Exploring Your Mac’s Dashboard

Written by Michael Swengel on May 21, 2009

Apple’s Mac OS X is a great platform. It’s simple. It’s elegant. It’s powerful. Design professionals and videographers like myself rely on the simple, reliable power the Apple operating system brings to the table.

However, there is a hidden feature many people don’t know about that makes life easier much easier.

It’s called the Dashboard.

Introduced in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the Dashboard hosts a collection of small, single-purpose programs called Widgets. The Dashboard can be quickly accessed with a single button at any time. A default installation of Mac OS X Tiger or later also includes a Dashboard icon in the Dock next to the Finder icon.

Microsoft tried to steal this concept for Windows Vista – only slightly changing the name “Widgets” to “Gadgets” and placing the mini-programs in a sidebar on the Windows desktop. But…that’s another issue altogether.

By default, the Dashboard displays a calculator, a weather, a basic clock, and a calendar. It doesn’t stop there, though. Click the plus-sign button at the bottom of your screen, and you will see many more widgets that you can use. If you don’t like any of those – or you just want more – check out the Apple website. There are literally THOUSANDS of free widgets you can download and use.

Widgets range from simple clocks to RSS readers, mini-games, unit converters, web clippings, blog updates, and more. These are superb because you can pull them up at any time. If you want to check the scores of a sporting event, get download that widget and you’ll have it available at the push of a button. You can even get a widget to search Google directly from your Dashboard.

Just like anything else, the quality of any given widget will vary. Some are superb, and some are sub-par. It’s up to you to decide what you like and don’t like.

To access Apple’s HUGE collection of widgets, visit http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard