PackageKit now has an update applet and application installer. This demo-application will win no awards for UI design, but the idea is to show how easy it is to make an async frontend for the provided dbus interface.
Also, the trivial update icon runs once per active session, and communicates with a single system instance of PackageKit. When the service is needed it is activated using dbus system activation, and when it's doing nothing the system daemon quits.
This means we can queue multi-session updates and installs. For instance I can start an update in my user session, switch to my girlfriends session, and then search for pidgin, and queue the install. The install will start when my update has completed. Maybe a more useful situation would be for the gdm login to start doing the daily updates before a user even logs in. OpenOffice could install language packs in the background as soon as you start typing in a new language. Lots of fun stuff.
Of course very little of this actually works properly. The dummy backend does mostly the right thing, and the apt and yum backends can search, but I still need to do the rest of the actions. The PolicyKit bit is still to be done.
So, good things.
Um, it's 'dependencies'. Sorry. I get paid to proofread. It's a reflex action. =)