A software interface to the Oxford English Dictionary has enormous potential, which is only partially realized in this version.
Rudimentary searching is available. Which only makes me wish for more: a search pattern language for example.
Simple wildcard searches -- that match any number of characters ("*"), or match single characters ("?") are available; but you can't, for example, straightforwardly find all words with 5 letters or less that end in "ish"? ( An "*ish" (dictionary find) search will return 3411 matches of arbitrary lengths. A "??ish" (dictionary find) search returns 50 matches, of just length 5. )
The advanced search facility, while having more functionality, doesn't have a search pattern language either, beyond the two wildcard characters. There are some filters, for case-sensitivity, parts of speech, and two extra boolean ("and", "or", "not") search fields -- but no pattern language. Phonetic searches are limited in the same way.
Advanced search is buggy, and time-consuming. Some searches work; some freeze up the system. After which one has to quit and restart the application, to do another search. (Operating system: OSX 10.5.8)
Formatting of entries is primitive, and hard to read.
The Dictionary application, developed by Apple for its Macintosh computers, (introduced with Mac OS X v10.4) which is based on the New Oxford American Dictionary and the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, -- does a beautiful job formatting, by comparison). It comes free as part of the Mac software. It is also linked to other applications running on the Mac, so you can look up a word you don't know -- on the fly. The search facility, however, is even more limited than OED version 4.0.
Perhaps Oxford University Press and Apple could combine efforts?
I regard the OED as a human resource of treasury quality, and look forward to a software interface to it, of the quality it deserves.
Rating explanation: OED = 7 stars; interface = 1 star. Therefore an overall rating (average) of 4 stars.