However, Apple needs to put in some serious improvements for using Spotlight on the desktop. While Spotlight is very usable today (I use it all the time), it has some big holes in what you can search for and how you can alter and filter the results to get what you want. One of the bigger holes is in the ability to find things when you don't know enough about what you are searching for to precise identify it. Plus, the little "tricks" like using kind:app or kind:contact are something many end users don't understand or realize how to implement.

It's been speculated that a search engine such as Spotlight could become the primary Finder interface of the future. However, there's nothing to indicate this will happen with Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard"), though Apple has pitched the "improved" Spotlight. But what they have publicly shown is a far cry from a search oriented Finder environment. So is a real change in store for Finder a real surprise for all? Regardless, some serious tweaking and improving of Spotlight would make a good search tool even better.

Thoughts? Write me at daseller@earthlink.net