Google Gadgets Beta for Mac

[MacRumors]

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.

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[headfuzz]

Well done Johnny Come Lately Google!

[arn]

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

[Jocko]

All those gadgets sound cool, but remind me again why I would want Google desktop on Leopard?

[dr_lha]

Originally Posted by Jocko

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]

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]

I get a virtual potted plant in exchange for disclosing usage statistics? Great! Where do I sign up?

[Orng]

Originally Posted by arn

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]

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.

[psychofreak]

Originally Posted by Orng

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...

[headfuzz]

I use them now and again, but only a select few. Currency converter, weather and calculator is pretty much it.

[elcid]

Originally Posted by psychofreak

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...

I turned off dashboard when I realized how much those widgets were costing me just sitting there doing nothing. Lots o Ram.

[iJawn108]

ill try it, but if it picks up my marked as not indexed content it's sooo going.

[QuarterSwede]

Nice try Google, but I'll pass.

[Bad Paper]

Originally Posted by iJawn108

if it picks up my marked as not indexed content it's sooo going.

and what content would that be?

[Clive At Five]

Originally Posted by arn

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

[headfuzz]

You forgot your sarcasm tags, Clive!

[jjo]

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

Funny.

[itcomesinwaves]

Originally Posted by arn

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.

[andiwm2003]

Originally Posted by itcomesinwaves

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]

Originally Posted by itcomesinwaves

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.

[Lock]

Originally Posted by itcomesinwaves

Word.

The only thing I ever use it for (and I think it works great for) is weather.

Same here. Nothing is as simple and convenient.

[ryanw]

Originally Posted by arn

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'm not exactly sure why I haven't completely removed dashboard from my dock yet and disable the f12 hotkey. Everytime I load dashboard I hate it. My machine actually runs less efficiently when I run dashboard cause it keeps all those widgets running in memory. I run finalcut pro, photoshop, iphoto, idvd, dvd studio pro, motion, logic, etc. Having 200+mb chewed up for some lame widgets is pathetic. And that memory never comes back until I log out and log back in. So I regret every time I mistakenly hit dashboard.. bye bye memory.

I really really wish dashboard was something that allowed integration of widgets as regular applications floating around in the desktop. If they were something more accessible I'd use it. I find myself still using the regular calculator application instead of dashboard because i get the memory back when I'm done using it and I can throw it right there on the dock.

[pgwalsh]

Originally Posted by arn

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 have mixed feelings about dashboard. I liked sherlock a little more in the beginning and dashboard is just now getting some of the things I liked in sherlock, as in the Fandango movie thingy, but it's marginally useful. However, I would be nice to actually place some of them on my desktop, I know there's a hack, but I avoid hacks when possible.

I'm going to hold out on Google's widgets to see what other's think.

[carlitofox]

"But boy I'd love to have 'em installable on my iPhone"

Is that the point were all missing here ????

could this be a beta for google widgets/gadgets on the iphone ????

didn't i see an ijailbreak phone that had loads of stuff on it and you slide the pages across ??? imagine that full of widgets/gadets that you wanted.