Can I turn off "lookup" and go back to "define"?

Question

Level 1

30 points

Can I turn off "lookup" and go back to "define"?

I use the "define" feature really often when on my iPhone or iPad. REALLY often. In iOS 10, the feature changed to "lookup" where you're given multiple links to look at including a link for the dictionary function I used to use. The frequency in which I use the dictionary, having it displaced by an additional selection is down right annoying. Is there any way to get the dictionary back to the default display? Looking up a word before was so simple. It's turing out to be a hassle.

I know you can turn off spotlight search for lookup so that all that's displayed is the dictionary link but you still have to click it to open up the full definition.

iPad Air 2 Wi-Fi, iOS 10

Posted on Sep 16, 2016 8:35 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Sep 22, 2016 7:53 AM in response to Brainjax44

To reproduce the old "Define" functionality, turn off Spotlight Search and then make sure you have a dictionary selected (Settings > General > Dictionary). Somehow it becomes deselected during the upgrade to iOS 10. The standard Apple Dictionary is built in, others can be downloaded.

Reply

Answer 2

Jan 11, 2017 5:22 AM in response to Silverhammer

This doesn't solve the problem. With old define functionality, thanks to it's small popover size on iPad it was possible to read the surrounding text too and we could close that easily by tapping outside, but with lookup the pop up covers the text and closing it is a great pain because taping "close" is not easy for frequent uses.

Another wonderful thing about the old define popovers was their night dark mode in iBook.. unfortunately Apple sacrificed one of the best features on iPad to a uselses lookup... 😟

I think that the old define was much much better and performant than the new lookup.

Anyway I stick with apps like Marvin or PDF Expert because they let me still having the old lovely define popovers.

Hope Apple give us an option to switch back to define popovers..😢

Reply