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macOS Sonoma desktop widgets - What's the point?

M

MrSqueamish

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 13, 2013
8
2
I bit the bullet and installed Sonoma then thought I'd take a look at adding some widgets to my DeskTop.

Some widgets operate as one would hope (e.g., Weather) but others just seem useless.

For example, there's a Google Maps widget that I can successfully add to the DeskTop. I click on the Google Maps widget and I'm presented with instructions to open Google Maps in iPhone. Same with the Ring widget - it tells me to open the Ring app on my iPhone. I suspect there are others that will behave similarly.

Am I missing something fundamental or are these (and probably other) widgets utterly pointless?
 
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The ones you cited, yes. As they are just glorified hyperlinks to either a website or an app. The ones Apple provides are a bit more functional.

My main issue is most of the time, my screen is filled with windows. I'm not going to see the widgets on the desktop. So instead I'll just invoke the notification area and see them there. So the desktop ones are mainly redundant.
 
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Those widgets you mention that comes from the phone is probably not that useful. Unless it is showing live information/updates.
I really like having some widgets on the desktop, especially the Home widget. I can literally turn on/off lights with one click without leaving my main window.
 
It's a slow introduction to iOS interface common across all your devices. Next step will be a Desktop like experience, or iOS types experience.
 
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PowerMac5500 said:
Yeah, that writing has been on the wall for awhile. "We're not merging macOS and iOS"... sure guy.
Click to expand...
And I'm afraid that won't work very well. Widgets are just an example where you can swipe two fingers from the left most side of your trackpad and your widgets are right there. No matter which desktop you're working from. you can put a home app control center there and control the lights, see the weather, top news stories, etc. All without switching back and forth. But Apple wants to convince folks the better interface didn't already exist.
 
Steve Ballmer said:
The ones you cited, yes. As they are just glorified hyperlinks to either a website or an app. The ones Apple provides are a bit more functional.

My main issue is most of the time, my screen is filled with windows. I'm not going to see the widgets on the desktop. So instead I'll just invoke the notification area and see them there. So the desktop ones are mainly redundant.
Click to expand...
That’s probadly a main reason behind a single click to clear all open windows and get to the desktop.
 
dburkhanaev said:
Widgets are just an example where you can swipe two fingers from the left most side of your trackpad and your widgets are right there.
Click to expand...

But now you are only talking about those that use a trackpad ;)
Or should there be a different OS for desktop, desktop with trackpad and laptop experience?
 
I am very happy with them so much that I retired my iPhone 7+ that was a weather display. I have the weather widget, calendar items and clock in the upper right of 1 of my monitors. I size my windows so that the weather is always showing. If I want to see all of the widgets, then I just Control-Right-Click to go to an empty virtual desktop.

I have the Fidelity Index widget, 3 widgets for $INDU, $SPX and $COMP, and a full calendar entry. I also have news. So I can glance at the stock indexes and the weather if I want to go outside for a walk or a run. This does exactly what I want it to.
 
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