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Watson

Though Apple’s Sherlock is basically identical to Watson, I will still be buying Watson when I get a Mac. Partly to support the “little guy” and partly because rumor has it that it is faster, and has more features than Sherlock. Plus if I get the EyeTV to record TV shows, I’ll want to use Watson to do the scheduling.

Watson looks really handy to me, and I’ve never been able to find anything even remotely similar to it on the PC. I think it will make some things so much simpler than having to go to 15 different web sites for everything.

Some of the features it offers that I will definitely use:

Site Search
Search Epinions.com, the Internet Movie Database, lyrics, the New York Times, etc, all from one standard interface. You get to see the data you want without all the distracting ads and other junk they put on their pages.

Recipes
Search recipes of all kinds from the Watson interface. Most recipes even include preview pictures and everything. Perhaps it will enourage my wife and I to make more healthy and nutritious foods! (yeah right)

Google Search
Search Google. Probably won’t use this one very much, as Google is integrated into Safari, but I do like the way you can save searches.

Image Search
Much nicer and more consistent interface than the Google Image Search that I normally use, plus it searches multiple sites at once.

Movies
Very very nice. Order tickets online, view showtimes and trailers directly in Watson. Even add the movie “appointment” to your iCal calendar with a single click!

Package Tracker
Probably won’t use this at home much at all, but will definitely be handy at work, so that I don’t have to go to three different carrier’s web sites to see where a package is. Plus it seems like every time I try to track a package, the interface has changed and I have to waste time figuring out how to use their site.

Phone Book
Yes, yes yes! I can never remember which phone directory site I like, and some even block Opera, so it’s always a pain to look up phone numbers. This will give me a simple, consistent interface to use all the time. It even supports reverse lookup! And when you find the person you need, one click adds them to your system-wide address book, incredible!

Reference
I use Dictionary.com quite a bit and it will be great to have a simple interface to interact with it. You can also search the Bible, the World Fact Book, etc.

Yahoo Browsing
I can’t stand the Yahoo homepage, way too much crap on there for my taste. When I feel the need to browse the Yahoo directory, this will definitely be the way to do it.

Zip Code Lookup
Again, this will be handy at work if someone forgets a zip code or doesn’t give us a city. Will save me a trip to the unfriendly USPS web site.

All of that for only $30 sound like quite a steal to me. Plus they are always adding new features and things to search. All together a great looking product.