Dashboard Widgets Coming to iPhone?

[MacRumors]

CultofMac's Leander Kahney claims that Apple is going to allow developers to install Mac OS X Widgets onto the iPhone.

You will soon be able to drag any Dashboard Widget into iTunes, and they’ll sync with the iPhone, the source said.

As Dashboard Widgets are already Javascript/HTML elements, support on the iPhone already exists. But providing an easy installation and the ability to run outside of Safari would be welcome additions to the iPhone.




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[tobefirst ⚽️]

Now this could be kind of cool. I'd love to have my dopplar radar widget, dictionary/thesaurus, and a sports scores widget, along with all kinds of games.

 

[Fuchal]

This would be great. It is all I really need on my phone.

 

[Mac-Addict]

iPod Touch support?

 

[Telp]

Kick ass! I bet this comes with leopard. I CANT WAIT!!!

 

[FreeState]

Kick ass! I bet this comes with leopard. I CANT WAIT!!!

I think so too... after all Safari 3 allows for the user to create widgets from a web-page on the fly:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/safari.html

"Clip it.
Now you can turn any website into a Dashboard widget. Click the Web Clip button next to the address field in Safari and select exactly what you want your new widget to display. Safari sends your web clip to Dashboard, where you can view it alongside your other widgets."

 

[plumbingandtech]

Dictionary and Thesuarus and the Simpsons Quote Widget!

neat!

(yah I get amused easily.)

 

[honeytoast]

This is one of the reasons i think dashcode was created. Imagine when they announce this and all of the thousands of widgets that are already out there simply copy right over during sync. They can't make this a Leopard only feature though, with all the windows iPhone users. I am a mac user but my iPhone is synced to my windows pc due to my imac not having usb 2.0 (i know i need to upgrade).

 

[craigverse]

Yes, yes, yes!!! *herbal essences style*

 

[neven]

I'm also almost sure that Dashboard Widgets will be the eventual solution to 3rd party apps. The names will also be nicely differentiated: web apps vs. widgets.

But this part of the original article betrays a serious misunderstanding of technology:

"To run on the iPhone and provide interactivity, they’ll require JavaScript, which means the iPhone will shortly get a Java update. When? The source didn’t say.

But the source did say that Apple hasn’t released iPhone widgets yet because Java has proven to be a major draw on battery power. "

Repeat after me: Java has nothing to do with JavaScript. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. They're about as related as HTML and DirectX.

There is no need to install a JVM on iPhone to get Widgets to run. Apple is done with Java.

P.S. I see the blog is filled with comments saying the same... still, it can't seem to be said enough times...!

 

[Mr. Zorg]

True that. But I'd still LOVE to be able to run MIDP/CDLC applets on the iPhone. That'd be sweet.

EDIT: Oh, and flash... So we can get all those nifty PopCap games.

 

[iJawn108]

Ohhh if that's the case I will def pick up leopard.

 

[bdj21ya]

This would be awesome. One of my biggest complaints about the idea of developping apps in Safari is the obnoxiousness of not being able to get rid of that #@&% navigation bar. Space is tight enough without the bar.

 

[nagromme]

Just be sure to allow non-Internet ones to be installed and NOT require any download. And watch the games and apps multiply

 

[Telp]

This is one of the reasons i think dashcode was created. Imagine when they announce this and all of the thousands of widgets that are already out there simply copy right over during sync. They can't make this a Leopard only feature though, with all the windows iPhone users. I am a mac user but my iPhone is synced to my windows pc due to my imac not having usb 2.0 (i know i need to upgrade).

Well widgets are an OSX thing arent they?

 

[plumbingandtech]

Just be sure to allow non-Internet ones to be installed and NOT require any download. And watch the games and apps multiply

And add the rumored off line data storage addition to safari....

A pretty good solution... (not native but until we do have an SDK)

 

[alywa]

This is exactly what I've been hoping to do. Add in Leopard's "Widget Builder", and I could easily make my own.

I really, really, really want a sports score widget (customizable for my teams / sports)... this should be easy to do.

Come on Apple! Make it happen!

 

[iVoid]

This is a better solution than webapps, but not as good as real apps.

Windows users should be able to install these with iTunes without problems. No reason they have to actually run on the client computer to be installed to the iPhone.

 

[zombitronic]

Yes! Yes! This is what I have been posting all along!

The way I see it, Apple wants these WebApps to eventually be Widgets for the iPhone.

Dashboard Widgets are created using a mix of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

Most apps on the phone seem like Widgets to me, especially Weather, Stocks, and Calculator. That makes me think that the iPhone has something similar to the Dashboard server. It probably does, with the claims of it running a true version of OS X. If these WebApps could be developed according to Widget instance standards, I think we'd have the right kind of secure apps that Apple is hoping for. It would be nice to hear this conformation from Apple, though.

I find it funny that people are already dismissing the possibilities of this less-than-four-month-old phone, based on them not completely opening it up. Hopefully apps will make their way to the phone in the form of Widgets, and hopefully we'll see some kind of a home button in a future iPhone update, maybe even a browser/installer to access these.

Maybe this will silence some of those WebApp haters.

 

[zombitronic]

This is a better solution than webapps, but not as good as real apps.

Windows users should be able to install these with iTunes without problems. No reason they have to actually run on the client computer to be installed to the iPhone.

Exactly. They wouldn't have to be able to run on the client computer to run on the iPhone. You can download a Widget without installing it on your computer. Just like you can download a Widget onto a Windows box and install it on a Mac over a network. Although, that would seem a bit redundant...

 

[ghall]

That is an awesome idea! Still not a real SDK, but we're getting there.

 

[megfilmworks]

Now we're talking. Widgets are great mini apps and if I can use the ones I already like, then I will be very happy!! Goodbye to the pretenders.

 

[TheSpaz]

Wow! Widgets on the iPhone/iPod touch sound really cool! There's already thousands of widgets and it would kick butt to see them on the iPod touch!

 

[FreeState]

They wouldn't have to be able to run on the client computer to run on the iPhone.

But with Safari for Windows coming out around the same time as Leopard Apple could make them run in Safari so that Windows users could test them out without putting them on their phones first. (Just a guess) And possibly do a widget clipping with the PC Safari too...

 

[yoman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A109a Safari/419.3)

I truly hope this is true. The amount of widgets out there are substantial. It would help us all during the transition period to native apps.