Working with JQuery

With Edge, Adobe wants to give interactivity designers the ability to create rich HTML5 experiences based on an open JavaScript framework for animation. Adobe plans to contribute this framework back to the jQuery framework. As Gubbay told us, jQuery's ability to create animations is still very basic, but the new framework should make it easier to create interactive HTML5 experiences. Adobe will talk more about this during tomorrow's MAX keynote where jQuery founder John Resigwill be on stage.

Working with WebKit

These tools, however, as Gubbay told us, are only one part of the equation. The browser itself also plays a fundamental role in ensuring that all of these design are displayed correctly. For digital publishers, however - and especially those who want to bring traditional print material online - most browsers' still can't quite render the complex layouts that these publishers are looking for. With HTML, it is still virtually impossible to wrap text around arbitrary shapes, for example, or to manipulate typefaces. To fix this, Adobe is working closely with Google and the WebKit project to ensure that the controls are available in modern browsers like Safari and Chrome.

Martha Stewart joined Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch on stage during today's MAX keynote and demonstrated an interactive version of her magazine on the iPad, but as Gubbay told us, the company also hopes to be able to help designers to bring their products to the numerous new tablets that will launch before the end of the year. Conde Nast's CTO Joe Simon also announced that the company will use Adobe's told to bring its magazines (including Wired and The New Yorker) to tablets. With SiteCatalyst, Adobe will offer an analytics platform for publishers who want to get a detailed view of how their readers use their digital editions.

WebKit2 is designed from the ground up to support a split process model, where the web content (JavaScript, HTML, layout, etc) lives in a separate process. This model is similar to what Google Chrome offers, with the major difference being that we have built the process split model directly into the framework, allowing other clients to use it.

What does this mean for users? First of all, Safari and every other application that uses WebKit, including the popular NetNewsWire RSS reader or the Konqueror browser for KDE, for example, will soon be able to rely on the same kind of crash protection that Google Chrome currently offers. Microsoft's IE8 already features a similar crash-protection mechanism and as our own Sarah Perez noted earlier today, the latest beta version of Firefox (Lorentz) now also lets some processes (Flash, QuickTime and Silverlight) run in separate instances.

Getting Ready for Multi-Core Browsing

WebKit2 will also implement a number of APIs that will make applications more responsive. These will allow applications to render web content in the background without blocking other processes that the application wants to execute. As Stephen Shankland points out, this technique will also make it easier for developers (including Apple) to take advantage of multi-core chips.

For a more detailed look at the technical side of WebKit2, also have a look a this document from the WebKit2 team.

Good for Mobile Web Developers

Of course, these are benchmarks and don't necessarily correlate directly into a superior user experience, but it is good to see that even iPhone 3G users will see significant speed gains from the 3.0 release. This should give mobile developers quite a boost, as they can now develop and run more complex, cross-platform compatible web apps that won't be hindered by the mobile browser's performance, though the Android-powered G1 is still pretty slow according to Medialets and the Palm Pre sees the same performance as a 3G with the 3.0 OS.

For now, however, there are also still a few million iPhone 3G users who haven't updated their phones' operating system yet...

Since the first beta release, Google has focused on fixing stability issues (especially with regards to playing Flash video), sped up the already fast V8 JavaScript engine, and added a better bookmark manager and privacy controls.

According to Google, the next step in the development of Chrome will be the addition of an extension architecture similar to Firefox's. Google is also planning to release Mac and Linux versions soon.

Lots of Users Already

Here at RWW, about 5.2% of our readers used Chrome in November (which is down from the 6.3% we saw when it launched in September and a lot of folks decided to give it a try) and a lot of our writers also use it on a daily basis. In comparison, about 2% of our readers use Opera and 9% use Safari.

A New Focus on Speed

If anything, the release of Chrome engine has made all the other browser developers focus on the speed of their JavaScript engines again, which can only be a good thing for those of us who spend a lot of our days in browsers. The only missing piece that is still holding Chrome back today is the absence of a good extension architecture.

At another meeting in Sydney, Ballmer also announced that Microsoft was definitely not interested in reconsidering an acquisition of Yahoo.

According to the Associated Press, Ballmer clearly stated his disinterest in going back to the negotiating table with Yahoo anytime soon. Just two days ago, Yahoo's CEO Jerry Yang said that he would consider another offer from Microsoft. Ballmer, however, also acknowledged that "some kind of partnership around search" might still be an option.

Microsoft and WebKit

Looking at the video of Ballmer talking about Webkit (he talks about it at about the 38:50 mark), it quickly becomes clear that Microsoft has no interest in supporting WebKit. Ballmer talks about the importance of web standards and how Apple used WebKit for building its own browser. Ballmer also states that he feels confident about Microsoft's ability to develop interesting browser technologies itself.

While it would surely be interesting if Microsoft did indeed use WebKit for its browser, and while it would also make sense on many levels, it seems that we are still a long way off from seeing an open-source based Internet Explorer.

Benchmarks

We used the SunSpider benchmark to test the latest version of WebKit against Google's Chrome. The results are quite impressive. WebKit with SquirrelFish Extreme finished the benchmark in 1235ms while Chrome needed 1598ms. The latest production version of FireFox took 3424ms to complete the benchmark. We were not able to test FireFox with TraceMonkey enabled (running the benchmark crashed the browser), but judging from these results, it is clearly a lot slower than both ScquirrelFish Extreme and Chrome.

We also ran the Mozilla affiliated Dromaeo benchmark, which takes a more holistic approach and does not just look at the JavaScript engine. Here, too, SquirrelFish Extreme outperformed Chrome's V8 (4522ms vs. 5206ms).

In case you want to try these benchmarks for yourself, you can download the latest version of WebKit with SquirrelFish Extreme from here.

Competition at Work

When Google launched Chrome, it emphasized that it wanted to bring more competition into this market and to push the development of faster and better browsers. The fact that both the Mozilla and WebKit teams are working so hard to beat Google definitely proves that there is still a lot of room for improvement and that Google's plan is working.