Dashboard Widgets in the UK

[MacSA]

How many of the Dashboard Widgets are going to be useable in the UK or even the ret of the world? Some of them seem to made specifically for US users.

[James Philp]

This is something I have wondered too (although it didn't stop me from purchasing tiger!). I have had problems with many similar apps for all OSs due to the apps being made entirely for the US market. I hope apple hasn't had an oversight, or maybe a localisation pack will come out...

[vouder17]

I think all the widgets will be apple to be used in the UK, Europe everywhere. Yellow pages you have everywhere...Flight imformation you can get everywhere...Weather everywhere...

So far to me it seems like every widget that apple offers is useable everywhere..well i am sure there are some smaller countries that most prolly wont be supported, but i would say atleast 80% would be...

[Stella]

Remember Sherlock in Jaguar.. totally useless on the whole unless you lived in the states.

That thesaurus in tiger is US English only too ( from what I hear )... ( really, NO excuse for that.. its not difficult to get localised versions ).

[Jaffa Cake]

The Apple site says the Yellow Pages widget searches US business numbers so it looks like that one might be out – I think the Flight Tracker loses some functionality too but don't quite me on that. I personally will be quite disappointed if the Weather widget isn't rest of the world compatible...

[rendezvouscp]

According to Apple, the Weather Widget is indeed compatible with the rest of the world.
-Chase

[pulsewidth947]

I'm guessing we'll have to make our own then.

Shouldnt be too bad. I'm definately going to look into it as soon as my Tiger arrives. I was reading up on how widgets are made and its easy stuff. The hard part is coming up with a useful widget, rather than a gimmiky one. Conversion from US widgets to UK shouldnt be too hard providing there is a relevant UK resource (i.e. Amazon.com/.co.uk)

Jaffa - i notice your 40 mins drive from me - you got your Tiger disc yet?

I know apple quoted 29th April for me, but I'm envious of the Americans who've already got theirs!

[crap freakboy]

Cleethorpes...hee...sorry made me smile, memories of a bleak summer childhood holiday.
Back on topic, the dictionary being US English is just plain wrong...its ENGLISH. I'm stopping there before I start ranting about the cancereous US culture.

[Applespider]

The flight tracker in Sherlock worked with international flights so that one might be OK.

Someone on dashboardwidgets.com has come up with a partial UK Yell.com one. You can put the search term in on the widget but the results still open in Safari.

I get the feeling that there are more Mac users in the UK now than there were in the Sherlock days and from what I've read, it's easier to create a widget than it was to create a Sherlock channel so I'm hopeful that we'll end up with local developers making international widgets.

[Sky Blue]

I'm guessing we'll have to make our own then.

Shouldnt be too bad. I'm definately going to look into it as soon as my Tiger arrives. I was reading up on how widgets are made and its easy stuff. The hard part is coming up with a useful widget, rather than a gimmiky one. Conversion from US widgets to UK shouldnt be too hard providing there is a relevant UK resource (i.e. Amazon.com/.co.uk)

Jaffa - i notice your 40 mins drive from me - you got your Tiger disc yet?

I know apple quoted 29th April for me, but I'm envious of the Americans who've already got theirs!

Most people in the uk got their panther discs and week and a half after the release date, even though apple said they'd be delivered the night of the release...i'm predicting around the end of next week for most deliveries.

[robbieduncan]

Cleethorpes...hee...sorry made me smile, memories of a bleak summer childhood holiday.
Back on topic, the dictionary being US English is just plain wrong...its ENGLISH. I'm stopping there before I start ranting about the cancereous US culture.

It's sort of correct to be in US English :( The local (as per computer specs at least) is EN and this is US english. It would not be so bad is OSX had proper EN_gb (which I believe is the local for UK English) support.

[daijones]

As well as Yellow Pages finding US numbers only, I believe the parcel tracking widget only tracks US parcels

[Nermal]

It would not be so bad is OSX had proper EN_gb (which I believe is the local for UK English) support.

Yeah, en_GB is proper English, and OS X support for it is very small. RealPlayer is the only app I've seen that supports it.

[MacSA]

:rolleyes: Oh well......... it looks like Dashboard isn't going to be of much use to the rest of the world.

[MacRy]

I'm sure that some 3rd party developers will write some UK friendly Widgets. Konfabulator has some so no doubt there will be some for Dashboard in time. I certainly hope so as it pains me to know that every time I look at the Google search bar in Safari it is Google.com and not .co.uk - I know that Acidsearch fixes that but after 10.3.9 Acidsearch made Safari unuseable. I wish Apple had given the option for international Google searches in Tiger :(

[Jaffa Cake]

Jaffa - i notice your 40 mins drive from me - you got your Tiger disc yet?No such luck I'm afraid!

Anyway, looking at Apple's site and what's been discussed here it looks like us non US-types won't do too badly from the default widgets, and worse case scenario we can go third party. Any Europeans lucky enough to get Tiger delivered early care to fill us in?

[andysmith]

My Tiger order's still saying 'Open' :(
I wonder if it's too late to cancel? My office is only 2mins away from the Bullring Apple Store which is opening on Friday, so I could pick up a copy from there. (and free t-shirt hopefully :D)

But saying that, I got my copy of iLife a day before the UK release date.

[shuurajou]

All of these widges had/have the potential to be setup to work world wide. However, apple have made the choice of not allowing you to select your country on the flip side of yellow pages - OR the dictionary. However, the weather widget does work in the UK.

At least in my tiger anyway - which I got in the UK.

[Applespider]

Most people in the uk got their panther discs and week and a half after the release date, even though apple said they'd be delivered the night of the release...i'm predicting around the end of next week for most deliveries.

I did read somewhere that someone ordering Tiger over the phone in the UK was told that unlike the US, there is no guarantee of delivery on 29th here. And it was more likely that they wouldn't ship until 28th/29th. So yes, next week may be more likely particularly with the bank holiday in the middle.

I work for a UK retailer and our retail copies aren't scheduled to arrive at our main warehouse until 28th.

[Bobak]

Will the world time widget work in the uk?


JK

[Nermal]

It works in NZ so it should work in the UK :)

[sykaryce]

hmmm..how about the flight tracker?

it didn't work for me..am trying to find flights from HK to sydney and there's suppose to be a flight in 2 hours..but it says no flights?!

:confused:

[vouder17]

As well as Yellow Pages finding US numbers only, I believe the parcel tracking widget only tracks US parcels

i dont see why this would be the case....doesnt every country have a yellow pages. The tracker might be true but that doesnt make it impossible not to make a widget that can do that...

[dpclark]

No such luck I'm afraid!

Anyway, looking at Apple's site and what's been discussed here it looks like us non US-types won't do too badly from the default widgets, and worse case scenario we can go third party. Any Europeans lucky enough to get Tiger delivered early care to fill us in?

I'm in goole - about fourty mins from each of you guys - no tiger yet - though apple shipped it yesterday afternoon - so I'm off work looking for the welcome orange truck pulling up alongside my house

[myselfsince1978]

There'll be tons of 3rd-party widgets in a few weeks. That's the concept behind dashboard. Have a look at dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/
They already have listed 84 widgets and tiger isn't officially released yet. Be patient - this thing will rock!!!! :D

[R.Youden]

There seems to be a Mac collection around Hull on here (Ok I am in Bristol at the moment, but if anyone asks I am from Hull!).

Apple says that Tiger has shipped but when I put the tracker number into TNT it gives me an error! Ah well. Lets see what happens tomorrow!

[jhomayne]

i want an english dictionary!

[Yaja123]

i got my bro to buy tiger for me on 29 april, his birthday! he works in london so picked up for m.e.

ive been usng the widgets.. and i can confirm the clock works and the weather works for london. just tried birmingham,uk so it works for that also.

i like alot, alhthough there are altot of us widgets i dont think generic/all country widgets are hard to find. my dsahboard pages is full anyway....

i have three webcams running.....v.cool. for some reason its really nice to have easy access to another part of the world LIVE...somewhere youve been... see what people r wearing, doing .. sadly nothing much but walking up and down a street on there way to work i presume!! no bank holiday in US! :p when the shop on times square opens itll liven up! :D


thought id see alot more fat people, but i guess theyll be out and about when the food malls open! :D sorry, couldnt resist!

any webcams outside a macdonalds?

[link92]

W00t! Tiger has shipped for me :) (As of 1 hour ago)

[shuurajou]

i got my bro to buy tiger for me on 29 april, his birthday! he works in london so picked up for m.e.

ive been usng the widgets.. and i can confirm the clock works and the weather works for london. just tried birmingham,uk so it works for that also.

i like alot, alhthough there are altot of us widgets i dont think generic/all country widgets are hard to find. my dsahboard pages is full anyway....

i have three webcams running.....v.cool. for some reason its really nice to have easy access to another part of the world LIVE...somewhere youve been... see what people r wearing, doing .. sadly nothing much but walking up and down a street on there way to work i presume!! no bank holiday in US! :p when the shop on times square opens itll liven up! :D


thought id see alot more fat people, but i guess theyll be out and about when the food malls open! :D sorry, couldnt resist!

any webcams outside a macdonalds?

Webcams? Is this using iChat or?

[MacSA]

W00t! Tiger has shipped for me :) (As of 1 hour ago)

They've only just shipped it? I thought everyone was supposed to get it oon the 29th of April? Did you see the news story, on page 2 I think, of Apple compensating people for late delivery of Tiger?

[munkle]

Here's a UK train timetable widget (http://www.dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/details.php?wid=200) - it's a start!

More widgets can be found here (http://www.dashboardwidgets.com/) or from Apple's download section (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/dashboard/).

[djl]

About the weather widget and the UK - I can't get it to work properly. London, England simply means London, WA to it...which is in the US. I also tried Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in England and can't get it to work it directs to a Newcastle in the states...

[Applespider]

About the weather widget and the UK - I can't get it to work properly. London, England simply means London, WA to it...which is in the US. I also tried Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in England and can't get it to work it directs to a Newcastle in the states...

Put in London but instead of hitting 'Done', click on Return. It will tell you it is validating the city and will come up with the various Londons that it thinks are valid. London, United Kingdom is definitely in there and assuring me that it's 20C and sunny... which from my window appears quite accurate; now if only the idiot next door would stop burning rubbish so I could open my window

[djl]

Alright works thanks.

[andylane]

The Phone Book widget doesn't seem to work in the UK, which is quite annoying. When they touted it as a new feature in Tiger, it would have been nice if they'd mentioned that I could only find the nearest restaurant to me if the restaurant was in the US.

Grrr. Seems more than a little misleading. Why mention it on the UK site?

[link92]

They've only just shipped it? I thought everyone was supposed to get it oon the 29th of April? Did you see the news story, on page 2 I think, of Apple compensating people for late delivery of Tiger?
It was probably the iPod Camera Connector that delayed it, as it's shipping time was 3-5 weeks, which made it 3rd May, so all expected.

[sofacake]

From the simple screenshot, this might be good -

http://www.oobrien.com/weblog/archives/2005/04/18/dashboard-bbc-weather-widget.php

The existing AccuWeather widget is pretty, but a bit bereft of detail.

[Jaffa Cake]

From the simple screenshot, this might be good -

http://www.oobrien.com/weblog/archives/2005/04/18/dashboard-bbc-weather-widget.phpLooks interesting – just hope he decides against the faux wood effect... :p

[pjtro2]

According to Apple, the Weather Widget is indeed compatible with the rest of the world.
-Chase

I've been using the weather widget here in Melbourne Australia since I installed Tiger last friday. It recognizes the city etc just fine - but I have noticed that the temperature forecast (and current) is way off - Not sure where 'accuweather.com' gets their data from, but it has pretty much rendered the widget useless here - hopefully someone will create a widget that allows you select weather data from different sources (ie one more localized)

[Applespider]

Not sure where 'accuweather.com' gets their data from, but it has pretty much rendered the widget useless here - hopefully someone will create a widget that allows you select weather data from different sources (ie one more localized)

The trouble is that it pulls the info from the accuweather US database which means that it's pretty much limited to large cities/towns rather than suburbs/smaller towns. When I tried accuweather.co.uk, I get more detailed locations and forecasts. The trouble is that you can't get that info in the widget...

[Winston Smith]

ranting about the cancereous US culture.

LOL :D

[Winston Smith]

I'm sure there will be lots more once developers really get going now that Tiger's running loose in the wild.

What would be most helpful would be for widgets like the weather one to be able to point to localised versions of websites.

There is a localised UK yellow pages widget out there as well.