Poll: Dashboard, Keep it or Kill it?

[Gregg2]

The other widgets I use are stocks, translate, unit conversion, sports scores, and weather.

I'm interested in the names or links to the widgets you use for local radar and sports scores. I used to have one for the latter, but it was discontinued.

 

[mivara]

I have never ever used it. Well, I tried to a while back and searched for widgets but it seemed too forced for me. There simply was no need. After entering this thread, I found Dashboard for the first time in months and it looks so hideous, very 1999 and like nothing Apple would make. It stands out the bad way in Yosemite. Kill it.

 

[Partron22]

and like nothing Apple would make.

Let's tear down the Frederiksborg Castle while we're at it, and replace it with an up to date monstrosity.
Very twenty teens!

 

[Micky Do]

Four days, fifty-two votes:
Keepers still out number Killers nearly 2 to 1 @ 51.9% and 26.9% respectively.
Care nots account for the balance @ 21.2%.

From the comments:
Keepers like Dashboard because they find it useful and practical.
Care Nots are happy to live with Dashboard, but have little or no use for it.
Killers main objection to Dashboard seems to be aesthetic.

 

[bmac89]

I don't use it very much, but when I do it is usually for calculator, world times or sticky notes.

I'm no expert, but all this talk about dashboard made me think... surely it wouldn't be too hard for an app developer to create a dashboard like overlay, but maybe there wouldn't be a big enough demand.

 

[mivara]

Let's tear down the Frederiksborg Castle while we're at it, and replace it with an up to date monstrosity.
Very twenty teens!

lol. So much for adding my location 🙂 Well played, sir. The comparison is rather off though. I like my buildings old and my technology contemporary.

 

[Micky Do]

lol. So much for adding my location 🙂 Well played, sir. The comparison is rather off though. I like my buildings old and my technology contemporary.

Buildings and technology, I prefer both to be functional.

Old buildings that work tend to stick around, often despite some design quirks…. if they didn't work they would not have been kept to stand the test of time.

Same for Tech….. to me, among others, Dashboard is convenient and works, thus should be kept on.

A week in and a couple to go with 61 votes, a pattern seems to have been established:

Keepers continue to outnumber Killers by about two to one @ 54.1% and 27.9% respectively.

Care Nots have declined as a proportion, dropping slightly to 18%

 

[xmichaelp]

It's ugly and notification center is much more useful. Having widgets that do the same thing in two different places in the OS is dumb, and they're obviously never going to update the UI. Kill it and get it over with.

I don't understand why people vote "kill it" just because they don't use it. I don't use Safari, let's kill that too. And Mail. And iMessage...

OS X would be pretty crappy if they never got rid of anything just because a few people still used it.

Your comparison is not valid because the apps you mentioned are not outdated and they actually get updated. Also, most people still use them.

 

[lvalenta]

I've been using NC widgets since they were released. NC completely replaced Dashboard for me.

 

[xmichaelp]

Let's tear down the Frederiksborg Castle while we're at it, and replace it with an up to date monstrosity.
Very twenty teens!

The new one looks much better

 

[Micky Do]

It's ugly and notification center is much more useful. Having widgets that do the same thing in two different places in the OS is dumb, and they're obviously never going to update the UI. Kill it and get it over with.



OS X would be pretty crappy if they never got rid of anything just because a few people still used it.

Your comparison is not valid because the apps you mentioned are not outdated and they actually get updated. Also, most people still use them.

From this thread it seems that more than just a few people use Dashboard. Quite a few find it quite useful.

Keepers outnumber Killers by about two to one in the poll.

 

[ThisOldMacHead]

I've had Dashboard disabled since shortly after Tiger became my daily driver. It always seemed a little out of place to me and for many years, it was nothing more than an unnecessary waste of resources. Obviously that doesn't matter quite as much in the Intel era... But with the proliferation of instant-on iDevices - desktop widgets have even less value.

I voted kill it, because surely there must be a better solution... And hopefully that includes a proper system-wide implementation of stickies. Oh how I miss real stickies....

 

[th0masp]

voted to keep it. i have it on a screen corner and set to overlay my desktop. i can just swipe it in and out and still see the contents of my desktop underneath. apart from a few status utilities and a calculator i keep a ton of sticky notes on dashboard that would not fit well into any to do list app (and are too many to fit on screen and too sensitive to store on the mobile).

is there a convenient up to date alternative to use stickies on the mac? admittedly i did not look at notification center at all, just disabled it right away when it started to spam me on a fresh install. 😉

 

[Micky Do]

Just over 2000 views with just 72 votes, and 37 posts after 11 days. There are 10 days to go for the poll.

Keepers continue to outnumber Killers by about two to one @ 54.2% (39) and 28.7% (20) of the vote respectively. Care Nots @ 18.1% (13).

 

[Micky Do]

2 weeks in and 1 week to go…….. And only three votes added since the last Wednesday (two more Killers, and one more Keeper), which have little significant effect on the overall pattern. I guess the poll has about run its course.

Just over 50% are Keepers who find Dashboard useful, while just under 30% are Killers who find it aesthetically distasteful. The balance Care Not, either way.

 

[Micky Do]

Keepers are maintaining a slight overall majority, now @ 44 votes & 55.7% of the total.

Killers made up a bit of ground for a bit, but are back to being outnumbered by two to one @ 22 votes & 27.8% of the total.

Care Nots remain on 13 votes & down to 16.5% of the total.

Three days left to vote, if you care.

 

[bigmikeyp]

My personal opinion - in its current form, kill it.

Although would like to see it receive some attention with improvements of some kind.

 

[Micky Do]

My personal opinion - in its current form, kill it.

Although would like to see it receive some attention with improvements of some kind.

Such as…..? Can you be a bit more constructive?

In it's current form, Dashboard works fine for me. Frequently, albeit often briefly, needed information available at the click of a Logitech mouse scroll-wheel, or the F4 function button on the wired apple keyboard. Times in different zones, exchange rates, and more.

Some of the widgets could be improved, such as having tide times where I am at available, but that is more a factor of third parties than Apple.

 

[Fishrrman]

I still use Dashboard daily, for quickviews of outside temperature, stocks, commodities, weights & measures conversions, etc.

Worth keeping for now.

 

[Micky Do]

About 14 hours to go before the poll closes.

Keepers have strengthened their majority to 56.1% of the total (46 votes). The outnumber Killers @ 28%, by two to one (23 votes). As a proportion Care Nots have declined to 15.9% (13 votes)

 

[Micky Do]

Poll closed now with Keepers in the majority outnumbering Killers by two to one. The balance Care Not.

Keepers find Dashboard practical and useful.

Killers generally find it aesthetically unpleasing.

Care Nots don't care.

Thanks to the 82 voters and those who posted, out of just over 2,400 views.

 

[patternjake]

It was only useful for me in Tiger, but as soon as Notification Centre arrived it was made pretty redundant.
HOWEVER, they shouldn't remove it, as I know people who still use it exclusively, just keep it as it is now, as an option.

 

[patternjake]

Unrelated, but I wish they kept CoverFlow as an option in iTunes instead of completely ditching it, while it still exists in Finder, which makes no sense to me at all.

 

[Micky Do]

Dashboard has been disabled by default in the latest beta of El Capitan. It has generated quite a bit of discussion in a blog thread, and opinion seems quite sharply divided.

Dashboard is still there, but it needs to be turned on if you want to use it. There are those, like me, who use it frequently, every day, and would not like to see it go. There are those who regard it as an abomination that they would gladly see gone.

What do you think? Where do you stand?

As the thread that inspired this poll has been getting a bit of action again of late, I have reopened the poll for another 15 days.

 

[Micky Do]

Picked up a few extra votes since reopening the poll; ratios remain more or less the same. Six more days to go.