Access Web Services with Sherlock

Apple’s Sherlock is an interface to web services, providing specific types of information much more quickly than web browsers. Using columns and panes, it provides access to practical and useful information, such as stock quotes, movie information, yellow pages, airline flight information, and more. (See Figure 10-8.) Sherlock comes with a set of channels for a number of basic services, and can accept plug-ins for additional channels.

Figure 10-8: Sherlock’s basic interface showing its list of available channels.

Note

If you’ve just upgraded from Mac OS 9, you’ll be a bit confused by Sherlock. In OS 9, Sherlock was a tool for finding files and folders on your Mac; but under Mac OS X, this function is available in the Finder (see Chapter 5). Sherlock is now an interface that provides information from selected web sites.

To access one of Sherlock’s channels and search for information, click a channel icon. Each channel displays its information and search fields in a different way. Figure 10-9 shows the airline flight channel, which you can use to search for flights by airline, flight number, departure city, and arrival city.

Figure 10-9: The Flight channel lets you search for airline flights, and returns a list matching your criteria.

Some Sherlock channels just return text, but others return graphics and even video clips. In Figure 10-9, you can see the current location of a selected flight.

Another useful channel is the Movies channel. If you enter your town or city, your ZIP code, or the ZIP code of the area where you want to go to the movies, Sherlock returns a list of movies and theaters (Figure 10-10). Not only does it show you the movies, but when you click a movie title, it shows you a summary of the story, a poster, and, if possible, a trailer. In some areas, you can even use Sherlock to purchase movie tickets online.

Figure 10-10: Want to go to the movies? Let Sherlock tell you what’s playing.

The best way to get to know Sherlock is to try out its different channels and see what they offer.