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Apple Confirms Dashboard is Going Away After 14 Years

Thursday June 13, 2019 6:51 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has removed Dashboard support from WebKit, not long after it was discovered that the feature has been completely dropped in macOS Catalina, according to a changelog spotted by Japanese blog Mac Otakara.


While this news is not entirely surprising, it eliminates any slim hope that Dashboard might have returned in a future beta of macOS Catalina. The feature has already been disabled by default since OS X Yosemite, but it can still be manually enabled within Mission Control in System Preferences as of macOS Mojave.

Dashboard, first introduced in OS X Tiger in 2005, was effectively a secondary desktop on the Mac that housed a variety of customizable widgets, ranging from sticky notes and the weather forecast to a clock and a calculator. These widgets have relied on Safari's open source WebKit engine for rendering.

Dashboard appears to remain functional in macOS Mojave for now, although it is clearly a legacy feature and some widgets do not work. After over 14 years, the feature is about to ride off into the sunset for good.

Related Roundup: macOS Catalina
Tags: Dashboard, WebKit
[ 231 comments ]

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macpro2000
22 weeks ago
It’s a useful resource. I still use it all the time.
Rating: 59 Votes
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2010mini
22 weeks ago
Honestly I forgot it was even still there.
Rating: 54 Votes
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AngerDanger
22 weeks ago

Steve demoing Dashboard for the first time in 2005.

[MEDIA=youtube]8CBkEfNx1bs[/MEDIA]

It's kind of odd to think that it was a precursor to Steve's iPhone vision. Originally, he intended for the iPhone to run web-apps rather than have an App Store, and Dashboard was a collection of glossy, skeuomorphic, web-apps with rounded rectangular icons and charming-but-cheesy animations.

Two years before we had this:





Rating: 45 Votes
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MacFather
22 weeks ago
Steve demoing Dashboard for the first time in 2005.

[MEDIA=youtube]8CBkEfNx1bs[/MEDIA]
Rating: 42 Votes
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chrisbicker
22 weeks ago
Now just waiting to get rid go Launchpad
Rating: 33 Votes
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cashxx
22 weeks ago
Very sad! I use it multiple times a day to quickly check on stocks, weathers, packages at a click of a side button on my mouse to have it slide in as an overlay and back out in seconds. Will be something that may make me hold back updating along with the quick editing features of QuickTime 7.
Rating: 23 Votes
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statik13
22 weeks ago
That's no good! I added a hot key so I can use the feature daily. It makes it so simple to access Calculator, Stickies, and Conversions. I even have it hooked up so I can control my Hue lights.

Hope they replace with something even better instead of dropping completely. :(
Rating: 17 Votes
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JimmyBanks6
22 weeks ago

I never found a use for it. I still don't know what it's purpose was.

Information at a glance without needing to load an app, obviously.

I suspect you are also confused by what a notification centres purpose is.
Rating: 17 Votes
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JessWinter
22 weeks ago
If this article wasn't made, I probably wouldn't have noticed lol
Rating: 15 Votes
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Jody Hewell
22 weeks ago
For you Dashboard lovers out there, you can convert your current widgets to applications using the now unsupported Amnesty Singles utility. Just google it....
Rating: 14 Votes

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