WWDC 2025: Everything that Apple ‘Sherlocked’ this time

Summary

Apple announced a slew of major design and feature updates for all its operating systems at WWDC 2025, and just like every year, the company has again built in some features that were previously available through third-party apps. In the Apple world, this is called “Sherlocking.” In the late ’90s, Apple launched a search app named Sherlock for macOS 8 to let users search the web and files on local systems. Another company called Karelia Software had an existing $29 search app called Watson, with plug-ins for better internet search. In 2002, Apple released Sherlock 3, which had features similar to Watson, forcing Karelia to eventually shut its app down. Since then, tech folk have used the term “Sherlocking” to allude to when Apple builds a new feature that does the same thing as an existing third-party app. Here are the new features that Sherlock what various apps have done in the past: The new Spotlight app on macOS Sherlocked apps: Raycast, Launchbar Yes, Raycast does much more than stringing shortcuts together, and it provides a developer platform too. But when Apple showed off the new Spotlight search for Mac during the keynote on Monday, you couldn’t help thinking of Raycast. When you open Raycast, it shows you suggested apps and commands, which is exactly what the new Spotlight will let users do for files, apps, and shortcuts. The kicker, though, is Apple’s “Actions,” which let you do all sorts of stuff like putting an event on your calendar, making a GIF, or creating a folder, just like Raycast lets you do. Image Credits: Apple Spotlight now also lets you access items from the menus for any active windows. Plus, you can define a short string to perform specific actions — for example, you could set the string “newr” to create a new reminder item. Spotlight is also getting support for the Intents API so developers can add actions from their own apps. Last year, Raycast expanded to Windows and iOS with a suite of AI-powered features. Flight tracking via Live Acti...