Published at LXer:

Appindicator was first introduced in Ubuntu karmic as a replacement for the Gnome panel applet. It is a small applet to display information from various applications consistently in the panel. It can also be used as a access point to access (and control) the application without having to open the application. if you are running Ubuntu Lucid or Maverick, you should see the messaging menu (the applet that contains Empathy, Evolution and Gwibber icons), which is a good example of an appindicator.

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Amazing. AppIndicator is a *very* good addition to Ubuntu and in all respects Ubuntu is to desktop/laptop computers what Android is to tablets. Why you say? It has pretty much all the features Android has in a desktop form factor. The Software Center is like Android Market, the Appindicator is like the Notification pulldown, and Unity Dash is like the All Apps menu. On top of that, Android and Ubuntu both look similar and have similar icons.

However, I hope those Indicator Applets are put into the Extras repo and Ubuntu supports them officially.

And it's Linux in general that will benefit from Ubuntu gaining market share.