The Leopard is coming soon, and will replace Tiger. One of the features you’ll love in Leopard is even better widgeting. You can still download from the 2000+ widget library at Apple.com, but now you can create your own website widgets with Web Clip for Safari. There’s a new movie widget that instantly finds movie times for you, too.

When you find a website you want to widget, you open it in Safari. Then click the “Open in Dashboard” button, and the widget appears on your Dashboard. From there, you can choose a theme, resize it, add a frame and customize the look of your widget. Click on the widget and it automatically opens the webpage it came from.

You can make your own widgets, too. The Leopard has a feature called DashCode, which provides templates that you can use to create a widget. You can create an RSS feed or a podcast by dragging and dropping the information into the widget template. Customize the widget and add buttons, and you’re done. You can even upload your new widget to Apple so that other people can use it.

Another widget feature of Leopard is synchronization. With a .Mac account, Leopard keeps your dashboard synchronized across as many Macs as you use. You don’t have to transfer files between your work Mac and home Mac and PowerBook any more. You just change your Dashboard preferences, and Leopard keeps everything synced.

A better dashboard and improved widget capability is only one feature of the Leopard. There are lots of other upgrades and updates, and the addition of some former add-ins, like Boot Camp. OS X continues to evolve into better and better applications. Leopard is the next step up from the Tiger, and it will be available in Spring of 2007.