Spotlight in Yosemite will not search web

me too there's no way I'll change the language in my mac so apple work on it.Less work on iphone more work on osx

For me there is also another small problem.

When I need to use wikipedia I always use the American version because it has a lot more info in the articles compared to the Dutch wikipedia version.

When using spotlight with Dutch settings I only get access to info from the Dutch language Wikipedia.

This for me, is annoying to say the least.

i noticed that too.the only way is to put us in both language and region to us.For now

I'm glad I could help.

As far as I know, regional settings should only impact your date format, currency, imperial/metric measure and so on. You should not face any other problems.

But I hope Apple sorts this out soon and makes Spotlight useful for all regions.

Well said.

Parenthetically, I'm tired of personalised search in Google. I want search from all over the world, in English, not local search: what's the point?

The Wikipedia restriction to dutch seems to be a similar attempt on Apple's part, assuming just because your system language in in Dutch, you want the rest of the world to be that way too.

So apparently this is a feature, not a bug. Just changed my computer language to Dutch, and then the first time I used spotlight this appeared:

It states that local searches are done and that certain information is sent to Apple "to make the results more relevant". You can switch this off, but that is apparently all you can change. This explains why this was not seen by beta-testers: undoubtedly it was, but since Apple is proud of this feature, they just ignored it. Although they could at least haven given first users a warning: set your language to the local one or web searches will not work.

But I do not want this at all. I want my regional preferences (formats of currency, dates and times) to be Dutch and my computer language English.

Just a few tests of the Dutch spotlight settings gave some really silly results. "Krokodil" turned out to be a drug, not the animal with the same name, "Macintosh" did not produce a computer or even an apple (the fruit), but the "Macintosh retail group", with a Dutch website, and the English word "Elephant", which gave "Energy saver" before now lead to "Energiestand" in the Dutch system preferences. Yes, I can see that a few characters are the same, but how bad a typist do you have to be to get it that wrong. There is nothing sillier than computers trying to be smart.

I hope this will be fixed, but I doubt it.

I can't see the pic.I don't know man I don't understand why they don't let just show up the regional result.I think it's something they aren't able to fix.It's so stupid,for example if I'm planning a trip to NY and I want a quick look to central park why can they just let bing looking.All this think doesn't make any sense.Think this update if you don't have(like me)iphone or ipad gives you nothing.This was a feature i was looking for and it doesn't work.Sometimes I don't understand apple like when removed the list option on podcast.Please apple fix it.I'm pretty sure that there millions of people that have the mac in english even if they leave in other countries

I think the reason they do this is monetisation... Personalised area searched = big bucks in advertising...

It has little to do with what users actually want.

But lets also look at advantages:

You can still do international searches through google... Spotlight could serve as a valuable tool for searching local businesses and services i guess..

yes but if you have the english language and italian region doesn't work at all or any other combination that's not same region same language...again it's stupid

But what happens if my take my laptop to another country? That's when "local searches" start becoming really helpful. If my region is Dutch and my language is Dutch, what will it show me in when I am in Greece? Nothing? Dutch information? Local information in Greek?

Ideally, it should show me local information based on my actual location (if known from WiFi) in one of the languages I have chosen in language preferences.

(by the way, I don't think it is monetization, but American provincialism).

Adrian_S wrote:

(by the way, I don't think it is monetization, but American provincialism).

I can only hope this. Because if it is monetisation we have a problem.

Same situation here.

I flat out refuse to change OS level language from English to match my location as it creates so many problems with utterly terrible and confusing translations... And just looks and feels wrong.

Same with my iPhone. Absolutely no way I'll downgrade from English.

Going to fill out feedback form for this Spotlight mess. It certainly wouldn't be difficult to implement simple Spotlight preference where user could check a box to choose to see either localised hits or global (English).

On a side note, if there are any Android users here, you might recall the whole "Ok, Google" hotword thing was exclusively for US English, so this regional restriction isn't exactly new; in fact, it's getting old fast.

V.H. Belvadi wrote:

On a side note, if there are any Android users here, you might recall the whole "Ok, Google" hotword thing was exclusively for US English, so this regional restriction isn't exactly new; in fact, it's getting old fast.

It gets old very fast. It always gets me when I read a review of a software or hardware product that is US only when the reviewer writes that such and such product is out on a certain date without taking the trouble to mention that it is US only. MacRumors and The Verge are examples of that attitude.

It annoys me to no end. 😠

Yep... I own an Android phone..

Google Now is inactive because of certain location based services not being available for my area.