New Dashboard - Finally useful

ipedro · Jul 29, 2011

When Steve Jobs announced Dashboard for OSX Tiger, it sounded like it was heading to become the next big thing. In fact, it was one of the major selling points of that new OS. It was so important to Apple that it got its own dedicated key on all new Mac keyboards and laptops.

Eventually interest tapered out as developers moved to the iOS app store where they could actually make money selling apps. Today, it's difficult to find any new Dashboard widgets.

With the introduction of Lion and the relocation of Dashboard as its own space, it has found its reason of being. If you adopt Lion's full screen philosophy where all your apps run in full screen and you use a 3 finger swipe to move between them, Dashboard becomes useful for those apps that are so simple that they don't require a full screen for themselves.

Instead, you can have this new space (Dashboard) dedicated to all your smaller single purpose apps. What are your favourite widgets?

marc11 · Jul 30, 2011

I have a scrolling news app, weather and time for Tokyo and New York where I and my family live. A translator app when I have no idea what some Japanese word is, iStat and a battery gauge for my wirless keyboard and track pad. Of them all I use iStat and the time/weather the most.

ipedro · Jul 30, 2011

Im hoping that Dashboard catches on again. On Apple's own Dashboard widget site, many apps are 4 years old. The "new" widgets are from Nov 2010.

I'm hoping for widgets for Skype and official Twitter and Facebook widgets.

Believe it or not, I cannot find a large clock widget. Pickings are very slim. Because full page apps hide the menu bar (and the clock with it), I can't just glance up at the clock. A 3 finger swipe up to open Mission Control would solve that if I could see the large clock widget in the Dashboard thumbnail. No luck yet.

hollerz · Jul 30, 2011

ipedro said:
Im hoping that Dashboard catches on again. On Apple's own Dashboard widget site, many apps are 4 years old. The "new" widgets are from Nov 2010.

I'm hoping for widgets for Skype and official Twitter and Facebook widgets.

Believe it or not, I cannot find a large clock widget. Pickings are very slim. Because full page apps hide the menu bar (and the clock with it), I can't just glance up at the clock. A 3 finger swipe up to open Mission Control would solve that if I could see the large clock widget in the Dashboard thumbnail. No luck yet.

Surely you could just flick to the top of the screen to show the menu bar? It would save a lot of space on Dashboard lol.

I hope it catches on again too though. I used it quite a lot before, and am using it even more now. Would like to see some new ideas spring up

ipedro · Jul 30, 2011

hollerz said:
Surely you could just flick to the top of the screen to show the menu bar? It would save a lot of space on Dashboard lol.

Some apps don't show the menu bar when you move the pointer to the top of the screen. They show their own tools. Aperture does this.

It's becoming apparent that Apple is deprecating the entire Desktop metaphor and with it the menu bar. I'm not one to cling to the past and am fully embracing the future of OSX but I'd like to have a good place to see the time easily.

Now that I think about it, the subconscious adaptation I made in my mind is that Dashboard is the new menu bar. All the tools I now I have on my menu bar are the ones I'd like to see in Dashboard:

- Time + Date
- Battery level
- Skype
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Dropbox
- AirPort

I'll use this thread to document my search for Dashboard widgets for each of those. If anybody has any suggestions, please chime in.

QuarterSwede · Jul 30, 2011

I used Dashboard all the time before I got my iPhone. That's when I think people really stopped using it (when smartphones became affordable and mult-touch). After all, aren't smartphone apps just complex widgets?

ipedro · Jul 30, 2011

Wow... I'm really finding that developers have abandoned Dashboard. The links to many of the widgets that I find are dead. I hope that Apple motivates developers to start building widgets again. Perhaps the best and most logical way to do this would be to include Dashboard Widgets in the Mac App Store.

*LTD* · Jul 30, 2011

ipedro said:
When Steve Jobs announced Dashboard for OSX Tiger, it sounded like it was heading to become the next big thing. In fact, it was one of the major selling points of that new OS. It was so important to Apple that it got its own dedicated key on all new Mac keyboards and laptops.

Eventually interest tapered out as developers moved to the iOS app store where they could actually make money selling apps. Today, it's difficult to find any new Dashboard widgets.

With the introduction of Lion and the relocation of Dashboard as its own space, it has found its reason of being. If you adopt Lion's full screen philosophy where all your apps run in full screen and you use a 3 finger swipe to move between them, Dashboard becomes useful for those apps that are so simple that they don't require a full screen for themselves.

Instead, you can have this new space (Dashboard) dedicated to all your smaller single purpose apps. What are your favourite widgets?

This is true.

Once users (well, the ones around here) stop trying to work against the system things become so much easier.

It isn't that your (not you, but generally) previous workflow was efficient, it's that you became too accustomed to it. When something different but potentially better arrives you knee-jerk and try to force the new (more efficient) way back into the previous structure. This only ends up causing more frustration.

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New Dashboard - Finally useful

ipedro

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marc11

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ipedro

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hollerz

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ipedro

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QuarterSwede

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ipedro

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LTD

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