JANUARY 2022 MACWORLD 13Widgets on macOS can’t be placed on the desktop like
they can on iPadOS.move them front and center on
the Mac: Let them finally appear
on the desktop, where people
might actually get some use out
of them. Having data in your
Mac’s menu bar is nice, but if the
new MacBook Pro has shown us
anything, it’s that menu bar
space (fave.co/3D5JGo0) is at
a premium—and it’s hardly a
good home for the kind of
rich experiences you can get
with a widget.
This seems like a strange
place for the Mac, which has a
ton of power and space at its disposal, to
skimp. It’s not hard to imagine having
weather, or photo, or shortcut widgets
sitting on our Mac desktops—the bigger
question is, why aren’t they there already?
THE UNKINDEST SHORTCUTS
Monterey sees the Mac debut of
Shortcuts, which has existed on iOS for
several years now. While this is a welcome
addition to macOS, which has its own
long-running (if somewhat outdated)
automation tools like AppleScript and
Automator, the Mac version of Shortcuts is
still missing out on some features to make
it, well, Mac-like.
Even basic features, like being able to
easily grab selected text on screen, or
get the name of an open document, can
involve cumbersome workarounds like
falling back to AppleScript. And some
Mac features, like the ability to easily
create or switch to different desktop
spaces, have never been available in any
automation tool.
Some of this is unsurprising, given that
the Mac version of Shortcuts has been
ported over from iOS and is still adapting
to its new life on Apple’s oldest platform.
But given the Mac’s long history of
automation, it does sometimes feel like
more attention is lavished on the new kid
on the block. That said, Apple has publicly
acknowledged that Shortcuts is just the
beginning of a multiyear automation story
on the platform, so there’s good reason to
hope that the Mac will catch up to its little
siblings—at least in this department. ■