I’ve Got Something Apple Should Cancel
Today Apple dropped a few bombshells announcing that they were ceasing their participation in the annual MacWorld conference and this year Steve Jobs would not be giving the keynote. In an equally surprising announcement Apple announced it was also canceling Christmas. Tomorrow I’m sure Apple will announce it is canceling the value of it’s stock. High-oh! While Apple is currently in the mood to cancel things that have been a huge part of the company for years — I mean introduction of the iPod, iPhone and the iPod Hi-Fi — I’ve got a suggestion of something else they should cancel: the Dashboard.
The Dashboard has been a staple of OS X since 10.4 Tiger was released. It’s concept — that you can have different widgets that do different things — has been repeated all over the internet and now in Windows Vista. With the influx of Web 2.0 website offering basically the same functionality, the Dashboard has become outdated and, dare I say, useless. I can’t remember the last time I actually opened the Dashboard willingly — the occasional accidental F12 key strike does the trick — nor actually used a widget. 10.5 Leopard brought a new feature to the Dashboard, the ability to create your own widgets from any website you wanted using a button on Safari. I can safely say, I’ve never used this feature. It’s a good idea, but again, basically useless.
The problem is not the concept, that in and of itself is okay, the problem is usage. It’s a screen that runs in the background and, when pulled up, is ready to go. The problem here is that it sucks up memory causing the entire system to slow. The other problem — and here’s the kicker — is that why would I launch the Dashboard to see what time it is, look at my calendar, check a contact’s email address or see what the weather is when I can simply do that without launching the Dashboard. So maybe part of the problem is the concept after all.
So here’s what I propose: Apple cancel the Dashboard. 10.6 Snow Leopard is set to debut sometime next year and is not actually offering any new features, but rather a promise to slim down the operating system and make it run much more efficiently. Could there be a more perfect time to get rid of something that causes bloat and inefficiency? While people will miss MacWorld, and probably Christmas too, I’m not sure if I know many people who would miss the Dashboard.
Perhaps the idea of a Dashboard just needs to be rethought rather than removed. It’s an interesting concept, if done right.
Microsoft is in the stages of removing their sidebar metaphor (as introduced in that failure we know of as Vista) and placing the widgets directly on the Desktop. If Apple were to do the same with OS X, not only would you have access to “information,” but you’d eliminate a keyboard shortcut as Expose’s Show Desktop feature would be able to display the widgets as well. Of course, that still leaves the problem of the Dashboard icon Apple thoughtfully screenprints onto all their keyboards now…
Another part of the problem is, as you mention, the widgets that accomplish nothing as looking up an e-mail address is probably most useful *gasp* when writing an e-mail. Perhaps these should be replaced with more useful things like site traffic meters (I know I might make use of one, as I check the stats on my blog at almost paranoid rates) or things that would require jumping through multiple hoops to get at.
Until all of this happens, though, I suppose OS X users have enough bloat to worry about now that they’ve picked up their “reliability and performance update” for Chess.
I like the new site! I should be done w/ mine by the end of the month. I’ve decided not to work on it here in America.
Anyway, I totally agree about the Dashboard. At first it was ridiculously cool to me. Then I saw that there were other copycats that were just as good (if not better).
Apple needs to either amend it or get rid of it.