Whats the deal with the Dashboard?

Posted by Dstreelm on March 4, 2012 09:26 pm 6

I remember back in the day when apple introduced the dashboard, It was one of the new os's most touted features. It was such a big deal the windows stole it for their sideboard pinning thingy. Then something remarkable happened...i forgot that it existed.

I found myself using open tabs for sites that I always want, because of autofill in chrome, I can get to whatever I want just by starting to type and hitting enter. The only time I would even see the dashboard would be when I accidentally activated it. And when I would pull it up, it would take FOREVR for the widgets to start up, pretty silly for a system designed for quick access to information. Basically, the dashboard is a place for mt calculator app to hang out and little else. when was the last time you downloaded a new widget? are they even still being developed?

So Lion comes along and instead of the dashboard coming in from the ether, they gave it a home, permanently on the left side of the main desktop. This is the only clue i have that apple even knows that the dashboard still exists!

So I ask you, whats the deal with the Dashboard?

Was it a failed experiment, destined to be ignored or removed in a future OSX release?

Will apple do a total revamp and finally breathe new life into the platform?

I think i good first step would be including widgets in the mac app store. i think it's kind of crazy that they aren't there now! In order to get new widgets you have to go to the apple website and find some buried page that hasent been updated in god know how long. Maybe by featuring them in the app store, more developers would be inspired to develop them because an actual audience for them would exist.

Discuss...