Reposted from Hype.

The Preview

Now if it’s user experience you’re after, Apple are seriously innovating in the desktop space. Tiger includes fast contents searching of all the data on your machine (files, emails, everything), a system that has the same sensibilities as Gmail.

Another great innovation is the Dashboard, basically a flip down layer that you can put little applications on. They’re always running and so they’re always just a single keypress away. There’s a calculator, a calendar, stickies, your address book and lots more. New apps can be written in JavaScript, making them an absolute breeze to create. Want a todo list? Probably take an hour or two to make one. What about a little app that tells you when Hype was last updated. Think that should take a similar amount of time really?

There’s lots more in the next release of OS X. It’s not going to be around until next year though. A break from tradition - Apple have been releasing a new version of OS X annually since it’s first version in 2001.

I think it’s good that Apple are innovating in this area. Microsoft certainly aren’t. They’re focussing on the server because they’ve got the desktop sown up. They’ll just keep pressing out identical uninteresting versions of Windows as far as the everyday user is concerned. The open source community is doing some great stuff. Dashboard for example is inspired by a Linux app of the same name from the Ximian crew that’s hotting up pretty fast. It’s decreasing energy states: Linux developers are just bouncing off the walls with ideas, Microsoft coders have slowed to a glacial pace, somewhere in the middle Apple are taking the best of both.