With the recent release of Google’s Gadget utility for Mac OS X, the company is encouraging developers to make sure their developed gadgets run on both Windows and Mac OS X platforms and to tag those which only run for a particular platform.

Most of the existing Google’s gadgets will run on Mac OS X if properly written, but a few just can’t work on Mac. These are the gadgets that were written by Jscript rather than JavaScript, that use Windows-specific APIs, or rely on a Windows specific environment.

The release also aimed to encourage people to write new Gadgets that will run on multiple-environments.

Google Gadgets are mini applications that can be used to show weather updates, emails, personalized news and photos, among others. Some of them are created by Google while others by third-party developers. They are similar to Apple’s Dashboard Widgets in that they offer users quick access to dynamic information.

Google’s Gadgets had been available to Mac users previously through the company’s online Gadget services or through third-party translators like Amnesty Generator.

The released position Google’s Gadget on the dashboard screen next to the Apple widgets, enabling users to access both applications simultaneously.

“For users, this means they can install hundreds of Google Gadgets with just one click and run them in Dashboard,” said Google. “They can also use Gadgets to enhance their personal websites by copying and-pasting the HTML into the page’s source code,” Mac World writes.

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Entry was posted on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 10:20 pm under Apple, Google, Software.

Read more entries by Ruben Francia.
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