With the release of GNOME 3 came the promise of a small collection of apps that would go a long way toward making GNOME a desktop for all occasions. Apps for weather, calendar, music, photos, and maps not only promised to bring about a unified experience across the platform, they helped to offer a certain “mobilized” feel to the desktop.
Considering that users across the globe are adopting mobile platforms at a rate that desktops cannot match, this was a wise move. Give the users a familiar collection apps, and they’ll feel right at home.