Spotlight ShinesĪltogether, Spotlight is just a more polished search engine. The only changes you can make are in System Preferences and just allow you to check or uncheck which categories show up in results and which folders you want Spotlight to skip over during searches. Spotlight is customizable too, but not to the extent of Alfred. Granted, Alfred can control iTunes playback and create workflows, but at a cost. This is extremely important because this makes Spotlight much quicker to use than Alfred. Enter a business address to get directions in Maps and even get quick information like a phone number and reviews, or search for a movie for showtimes or purchase links in iTunes. Again, Alfred just provides links to open these websites and doesn’t intelligently match results to the context of your search.īeing an Apple product itself, Spotlight has the advantage of being able to search through other Apple services. Searching for Adele’s new album will bring up news articles about it, the music video for a single on YouTube and a Wikipedia article that you can even begin reading in Spotlight search. It just knows, and it’s way more convenient than having to open up a website in Alfred. You don’t need to hit Enter or even type in your location. If you search “weather,” Apple’s Spotlight will show you current conditions and the forecast within your search. While Alfred has an advantage in the customization department (albeit rivaled by Spotlight’s Flashlight plugin), Spotlight does a better job of bringing content to you rather than having to hunt for it. That’s a pretty big price to pay compared to Spotlight, which is built into the Mac in its entirety for free.
Unfortunately, it costs to unlock the rest of these: £17 or $26.10. A number of fantastic features in Alfred 2.0 include being able to search through clipboard history, control iTunes playback, search through passwords with 1Password integration and set up automatic workflows to perform repetitive tasks that include other apps.
In addition to all of that, Alfred has the potential to get immensely more powerful …if you’re willing to pay up. It even includes a very unique Remote feature in which, paired with the iOS app, lets you control Alfred and different tasks on your Mac from your iPhone. Check out AppStorm’s article for a few good examples to get started.Īlfred can act as a quick calculator, dictionary and assistant for various system tasks like emptying the trash or logging out, too. Note: This requires that you know the URL for searches performed on specific websites. Enter the search URL, then give your new search a title and keyword shortcut to perform your search in the future. Do this by clicking Web Searches in the sidebar and then Add Custom Search. You can even add your own, which Spotlight won’t do. Plus, each result gets assigned a keyboard shortcut. But it also includes some unexpected treats like web searches through Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, IMDB, YouTube and more.
This includes what you might expect like searching through your Mac’s files and folders, contacts, bookmarks, images and applications. If you head into the app’s preferences by clicking the tiny gear in the Alfred search bar and click Features, you’ll see a comprehensive list of everything Alfred can do. Alfred’s main perk over Spotlight is still its extensive customization options.
0 kommentar(er)
