I’m not sure why, but I crave more interaction with my desktop. The exact things that I can’t seem to get out of iOS and the things that happen more readily in WP7 are what I want on my Windows desktop. I don’t really want gadgets, per se, but I’d really like some applications that served specific purposes and worked really well.

For example, I’ve been complaining about the to-do list app forever. I realize that this can be done (to some incomplete extent) by using a web service. But the only gateway to that is via something like Chrome’s application shortcuts, which are useful, but are still a website inside of Chrome without complete access to desktop features (notification tray, integration with other applications, additional shaped window features, and on and on.).

I keep thinking I wouldn’t mind some kind of emergent news reader. It could tap into Google Reader if it had to. But the idea would be to flash news stories fitting a certain criteria across my screen somewhere where I’d see them immediately. It could let me queue those stories up somewhere that I could fetch them later. Really, this is how I would prefer email to work. I’d see a message come it, and based on the author and subject, could shove it into an appropriate action bin that I could deal with later.