With the arrival of macOS Tahoe, Apple supercharged the Spotlight experience on Macs. If you’ve been yearning for a similar convenience on your Windows PC, your prayers have finally been answered… by Google.
It’s familiar, but functional
Google has launched the “Google app for Windows,” an experimental app that brings a universal search experience to your PC. Just like Spotlight, it can look for matching items across the app gallery, local files, Google Drive, and the web. It’s Search, after all.
Even the shortcut to summon it is a little too familiar, down to the position of the keys on your keyboard deck.
On a Mac, you hit the Command + Space combo. On Windows, you can summon Google’s search tool with an Alt + Space shortcut. When you look up something, the results shown in the drop-down menu are separated into dedicated sections, which include “Apps and websites,” “Google Drive,” “Files,” and “Web.”
Wait, there’s more to it
Of course, the Spotlight inspiration is pretty evident here, from the functional concept to the elongated pill-shaped design. But Google went a step further and gave its experimental app a serious functional lift, thanks to Lens integration.
“With Google Lens built in, you can select and search anything on your screen, making it easy to translate images or text, get help with homework problems and more,” says the company.
The Lens and Search integration further ties into the new AI Mode and AI Overviews, which offer summarized answers to your queries instead of the usual blue links you see in the classic Google Search view. You can also use images and follow them up with a query, such as a maths problem. The app is available to download from the Labs section, and requires Windows 10 or a later version.
