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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Google has released a beta version of Google Gadgets for Mac. Google's Mac Blog provides some details about the release from Mike Pinkerton.
This feature brings hundreds of existing Google Gadgets to Dashboard. You can add fun gadgets (such as bowling, virtual flower pot, or YouTube), useful gadgets (weather maps, driving directions, and news), and others that offer daily wisdom for the ages (Confucius, horoscopes, and even a joke of the day!). These gadgets look and behave just like any other Dashboard widget, so you don't have to learn anything new.
Google's "Gadgets" are mini applications similar to Apple's own Dashboard Widgets. Google's Gadgets for Mac are now integrated and installable into Apple's Dashboard in Mac OS X. This makes them functionally indistinguishable from Dashboard Widgets.

Google Gadgets comes integrated with Google Desktop, a desktop search application also available from Google.

Article Link
 

arn

macrumors god
Staff member
Apr 9, 2001
16,362
5,795
nice to have a large repository of widgets/gadgets for people who use dashboard. I personally never really got into the whole dashboard thing.

arn
 

Digitalclips

macrumors 65816
Mar 16, 2006
1,475
36
Sarasota, Florida
So are both Spotlight and Google Search whirring away indexing all the same stuff slowing down my Mac and taking up space with two sets of index files? Or does this either turn off or suggest you turn off Spotlight?
 

Jocko

macrumors member
Jul 23, 2007
85
0
All those gadgets sound cool, but remind me again why I would want Google desktop on Leopard?
 

Orng

macrumors 6502
Jul 23, 2007
386
0
nice to have a large repository of widgets/gadgets for people who use dashboard. I personally never really got into the whole dashboard thing.

arn

I know what you mean, I was excited to get it, I set up all kinds of cool widgets when I first got it, and I never ever use it.
 

irun5k

macrumors 6502
Jan 14, 2005
379
0
I wonder if this is going to bugger up my machine? I'd rather just install native widgets- this sounds like some sort of emulation layer to get gadgets to look like widgets. In general I am very much not in favor of all these little bolt-on enhancements, toolbars, etc. that folks like Google, Yahoo and others come up with. Who needs another possible way for their OS to become unstable.
 

72930

Retired
May 16, 2006
9,060
4
I know what you mean, I was excited to get it, I set up all kinds of cool widgets when I first got it, and I never ever use it.

I'm the opposite...thought it would be useless, now I have a calculator, su doku, two games, dictionary, three webclips and the translation widget...
 

iJawn108

macrumors 65816
Apr 15, 2006
1,198
0
ill try it, but if it picks up my marked as not indexed content it's sooo going.
 

Clive At Five

macrumors 65816
May 26, 2004
1,438
0
St. Paul, MN
nice to have a large repository of widgets/gadgets for people who use dashboard. I personally never really got into the whole dashboard thing.

arn

I can't help but wonder whether or not there might be just a *tinge* of redundancy in these thousdans of Widgets/Gadgets out there. The "repositories" of each one individually were huge to begin with.

And I'm the same way about Dashboard. I rarely ever use it. Maybe "Calculator" once a month, but it's more of an annoyance if I accidentally toggle it, especially with the slow-as-all-hell load time of my iFossil - I mean iMac.

-Clive
 

jjo

macrumors member
Sep 22, 2007
71
12
Pittsburgh, PA
404 Not Found Error

Anyone else notice that at the end of the desktop video demo, the URL they give results in a 404 Not Found error?

Funny.
 

dr_lha

macrumors 68000
Oct 8, 2003
1,633
176
All those gadgets sound cool, but remind me again why I would want Google desktop on Leopard?
Well luckily you don't need to install Google Desktop to get the Google Gadgets. Although Google attempt to "bundle" them together, you can choose to only installed Google Gadgets.

BTW Google Gadgets is pretty nice if you really want a Google Gadget on your Dashboard that you can't get a Native Dashboard Widget for.
 

TurboSC

macrumors 65816
Aug 4, 2007
1,361
0
California
hahah nice.

I guess this will ease my adventures into the Mac world ( I've been a PC Fanboy for quite some time ) when I purchase my new MBP mid-jan. :p

I loves you google.
 

SC68Cal

macrumors 68000
Feb 23, 2006
1,642
0
I get a virtual potted plant in exchange for disclosing usage statistics? Great! Where do I sign up?
 

itcomesinwaves

macrumors member
Jul 2, 2003
86
40
nice to have a large repository of widgets/gadgets for people who use dashboard. I personally never really got into the whole dashboard thing.

arn

Word.

The only thing I ever use it for (and I think it works great for) is weather. When I'm getting ready to run out the door here in New York, I want to know whether it's going to be cold, or "I think my ears just fell off" cold. I can just run to my computer and hit a button (no need to sit down) and I can see what coat/hat I need to wear. Other than that I haven't found any useful widgets, and I'm always wary of the load they'll put on the system.
 

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,541
1,653
Redondo Beach, California
I had the same reaction to this as to something I discovered yesterday in our company cafeteria when I thought "Wow another new kind of Coke Just what the world needs."

I wonder just how many calculator programs and virtual potted plats there are already.
 

andiwm2003

macrumors 601
Mar 29, 2004
4,382
454
Boston, MA
Word.

The only thing I ever use it for (and I think it works great for) is weather. When I'm getting ready to run out the door here in New York, I want to know whether it's going to be cold, or "I think my ears just fell off" cold. I can just run to my computer and hit a button (no need to sit down) and I can see what coat/hat I need to wear. Other than that I haven't found any useful widgets, and I'm always wary of the load they'll put on the system.

same here. 99% of widgets just pull some info from the web. and usually i need more information than what the widgets display. so weather is the only useful one.

the main problem with dashboard for me is that it takes 30 sec to update the info on all web related widgets and only then you can use the calculator. that makes it quite useless.
 

phuong

macrumors 6502a
Aug 16, 2006
523
0
Word.

The only thing I ever use it for (and I think it works great for) is weather. When I'm getting ready to run out the door here in New York, I want to know whether it's going to be cold, or "I think my ears just fell off" cold. I can just run to my computer and hit a button (no need to sit down) and I can see what coat/hat I need to wear. Other than that I haven't found any useful widgets, and I'm always wary of the load they'll put on the system.

ever since i found this small app called WeatherDock i never used the dashboard again. i even remove it from my system completely. the weatherdock thingy puts weather info on my menubar so i dont even have to push any button to get the info. just have to glance at the menu bar.
 
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