In a bid to catch up with desktop search applications from MSN and Google, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has highlighted the firm's forthcoming search technology, dubbed Spotlight.

During his opening keynote at MacWorld Jobs claimed he will outperform the competition, allowing users search data on their hard drives such as documents, email messages and photos.

Google and MSN "are nowhere near to Spotlight. Because we build it into the core of the operating system," Jobs said.

Jobs bragged that Spotlight has better meta data integration and allows the user to include more file formats in his search including PDF, Jpeg and mp3.

Spotlight will be one of 200 newly developed features in the upcoming fourth version of OS X called Tiger. The application is slated for a launch in the first half of this year. "This is coming out long before Longhorn," Jobs said referring to Microsoft's upcoming operating system that will not be on the market before 2006.

Spotlight is one of the most visible and largest improvements to Tiger. Other features include Dashboard, a single place where users will find existing applications such as memo notes, the calculator and a dictionary. Third party software developers will be allowed to create additional applications to add to Dashboard.

Tiger will also contain an upgraded version of iChat, Apple's client for AOL's instant messaging network. The new version will support simultaneous video chats with up to four people.