Apple’s Safari Browser Now Available for Windows
During today’s World Wide Developer’s Conference, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that both OS X Leopard and iPhone are on schedule for they previously announced release dates, but also a dropped a small bomb in announcing the release of the Safari web browser for Windows. Apple claims that the Safari browser is faster than both Internet Explorer and Firefox in loading and page rendering. From it’s initial release on the Macintosh platform many years ago, Safari has been held in high regard the web design community for it’s adherence to web standards, and it is now a welcome addition to the Windows space. A beta version is currently available.
I can’t help but look at this as sort of a throwing down of the gauntlet by Apple. Long ago, Microsoft created an Internet Explorer for the Macintosh OS, thereby having a significant presence on both platforms. When Microsoft announced that it would no longer develop IE for the Mac, Apple then released the Safari browser to much critical acclaim…and now making it available for Windows sort of smacks of “turnabout is fair play.”
It can be zippity in some pages, but in the age of broadband, who cares?
*Ugly theme/buttons
*Ugly window buttons (minimize/maximize/restore/close)
*Clicking taskbar does not minimize it
*”You haven’t entered anything in Google box” Geez, maybe I just wanted to intuitively go to Google.com
*”great” Apple UI everywhere, for example, windows only resizable via bottom right.
*Click on a .wmv, it opens in WMP. In IE7 or FF, they give choice to download or open, and FF even lets me pref to automatically download
*Lack of favicons in bookmarks bar
*RSS button unstandard. IE and FF have come to truce with this
*no autoscroll
*middle click doesn’t close tabs, open tabs from bookmarks bar
*No “recently closed tabs”
*no status bar by default
*no inline spell check
*no double click tab bar to get new tab
*crashed twice already, FF crashes maybe once a week
*no adblocking
*no “google/yahoo search suggest”
*backspace doesn’t go back
*edit bookmarks name/address separately, huh?
You do know it’s still in BETA, right?
I’m not saying you should toss out Firefox (maybe IE if you’re still using IE6
), but Apple making Safari on the Windows platform can only be a good thing. For instance, I personally don’t use half the features you’ve listed so I wouldn’t miss them. But if you like them, then you can stay with Firefox. That’s the great thing about these browsers that adhere to web standards: you don’t have to worry too much about being forced to use a browser whose lack of/bloated by features bothers you simply because some sites you visit don’t support the browser you do want to use! It’s good to have more diversity so people have more choices.
Some of your stuff is awfully nitpicky, though. “RSS button unstandard”? It’s just a graphic, and Apple’s decision to make it a blue box with the letters “RSS” is perfectly reasonable.