Apple has widgets, Microsoft has gadgets
Today Microsoft unveiled a veritable cornucopia of software delights at their annual PDC. Dave has already mentioned that Office is getting an Aqua makeover (too bad they went with brushed metal, that's so over), but that is not the only thing that may look familiar to Mac users.
Windows Vista will also include something called 'gadgets.' What's a gadget? According to the official website a gadget is, 'a new category of mini-application designed to provide information, useful lookup, or enhance an application or service on your Windows PC or the Web.' You might know them as Knofabul.. I mean Yahoo! Widgets, or perhaps you know them as residents of the Dashboard in OS X, either way Microsoft is leading the industry once again.
To be fair, Microsoft did come up with a new name, so we don't have to deal with three different offerings all called Widgets, and they are going to have web based gadgets which you can access from anywhere, so that is pretty cool. However, the gadgets will run in a special place on the Vista desktop, called the Sidebar, they can be writen in DHTML (and other various Windows flavored languages), and they are designed as a showplace for Vistas graphics engine. Sound familiar?
Widgets and gadgets are the wave of the future, dear readers. I just hope that this feature is included in all seven, that's right seven, versions of Windows Vista.
