Filed under: OS
Silly Survey Sunday: How many Widgets do you use?
One of Tiger's biggest features is Dashboard and the accompanying Widgets. It also happens to be one of the more controversial features (did Apple copy it? Is it just Desktop Accessories reborn?).All of that aside, we here at TUAW want to know: how many Widgets, and which ones, are on your Dashboard?
I only have two active at the moment, the Apple Weather widget and SysStat. How about you?

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Codestah said 1:28PM on 6-26-2005
I have a powerbook being shipped so I don't actually own a mac yet but while checking out the widgets on Apple's site, its clear that some people don't understand the point of widgets. Some of them should be full fledged applications because they require so much input and interaction. I would only find several of them useful.
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tom said 1:32PM on 6-26-2005
1) Weather
2) Dictionary
3) Calculator
4) Calendar
5) Google Maps
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Sk8rCai said 1:34PM on 6-26-2005
None, because I cant afford Tiger just yet!
*cries*
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_victor said 1:36PM on 6-26-2005
Depends on the machine, as clearly Widgets are designed to make you need a larger monitor...
1) Wikipedia
2) Yellow Pages
3) Google
4) Stocks
5) Weather, sometimes other radar ones
6) Slothcam
7) Package tracker
8) calendar
9) ical events
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Paul said 1:43PM on 6-26-2005
ten
1. showoff (uptime counter)
2. WIMIC (calvin and hobbes)
3. DailyTao
4. Slothcam Times Square
5. iTunes Lyrics (can't get it to work)
6. Calculator
7. Weather
8. Scoreboard (Detroit Tigers)
9. Sticky
10. BBC News
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Oliver H?d said 1:44PM on 6-26-2005
None, i disabled the dashboard. Tiger with spotlight and dashboard was too slow on my 500 MHz Tibook.
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David Chartier said 1:46PM on 6-26-2005
1. Phone book
2. DashBlog
3. StickyBrain
4. iTunes, although I'm probably gonna kill it due to Quicksilver's much handier Triggers (system wide shortcuts)
5. Calculator
6. qwikALERT
7. Weather
8. Google Maps (one of the greatest.companies.ever)
9. Calendar
However I think it might also be pertinent to ask: how many widgets have users installed, whether they're open at the moment or not.
Me? 33
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iFelix said 1:47PM on 6-26-2005
I have nearly twenty but can fit them in due to the 23" screen.
Though some are duplicates, I have three weather widgets for different places.
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Oliver H?d said 1:49PM on 6-26-2005
None, i disabled the dashboard. Tiger with spotlight and dashboard was too slow on my 500 MHz Tibook.
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random said 1:56PM on 6-26-2005
I have about five open generally. Weather, Hula Homer, TV Widget, Wikipedia, and a game of some sort.
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doktor242 said 2:06PM on 6-26-2005
On my G5, seven:
1- a Sticky
2- address book
3- translator
4- zLJPost4 (livejournal widget)
5- Calendar
6- Transmit widget for my ftp server's public director
7- Weather
On my powerbook, I have ten:
1- a Sticky
2- iCal Events
3- translator
4- zLJPost4 (livejournal widget)
5- Calender
6- Transmit widget for my ftp server's public director
7- Weather
8- WIKIpedia
9- Battery Info
10- Air Traffic Control
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Chris said 2:07PM on 6-26-2005
8 in near constant use. A few others I bring up as needed.
These are the commonly used 8:
1. SysStat
2. Wikipedia
3. Google Maps
4. Flidget
5. RapidMetaBlog
6. Digital Clock
7. SunLitEarth
8. Dictionary
I've set my Dashboard to be triggered with the thumb button of my mouse. I find I use it far more that way.
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Tim O. said 2:10PM on 6-26-2005
31... and no, I don't have a 30 inch display. I have a 15 in Powerbook Aluminum. I have 32 widgets total, one being not activated. I think my top widgets are these:
1. Stargate counter (I can't wait for the next season!!!)
2. TV tracker (so I don't waste my time flipping channels)
3. Battery status (so I know when to go and get my power adapter)
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Chris McDowell said 2:18PM on 6-26-2005
on my 15 inch alu powerbook.
I have 4 clocks
4 weather for each city the clocks are on
the calendar
phonebook
wikkipedia
googlemaps
wordpress publisher
buzztracker world news
iTunes connection monitor
TV Tracker
Dashflix for my netflix acocunt
MySpace panel
iTunes
Flickr image Uploader
Gmail Adsense reports
Stocks
and AddressBook
I have but not up on dashboard. They are in the dashboard bar
Airtraffic controller
Dashcrypt
Delicious Library
showoff
ichrono
I also have RADMovie Times on the G5 and all the ones in my dashbar up plus the ones listed above.
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Chris McDowell said 2:18PM on 6-26-2005
that didnt look that long when I was typing it sorry.
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Caius Durling said 2:22PM on 6-26-2005
Only have a 12" screen so not that many:
HardStat - shows space used and space free on all disks.
Transmit - drag and drop to upload files.
iCal Events - Shows upcoming iCal events.
Unit Converter - set to convert $ to so I can see if its cheaper to buy from US and ship to UK or not.
Air Traffic Control - Shows available airport networks.
Calender - set to extended view.
Sometimes:
Weather Plus - shows more stuff than basic weather widget.
BBC News
Countdown Calender - seems to screw days up though.
Battery Status
TNT Tracker - track my purchases from Apple (aprox 2 a month! not bad for a student)
Wordpress Dash - Publish to my blog from the dashboard.
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Reefdog said 2:23PM on 6-26-2005
I have an iMac G5 20" (running at 1680x1050), and sixteen widgets.
1) Dictionary/Thesaurus
2) Wikipedia
3) Yellow Pages
4) BibleLookup
5) PHP QuickReference
6) AccuWeather
7) Sunlit Earth
8) Lorem Ipsum
9) WebFrog
10) Scenario Poker
11) Address Book
12) TV Tracker
13) This Day In History
14) Calculator
15) Wimic
16) FontSee
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creanium said 2:25PM on 6-26-2005
When I still had Tiger installed on my PowerBook (had to downgrade to Panther because my VPN software wouldn't work on Tiger and I got tired of waiting and not being able to work from home), I had 9 widgets active on the dashboard.
1) Calculator
2) Dictionary
3) Wikipedia
4) Clock
5) Calendar
6) Weather
7) Translater
8) TV Tracker
9) Air Traffic Control
It took downgrading to Panther to realize just how much I actually did use Spotlight and Dashboard. Hopefully either Checkpoint or Apple will fix whatever's broken so I can come back to the party.
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Sauri said 2:43PM on 6-26-2005
1) Apple Weather
2) Calculator
3) NotePad
4) Transmit's widget
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garoo said 2:48PM on 6-26-2005
Heh, just today I blogged a rant against Dashboard utilities, in favor of informational widgets (see my site for more details).
What I use:
- Apple's dictionary and translator widgets (I find the latter _very_ unsatisfactory, but I'm French and read a lot of English websites, so...)
- iTunes Connection Monitor
- AdiumList
- Apple's weather widget
- Album Art
- a screen capture widget (convenient for Dashboard captures)
- a password generator widget
- iCal Events, absolutely indispensable
- Tagbag, although I'm not using Spotlight tags much yet
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