Apple Insider is reporting (via Piper Jaffray) that the next major iPhone firmware update won’t be coming out until early next year (it’s likely to see minor feature additions and bug fix updates like the one we saw last week). However, the good news is that when the update finally makes its way onto our iPhones it will come with Spotlight, the system-wide search feature found in Apple computers like the Macbook, Macbook Pro, iMac and Mac Pro.

It should come as no surprise, really, as the iPhone runs — albeit stripped down — Mac OS X just like the aforementioned computers. Also, technically speaking, the iPhone itself is quite a powerful little computer.

Once embedded onto our iPhones, Spotlight will allow users to search through contacts, emails, phone numbers, and calendar events via a single interface.

The update is currently rumored to drop around February, when the iPhone SDK is to be released and the platform will finally be open to third-party applications.

I think this will be a great addition to the iPhone IF a feature that allows you to use the iPhone as a filesystem is released in parallel. As it stands presently, I know the contents of my contacts, phone numbers and calendar events as I am 100% responsible for creating them. Thus, there’s really no point in allowing me to search through them for keywords, it would actually take longer than browsing directly. Email being the only current exception, as some search functionality would be nice. However the true power of Spotlight on the Mac comes from its ability to search through all types of files, not just a finite set of pre-defined types currently available on the iPhone. If users were allowed to use the iPhone as a storage disk, and put whatever we wanted on it, then Spotlight would truly prove an invaluable resource.