I find spotlight in its entirety completely useless. I disable as much as I can in spotlight to save on battery. I've never once needed to search for anything with spotlight. The screen to the left of the main screen is pointless as well. Ios8 had it right where there was no screen to the left.
 
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