Reading some stuff about Dashboard today, it occured to me what Apple’s next step will be.

Exposé, the technology that lets you zip apps off screen, or spread them out to see all windows, is very cool. Dashboard introduces a layer of (essentially) desk accessories that normally resides off-screen, but zips on-screen at the touch of a button.

The next logical step is to, at the touch of a button, zip regular applications on and off-screen, creating virtual desktops, really. So you’re working on your woefully pitiful single 23″ LCD monitor, and you have Photoshop taking up all available screen real estate. Suddenly, on the left side of your screen, a little Mail.app icon starts to bounce. You carelessly hit F1 (for Screen 1, or you could hit Command-Left Arrow to navigate virtually geometrically… or something) and zip, your screen off to the left slides over, showing Mail and iCal or something. You’ve got mail! And virtual desktops.

Of course, this would mostly be useful for your XServe admins to zip from one machine to the next, or for (mytho-poetical) iPalm users to eke out more real estate from their 200 x 400 pixel screens. Of course, you’d have to replace the F-Key with a stylus gesture, or maybe that Air-Force mind control link.

Cool.

See: Dashboard II by Dave Hyatt and: Dashboard vs. Konfabulator by John Gruber and: Monkeys Control Robotic Arm with Brain Implants