Search bar missing

Wow this was really perplexing me also. All the responses I found on the issue being the same. “Swipe down from the middle in the Home screen”. What was not stated is the the swiping action should begin within the screen. Not in the bezel area. I have found that as long as I am in the middle of the screen (horizontally) being anywhere in the screen vertically will allow the Spotlight search bar to appear.

If I swipe down on the screen starting at or above the bezel all I see is notifications.

Swiping down from somewhere in the approximate middle, or anywhere on the screen other than the top, has actually been a thing since iOS 10. My wife is still running iOS 12.4.1 on her iPad and swiping down from the home screen does in fact bring up the search bar. I just think that many iPad users didn’t realize this and they were swiping right to get to the search bar and now that it isn’t possible to do that anymore, it has people confused.

This is from the iOS 11.4 user guide.

“Search with iPad. “Search with iPad. To show Search from the Home screen, swipe down from the center. To show Search from an app, swipe down from the top, then swipe from the left edge of the screen.”

Excerpt From

iPad User Guide for iOS 11.4

Apple Inc.

https://books.apple.com/us/book/ipad-user-guide-for-ios-11-4/id1263310093

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Hello,

Can you please elaborate more on your question?

Writing an effective Apple Support Community post

It’s there. Terribly difficult to find. If you pull from the center of the page from the top you Will Not find it. If you go to the Center of the page. Don’t touch yet. Wait. Place your finger about an inch or so from the top center, swipe down. You’ll see it.

That’s right - definitely not where it used to be on the today view, and does not work the way that Apple Support page describes, but swiping down from the middle of the screen brings it up! Mostly I use it to convert metric to inches :)

I’m having trouble acessing my call log from the spotlight bar. Usually if I deleted a numner I could easily go back to the spotlight search bar by swiping down and typing “call” it would appear but since the update I can’t seem to access it anymore.

If Apple is going to pull this **** with changing important features in an upgrade without warning and further it with false documentation then people will stop upgrading and eventually will change vendors.

The directions below can be a little misleading. When it was suggested I swipe down from the middle, I assumed it meant the middle horizontally at the top. In fact, one needs to start in the middle vertically, that is in the middle from the top to the bottom. Hope this helps.

I just bought a new MacBook Pro and was having the same issue. The only way I've been able to search in the iTunes store is by using the search bar in top left corner. The search results seem to be linked to Apple Music but if you click the 3 dots next to the search result, there is an option "Show in iTunes Store". This is not ideal but a work around.

Side Note: Feeling pushed to adopt Apple Music but I still need to purchase music as I'm a DJ. (Apple you should license Apple Music to play with Serato like Tidal has and I'll subscribe).

I know, right. But once you’ve got it, it’s just as fast, so now I’m fine with it. The only hitch is there’s not a big difference between the edge of the screen for pulling down the quick access settings menu and the center pull down for the search bar menu. But still, once you get used to those nuances, you’re good to go. 👍🏼

Apple tech - Please update this so the actual answer comes up in a google search!! I am a diehard Apple consumer and stockholder and I find it unbelievable that your direction for something so simple could be so incorrect. Something this simple causes an unbelievable amount of frustration!! And, I am fairly sure that I am not responding to Apple tech as this is my first time responding to anything, so zmclearan, you seem rather connected, if you could pass this along, I and I am sure many others would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!!

EXCELLENT!! IT WORKED (ON MY IPAD PRO)!

My iPhone X wasn’t having an issue. Just my iPad.

FIRST TIME EVER THAT I’VE RECEIVED AN ANSWER HERE THAT WAS EXACTLY RIGHT AND SO SIMPLE.

THANK YOU!! 👍🏼