Apple has announced that Dashboard, a feature in its Mac OS version 10.4 “Tiger” operating system, now has over 1,000 widgets available, with dozens more being added every day and many more available from other web sites.

Widgets provide Mac users with dazzling new ways to instantly access important information from weather forecasts and stock quotes to traffic conditions and the latest news stories.

“Dashboard is a runaway hit,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With over a thousand widgets to choose from, users can customize their Dashboards to do almost anything.”

Dashboard widgets give users immediate access to a wide range of information and entertainment. A single click makes a user’s favorite widgets instantly appear, with current information; with another click they conveniently disappear from the desktop.

It’s easy for third party developers to create new widgets, using standard web technologies such as HTML and JavaScript, that users can easily and securely download to their systems with the new Dashboard widget manager provided in Mac OS X version 10.4.2.

Apple Widgets