Web Services Find a New Home: Tiger's Dashboard
I’ve been toying with the realization of what this means over the past few days—ever since I upgraded to Tiger, actually. I’ve also searched around the Web for articles, but I haven’t found any, which begs the question: Has no one yet realized what’s happening here, or is everyone so entrenched in the Windows vs. Linux discussions that this is completely escaping the radar of the Web development community?
Mac OS X 10.4 (known as “Tiger” to the Mac world) is pioneering a revolution. This revolution is not about hardware, nor is it particularly about software—it’s about the Web and its future. I see a great potential in what is going on here, a change in the way things are done and a true move towards that legendary and elusive “Information Superhighway.” Microsoft has long sought to achieve this by further integrating their browser into the OS, but I think the folks at Apple have truely made the first real move. And what move is that? Simply put, they have brought the Web platform to the desktop.
Indeed, now is the time to do so. With more people accessing broadband connections than ever before, it is the perfect season to bring the Web to the desktop, and Apple has done just that with the introduction of the Dashboard. The Dashboard is Apple’s newest and possibly most exciting feature in their Mac OS X operating system. Sure, Tiger comes with the flexibility of the workflow Automator and the power of the Spotlight system search engine, but Apple has truly given Web services a new home with Dashboard.
Now, Web services can run from their native platform, the Web, but be truly integrated as a desktop application, or widget, in this case. News, stocks, weather, comics, package tracking, e-mail, maps and directions, and more can all be accessed through the Dashboard. No longer does one need to pull up another browser window and click through a list of bookmarks to access this information. It’s all right there on the Dashboard.
This doesn’t feel like the Web; rather, it’s the new Web. None of the information accessed is stored on the computer, yet these Dashboard widgets provide a gateway to volumes upon volumes of information that is constantly being updated. We knew the Web would become a major platform one day, but now that day has been realized and the innovation can only progress. Tiger’s Dashboard is the thin client to that platform.
10 Comments
I'm not a MAC user, but this all sounds pretty cool. One thing I noticed is you mentioned that Dashboard is the thin client to the platform on the web.
What about the idea of everything happening over the internet, and thereby doing away with OS's as we know them now. What Tiger's Dashboard is doing seems to be a step in the wrong direction from that standpoint. Maybe an attempt to save the typical OS?
Konfabulator is a similar tool that works on both the mac and windows.
(http://daringfireball.net/2...
Sounds alot like the hype around 'Active Desktop', and remember what an amazing success that was...
The relality is that most mac users will press F12 once, wonder why there's a clock there and forget about it... - The idea of having active widgets has been around a long while, some of the better versions like gdesklet's are ok, but are a CPU hog, but having to flip them on/off never really works that well as an interface...
I think you're a little too hyped up on dashboard. Similar things have been around for a long, long time. From the poorly implemented "active desktop" that's been around since Win95, to gDesklets and SuperKaramba in Linux, and konfabulator. The idea of a desktop application using the Web is nothing new.
Also, when you step back from the marketing bananza for a second, it is pretty clear that going from no Web to conventional Web browsing is a way bigger step than going from conventional Web browsing to a dashboard-like system. The biggest problem with a system like dashboard is that it doesn't scale like the the traditional Web + browser combo. Collect more than a dozen or so dashboard/gDesklet/SuperKaramba widgets and they become rather unwieldy. This eliminates the primary benefit of the Web: its enormity. The Web is only such an amazing platform because it has been able to use the network effect - the network getting better as more people/content-creators join - to its advantage so well. Dashboard-like systems essentially forsake that advantage for eye candy. They can be useful, but only in a limited way.
this reads like it was copied & pasted from apple.com or something
Why would I copy and paste from Apple without giving them credit? I'm just excited by what I see and looking forward to what it means for the future. I, for one, check the widgets on my dashboard daily for news, stocks, and weather (and the daily Foxtrot comic), so it's not just a one-time novelty for me.
Having used Dashboard myself and seeing some of the widgets that are out there for it, I definitely agree with Ben - there's so much potential there that's untouched.
Plus, with things like AJAX in the mix more powerful applications are only a matter of time. You say that it becomes unwieldy as it gets larger, but really, that's up to the user. Yes, if you want to run 40 different widgets at the same time, things can get a little crowded, but also keep in mind that what we're seeing now is the first crop of them. There's so many more places that they can go, plus they give you the flexibility of removing them when you don't need them and the ease of a drag-and-drop to set them up. Unfortunately, most web apps aren't at this level, and still require a bit of hacking around to get them working 100%.
So, yes, I may sound like an Apple spokesman as well, bu tI think Dashboard is set to change the way that people work with things on the web. Active Desktop never really caust on because there never was the support behind it. Konfabulator is a very nice app too (yes, I know Apple basically copied it), and I hope that it does stick around for a while. There's some widgets for it that the Dashboard developers could really learn from - and competition can breed even better products.
I agree with Ben on this, majorly. I use my Dashboard very often (I use the WikitWidget as an extensive, cross-referenced notepad for work) and think a lot of other Apple users do, too. Just look at Apple's widgets site -- tons of widgets for all kinds of niches, more being uploaded all the time. A lot, if not most, of them use the web or a web-service in some way. It's very rad.
And yes, this kind of thing has been done before. I've used ActiveDesktop and was a long time user of SuperKaramba, but neither are nearly as well done as Dashboard. Konfabulator is great, but Dashboard is included in OS X which makes all the difference.
Also, thanks to my latest MacAddict, I now know about something called "permanent widgets".
Open Dashboard, click and drag the widget, but before you drop it, hit F12 again. Viola - Dashboard on the desktop. And yes, you can move it around just like normal.
To remove it, just click and drag and hit F12 and drop it off...
A world of really powerful and productive uses for the widget is still ahead of us. It is an amazing new paradigm for desktop computing (a third dimension if you will)- I thoroughly share in your excitement...