I know the application list is loaded at first use, but this is annoying for some users. I think this is a job to be done at shell start, or load from a cache who is updated by a backend thread.

At shell start, most users will not notice the delay. If they click at applications list they expect the system to respond immediately, but we wait 2 seconds... And in my netbook? gnome works great! But at applications list... Showing the new Gnome for some friends, the wait was negative too..

If starts with shell isn't an option, why not use some data structure to load a faster cache who is updated by a running system thread?

There must be a good solution to this problem...