周一召开的苹果全球开发者大会（WWDC）上，开发者们可能忽略了苹果对于Spotlight的重视程度，但行业资讯网站广告时代Ad Age却注意到了这一点。Spotlight是Mac电脑主屏幕右上角的一个小放大镜图标。

    苹果2005年就推出了Spotlight，最初只是一种搜索本地硬盘内容的便捷方式——比如查找文件或丢失的邮件等。而它每一次改版，都伴随着功能的不断增强：如今的Spotlight既可用作计算器或词典，也可提供布尔（和/或）搜索。

    而在周一发布的最新Mac操作系统OS X Yosemite中，Spotlight被推到了台前的中心位置——至少从形式上看确实是这样。点击放大镜后，屏幕中央会弹出一个搜索窗口。输入文字之后，Spotlight不仅会搜索本地计算机，还会进行互联网搜索，提供地图、维基百科（Wikipedia）文章和去除广告后的网页搜索结果。注意：是去除广告后的搜索结果。

    微软（Microsoft）很高兴看到苹果利用必应（Bing）提供网页搜索服务。一位微软发言人告诉Ad Age：“去年，必应成为语音助手Siri的默认网页搜索引擎；而在新一代iOS与OS X中，必应将作为改版后的Spotlight搜索服务的默认网页搜索服务提供商。能够扩展必应平台，帮助iOS与Mac用户查找他们需要的信息，我们感到非常兴奋。”

    但谷歌（Google）恐怕不会开心。从设计无人驾驶汽车，到建设光纤城市，谷歌每一个项目的资金，几乎都来自广告业务，尤其是美国搜索广告业务。据市场调查公司eMarketer估计，美国去年的搜索引擎广告开支为199.2亿美元，其中约70.8%被谷歌收入囊中。

    苹果如果希望通过免费提供信息来扰乱谷歌的运营，那它还有很长一段路要走。正如Ad Age指出：

    “苹果搜索工具每次查询只显示很少的几个结果。。这意味着，苹果必须证明，它寥寥可数的搜索结果就已经足够准确，可以满足用户的查询需求。一款搜索引擎如果只是足够好，那它不足以撼动谷歌的地位，也不足以抢占谷歌的份额。”（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    The developers in the audience at WWDC may have missed the significance of the attention Apple AAPL 1.41% paid Monday to Spotlight — the little magnifying glass on the top right hand corner of the Mac’s home screen — but Ad Age didn’t.

    When it was released in 2005, Spotlight was simply a quick and convenient way to search the contents of your local hard drive — to locate a document, say, or a lost e-mail. It’s been quietly gathering power with each new iteration: doubling as a calculator or a dictionary and offering Boolean (and/or) searches.

    But in OS X Yosemite, the new Mac operating system unveiled Monday, Spotlight comes front and center — literally. When you tap on the magnifying glass, a search window pops up in the middle of the screen. And when you type a few characters, it doesn’t just search your local computer, it searches the Internet as well, delivering maps, Wikipedia articles and Web results stripped of their ads. Repeat: Stripped of their ads.

    Microsoft MSFT -1.23% is delighted that Apple is using its Bing service to search the Web. “Last year Bing became the default web search for Siri, and will now also be the default web search provider in the redesigned Spotlight search feature for the next generation of iOS and OS X,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Ad Age. “We’re excited about extending the Bing platform to help iOS and Mac customers find what they need to get things done.”

    Google GOOG -1.62% will not be so happy. Advertising — especially U.S. search advertising — pays for nearly everything Google does, from building driverless cars to wiring whole cities with fiber optics. According to eMarketer estimates, Google took in 70.8% of the $19.92 billion spent on U.S. search advertising last year.

    If Apple hopes to disrupt Google by giving the information away for free, it’s got its work cut out for it. As Ad Age poins out:

    “Apple’s search tool shows only a few results per query, meaning a lot less real estate for results. That means Apple would have to prove that its small number of results are accurate enough to fulfill someone’s query. Good-enough search has never been enough to unseat or take share from Google.”