Apple’s App Store is inviting me to ‘search the way you talk’

Today, I opened the App Store to look for the emulator I had read about, and a new prompt appeared below the search bar, inviting me to “Search for the way you speak.” I didn’t see this prompt on the iPhone 13 Pro Max before, and frankly, I missed it iOS 18.1 update instructions.

As it is described, Apple October update Adding, “App Store Search makes it easier to find what you’re looking for using natural language.” In addition to Photos, Music, and Apple TV, this isn’t the only place Apple is adding natural language search in iOS 18.

While some others have Saw the splash screen In October, I only found the same simple search prompts as before. when i asked around edgeseveral others hadn’t seen it before, although closing the app and relaunching it caused the message to appear in at least one case, and several social media posts Already appeared From someone else noticing it for the first time.

The prompt in the prompt bubble suggested trying something like “Apps that help me exercise,” so of course I tried that.

How effective is it? When I searched for “emulators with multiple consoles” the top result was the multi-console Delta app. Cool. “Apps that only emulate a single console” gave me the PS Remote Play, PlayStation and Xbox apps – not great, but it does follow the Gamma (PS1 emulator app) app. When I asked about “video games that can help me exercise,” well…

Overall, this seems like an improvement to me. Twerk Race 3D isn’t an app that helps me exercise, but it certainly seems to be in the spirit of this search engine. I’ve never found an App Store search to be helpful beyond finding an app whose name I already knew. Also, searching with the usual one or two word terms may not give me the same variety as varying the expressions of natural language cues.