Apple has been experimenting with Mac widgets for years and is giving them another go in macOS Sonoma. I’m excited — but there’s a lot that could go wrong.
At its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this year, Apple revealed that interactive widgets would be coming to macOS Sonoma. That probably sounds like a tiny new feature, and sure, it’s not as earth-shattering as the Vision Pro announcement. But it could turn out to be one of the most divisive new features in the Mac operating system.
In macOS Sonoma, you’ll be able to plant widgets on your desktop instead of hiding them in the Notification Center. Many widgets will be interactive, letting you tick off to-do list items without opening the widget’s app, for example. And you’ll be able to run iOS widgets right on your desktop, even if that app isn’t installed on your Mac. It’s a pretty comprehensive overhaul. Depending on how well these interactive widgets work, though, we could be left with a bunch of annoying distractions or a set of super-helpful timesavers. The way Apple handles them is going to be vital.We’ve been here before
This isn’t the first time Apple has redesigned how widgets work on the Mac — in fact, it’s always been in flux. Apple used to offer widgets in OS X as part of its Dashboard feature, which put a few handy tools just a swipe or a shortcut away. But the company eventually ditched Dashboard and shunted everything into the Notification Center in a sideways move that left widgets out of sight and out of mind.
You probably won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve never really used macOS widgets — whether in Dashboard or the Notification Center — simply because they’ve never felt all that useful.
