Search, not Sort

Wired files this story on Apple’s announcement of Spotlight.

In Jobs’ scheme, the hierarchy of files and folders is a dreary, outdated metaphor inspired by office filing. In today’s communications era, categorized by the daily barrage of new e-mails, websites, pictures and movies, who wants to file when you can simply search? What does it matter where a file is stored, as long as you can find it?

Microsoft is already doing this with something called “Search Folders” on Outlook 2003, Apple is extending that paradigm to the entire hard drive and indexing in the background to improve performance.