[jschwartzi]

Widgets on the phone work great because the launcher is where I end up every time I press the power key. Widgets on the desktop are useless because the desktop is always obscured by things I'm actively working on, and the only time I will see a widget is when I'm not using my computer for anything at all.

[thinkmassive]

Fair point. I don’t use a desktop at all because I use a tiling window manager.

When I worked at a Linux distro (endlessos.com) they had modified Gnome to have a universal search bar on the desktop. It was targeted at a different group of users than me, but it seemed to make sense based on that group.

Hopefully Gnome does sufficient user testing to deliver a useful experience to some significant group.

[jschwartzi]

I would certainly use a search bar, especially if it had the capability to launch terminal programs or open a terminal in a certain directory. Most widgets I see on my phone are things like calendars or counters, which on a desktop OS should go in the same space as running programs.

[bonzini]

Wouldn't that apply to desktop folder icons as well?