Safari Coming to Windows; iPhone Runs AJAX Apps
In an effort to boost market share, Steve Jobs dropped an unexpected bombshell on the audience at the WWDC this morning: Apple's Safari web browser is coming to Windows. IE currently controls about 78% of the browser market, Firefox 15%, and Safari just 5% (according to Jobs' stats -- depending on who you ask, Safari accounts for between 1.5% and 6% of the market; W3Counter's Global Stats put Safari at 1.86%). In order to grow Safari's market share, Apple has released a version for Windows.
According to Jobs, Safari is the most innovative browser (I'm sure plenty of Firefox fans would beg to differ) and runs 2 times faster than IE7 on Windows (not a big surprise) and 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2. The Safari 3 public beta, which was released today, comes in three flavors: OS X, Windows XP, and Vista.
I haven't had a chance to try it yet (downloaded it as I wrote this), but another quality, cross-platform browser is certainly a welcome announcement. Safari could definitely end up taking a bite out of Firefox's marketshare (though the upcoming Firefox 3 has innovative features that might just propel it to the head of the pack) and this move will undoubtedly be felt up in Redmond.
Early user reports are that this is very beta (more like alpha) software. Expect some rockiness.
Interestingly, things seem to have come full circle for Microsoft and Apple. Back in the 80s, Microsoft was one of the biggest software developers on the Apple platform, and today, Apple is fast turning into one of the largest Windows developers (an irony not lost on Gates and Jobs two weeks ago at the D5 conference).
More Web 2.0 News From Apple
Jobs also dropped some more news that could affect Web 2.0 developers, albeit more expected this time. By virtue of the fact that the iPhone (which launches in the US on June 29th) has a full version of Safari, developers will be able to create rich applications for the iPhone simply by creating web apps using AJAX. Web apps will be able to take advantage of the iPhone's native capabilities (like call dialing or the built-in Google Maps) and there is no specialized software development kit. Just about anything that runs on Safari, should run on the iPhone.
Apple developers who were hoping for a more robust iPhone SDK might be disappointed by the news, but web developers should be thrilled. It provides an entire new platform on which to push rich internet apps and allows for added functionality via native iPhone tie-ins.
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After downloading and installing Safari on XP (w/ 1GB RAM, P4 3 Ghz, yada yada yada) I have to say that it is a complete joke. I cannot believe Apple shoved this out the door.
The font smoothing is great and the interface is just like the Mac, which is fine by me (macfoxII is my preferred Firefox theme).
But the browser is just so horribly slow. Did they test this? I'm reading comments all over the blogosphere that other folks are having the same problems. It takes literally at least 5x longer to render pages in Safari than Firefox. Sometimes even longer.
Very sad.
"According to Jobs, Safari is the most innovative browser (I'm sure plenty of Firefox fans would beg to differ)..."
I am a die-hard Safari user and even I would disagree. Safari is elegant, but Firefox is innovative.
Browser-based apps on the iPhone seems like a bit of a fudge, considering it was only last week that Jobs rapped about the advantages of rich client apps vs browser apps, at the D: conference (alongside Gates).
What a bunch of crap. Apple hasn't kept Safari up-to-date with CSS and JavaScript support for the last 3 years. In fact, I thought they'd abandoned the entire endeavor. Nope--looks like they abandoned the updating part and have been concentrating on porting an also-ran 2004 Mac browser into a download piece-of-crap 2007 Windows browser.
All hail Steve Jobs.
@tom
I just tested the beta of Safari 3 and it looks like they've fixed the poor Javascript support for things like WYSIWYG browser editing for use in web based apps e.g. gmail, google docs, wordpress etc.
Tom - you've obviously not been keeping an eye over at the WebKit blog and nightly builds. There's been plenty of work going on in updating the core. A lot of which is also in Adobe's Apollo.
What is annoying that Apple only issue major version upgrades with each O/S.
Hopefully the fact that the Safari 3 Beta works on 10.4 might indicate a change in that policy.
I know this is "alpha" software and I expected to see to some problems like color or layout problems but it's full of bugs: random typography, divs are hidden, some text are disappearing. even google search results are not displayed right
some screenshots here
http://heri.madmedia.ca/articles/2007/06/11/new-safari-for-windows-full-of-bugs
Works pretty slow... but's ok... no crashes yet...
It's good for testings
It's crashed on my machine once... I miss my Mac at work so I'm using it. I guess the majority of people who install Safari on a PC will do so because they have a Mac as thier other machine or are forced to work on a Win XP box.
Also, a bit frustrated by the 'no SDK' announcement. Was hoping for solid third party apps so things like http://www.thefilter.com would be able to run on it. At least I'll be able to listen to my Last.fm station via Safari (I hope!)
I'm testing out safari for windows. Sweet browser i might say. good speed and visual experience.
Btu, i'm having a bug now. Can't work with proxy servers, can;t change the proxy settings too as it uses mr IE's settings. Why?
I'll wait for the fix...
Isn't that great, Windows users can download the latest version of Safari for free, but people who've invested many thousands of dollars in Apple hardware over the years need to purchase OS 10.4 to use it. I still use 10.3 due to 10.4's woeful search capabilities which make my work completely impossible. So Apple, I'd love to try Safari 3 myself, but I can't.
Maybe for my next computer I'll just have to buy a Windows machine. At least the searches work. And I can use Safari 3.
I wouldn't expect a lot of Safari on Windows devo from Apple...I think it's mostly to expand the develpor base for the iphone "api." http://thenewsroom.com/details/394435?c_id=wom-bc-js
Any bug or performance problems is fine... it's not a release version but a test version...
HOWEVER... I find they really need to stop forcing down their interface on people. I DIDN'T buy a mac... don't try and make me feel like I did. Windows provides perfectly fine tools for window interfaces and chrome... (they even allow you to resize from any corner or edge... :wink: :wink:)
I don't see the elegance... I see minimalisme... just like in your 12 reasons I'd love Safari...
A popup blocker you say?... wow.
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