2.6. Use Data Detectors

Data Detectors is a subtle yet helpful feature that searches messages for text that might be dates, times, phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, or URLs, and then turns them into usable objects. (The iOS version of Data Detectors is slightly less sophisticated than what’s available in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and 10.7 Lion, which also recognizes names and airline flight numbers.)

Data Detectors are smart in that they look not only for specific matches (“June 7, 2011” or “12:15 P.M. to 1:45 P.M. PST”) but also “next Tuesday,” “breakfast tomorrow,” and other phrases that suggest usable information. Data Detectors aren’t perfect; they may identify a snippet of text as being, for example, a phone number or address when it isn’t. But they can often save you time and effort.