Safari 3 vs. Firefox 2 and IE7 559
Bobcat writes "Ars Technica has a 'first look' at Safari for Windows, which is interesting because it's written from the perspective of someone new to Safari. It was tested against Firefox 2 and IE7 and aside from the slightly faster page loading, Ars didn't find much to recommend it to Windows users. 'The modest increase in rendering performance is hardly worth the deficiencies, and Safari's user interface simply doesn't provide the usability or flexibility of competing products. If the folks at Apple think that providing Windows users with a taste of Mac OS X through Safari is going to entice them to buy a Mac, it's going to take a better effort than the Safari 3 beta. Even if the final release is more polished and completely bug-free, it still won't be as powerful or feature-loaded as Opera or Firefox.'"
Meh, Safari (Score:1, Insightful)
I have no idea why Apple didn't go with a Gecko based browser variant. It makes no sense because Mozilla/Firefox was the second most popular browser out there and would have given Safari a huge leg up. I mean Gecko already supports many cool things like PKCS#11, smartcards, extensions/plugins and all sorts of stuff like that plus people already were considering it when writing web sites. Safari still doesn't even have any way to install and manage plugins! (to install a plugin requires a manual install program and it will have no way to update itself)
Re:Safari, and Mac OS X, are better. (Score:0, Insightful)
Congrats on failing at your job, you pathetic waste of life. DIAF.
Re:Oh really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Horrid UI (Score:5, Insightful)
It is ridiculous how many vendors insist on ignoring platform conventions for no good reason whatsoever. Why does every application have to have a God complex and say, "I'm so great, I'll put shortcuts in your start menu, quick launch, two tray icons (including an autoupdater) and now I have a custom UI so I look special." Whatever happened to programs just doing their job in an unobtrusive manner?
Re:Review summary: "It's not the same as FireFox" (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the reason why whenever people ask me what cross platform toolkit they should use I say: none. Write a GUI for each platform you want to support and use a common backend.. that way you are more likely to write a GUI that is suitable for the platform.
Of course, when they insist, I suggest they use Qt.
I have a similar reaction to iTunes. (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to be on the bubble about switching; iTunes pushed me away from Apple instead of encouraging me to make the leap. I still use it, because the Music Store itself is perfect for my needs, but I'm not surprised to hear that Safari is a poor effort.
If Apple wants to encourage people to switch, perhaps it should make some its better applications available, at least in a limited form. I love Dashboard and Expose (I think those are the right names), and simple commercial versions of those for the Windows environment might convince people to try an OS with better, smoother versions of those features built in.
Re:Oh really? (Score:4, Insightful)
So is your objection to IE the fact that it's bundled with Windows, making it the default browser over FF or Opera, or that it's bug-filled? And if it is the former, but it is different because "Microsoft is a monopoly," how is Apple using a similar position to become the dominant OS X browser morally or ethically (not legally) different?
Disclaimer: I think that bundling both Safari and IE was a breach of some kind of ethos best described as componentization.
The reason Safari is on Windows... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's to act as a development vehicle for iPhone, since all third party iPhone apps will be rich Web 2.0/AJAX applications.
On this topic, such applications can indeed have the look and feel of iPhone applications, and have access to all iPhone internal services, such as phone dialing, access to maps functionality, and any other iPhone services.
This isn't just, "Oh, let's bring out Safari for Windows for the hell of it, and let people see how good of a browser it is, and maybe they'll buy a Mac!"
This is the "SDK" for iPhone.
Re:Oh really? (Score:3, Insightful)
*WHOOOOOSH* (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe because Safari isn't trying to be a feature-loaded browser for "Power Users"? Apple makes elegant software that does everything needed and not an ounce more. Its design is to keep things simple, straightforward, and easy for your average user to pick up.
For example, which is more elegant: MusicMatch or iTunes? iTunes, of course. MusicMatch has more features, but it's a clunky beast because of it. Same with Safari. A minimalist approach that focuses on usability rather than obscure features.
Who says it's about making Windows converts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I stand alone on this, but when I first read about the Safari 3 launch for Windows, my 1st thought was "Cool, finally Windows based web developers can test against Safari". It never once crossed my mind that it would be something that would woo Joe Sixpack or even get much attention at all from the mainstream Windows user base.
Considering the only times I have issues with having Safari as my primary browser is with heavy AJAX stuff, getting the browser in front of developers seems a logical step to improve the existing Safari users experience.
Perhaps we can finally see an AJAX HTML/TEXT editor that works in Safari with version 3's new features and Windows support.
So hey Ars, Safaris appearance on the Windows platform has a definite value. Just not in the obvious ways you're thinking of.
Re:The reason Safari is on Windows... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. In addition, they might be hoping to make some money from search results, in the same way the Mozilla Foundation does:
"It's not widely publicized, but those integrated search bars in web browser toolbars are revenue generators. When you do a Google search from Safari's toolbar, Google pays Apple a portion of the ad revenue from the resulting page. (Ever notice the "client=safari" string in the URL query?)" - source [daringfireball.net]
This suggestion seems to be confirmed by the behavior I noticed: when you try to create a bookmark to google.com, or even to set it as your homepage. It'll popup a window asking you whether you really want to set google as your homepage (or bookmark it), as "you can already use the search bar to search google anyway".
Re:Safari has some problems with tags (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Review summary: "It's not the same as FireFox" (Score:4, Insightful)
And, for that matter, Office 2007. I'm using the Safari beta at home, alongside Firefox. Yeah, it doesn't follow some windows conventions. Some of the defaults seem like odd choices (the statusbar defaults to not being displayed, for instance.)
But its certainly usable, and it has a lot of nice little nifties compared to other browsers: highlighting active fields is very nice. And the page loading speed isn't a small improvement, either. Bonjour is interesting, too, though many home users probably won't notice it or get much use out of it. I'm not sure I'm going to switch over to Safari as may main windows browser, but its certainly got my interest.
Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
That isn't surprising, because it doesn't seem like "feature-loaded" was Apple's goal (is it ever?). There's probably a market for a fast and safe(r) browser to replace IE. You might say that Opera fits this bill quite well, but Apple's marketing will mean that less technical users will hear about Apple's new Windows browser. Apple has never been about including tons of features; they've always seemed to include the most popular features and add some UI polish (which doesn't fit in very well with Windows, IMO).
That being said, I was personally a little surprised by this announcement. iTunes allows iPods and the iTMS to work on Windows, hugely expanding the available market. Quicktime means that videos can be viewed on most computers. What does Safari mean? If a website is designed to work with Firefox, it'll probably work with Safari. Do they care enough to have websites start saying, "Please upgrade to IE v. X, Firefox v. Y, or Safari v. Z to view this site properly"?
When Safari comes out of beta, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Safari + iTunes + Quicktime bundle as one (default) download when you visit Apple's site.
Re:Horrid UI (Score:5, Insightful)
Though, if you look at it as the iPhone SDK instead, some of the choices make sense. You'd want to (for example) use the same anti-aliasing mechanism and widgets as the target device so that you know you're seeing things as they will look when deployed.
I don't plan on using Safari as my primary browser, but for compatibility testing websites, the fact that it isn't using a different Windows-specific rendering style makes it valuable for that role.
Re:less bugs is always good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Horrid UI (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:*WHOOOOOSH* (Score:4, Insightful)
The only experience with Apple software I can think of at the moment is Quicktime. The word "elegant" does not come to mind.
Re:Oh really? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Meh, Safari (Score:5, Insightful)
Safari is not based on Konqueror. Konqueror is a fairly generic application for running plugins. One plugin is KHTML, which is used for web browsing. WebKit, used by Safari, is based on KHTML.
Apple evaluated Gecko. They even hired Dave Hyatt to lead the Safari team. If you're not familiar with Dave's other work he:
- Worked at Netscape from 1997 to 2002,
- Created Chimera, which was later renamed Camino.
- Co-created Phoenix, which was later renamed Firefox.
- Wrote the first specifications for XBL and XUL
In spite of his obvious and heavy bias towards Gecko, he chose KHTML. That should tell you something about the quality of the Gecko codebase.Re:*WHOOOOOSH* (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. Nobody else seems to have grasped the irony of complaining that a browser is not as "powerful or feature-loaded as Firefox". Wasn't the original design goal of Firefox to be minimalist and fast? Any reviewer who thinks Firefox is great because of its power and feature set comes across as a bit of a noob.
FWIW, I use Firefox and Mozilla every day for web development, so I appreciate its power and feature set. However, I use Safari to Just Plain Browse, so then again I don't.
Re:The reason Safari is on Windows... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't call Google Maps a "Mac application" when it's running in Safari on OS X..
Re:Horrid UI (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft does it with every release of Office, and nobody seems to care, either. And Microsoft is no less firm than Apple in saying that people designing for their platform should follow their conventions, even though Microsoft itself doesn't in its big moneymaking software packages.
Since I would assume the point of Apple releasing Safari for Windows is either to promote Mac OS X or as a wedge to get people into the Apple style of application to prepare the way for a broader suite of Apple-on-Windows software (or both), I'm not at all surprised that they have not adapted it to the platform UI standards, since the idea is to change expectations, not follow them.
Whether it succeeds or not is still up in the air, but it wouldn't make any sense for them to go any other way given what clearly seems to be their goal.
Re:*WHOOOOOSH* (Score:5, Insightful)
Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Horrid UI (Score:3, Insightful)
How, precisely, do you imagine that such previewing would work if Safari on Windows didn't use the bloody the rendering algorithms and widgets the iPhone will be using? Safari uses different button and form elements on Macs and iPhones, so for Safari on Windows to be the least bit useful for its stated purpose, it has to use those widgets on Windows. Ditto the text rendering algorithms.
Re:Horrid UI (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Horrid UI (Score:4, Insightful)
neither does Apple.
Re:Review summary: "It's not the same as FireFox" (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a Mac user and a huge fan of Apple's, but I completely agree that's bad.
One of the most frustrating things about using Firefox in OS X is that it looks and feels horribly wrong because it ignors most Mac conventions*.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
I was prepared to call the article FUD before reading it... but then I noticed that it's Ars so I read it, and not only do the complaints seem valid, I don't even understand what Apple was thinking with some of the issues. For example, porting the OS X antialiasing over to Windows rather than using the native ClearType just seems weird (almost to the extent that I don't believe Ars Technica).
*Yes, I know about Camino [caminobrowser.org], but that doesn't diminish my point.
Re:The reason Safari is on Windows... (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I the only person that's terrified by the idea of allowing web browser apps to start dialling people? I really hope they get the security model correct.
Re:Slimmer and faster? I'm there! (Score:2, Insightful)
MediaMonkey (Score:3, Insightful)
I *tried* to use iTunes once also but find it really horrible. I felt as if I just cant do anything with my music library, in that way i felt iTunes similar to what what the GNOME ppl do (remove every feature for the sake of "simplicity" until you cant do anything). I used to use Windows Media Player also, which I really hate. Usually I returned to barebones Winamp... (I've got my 60GB mp3/ogg/flac/ape media library ordered by folders/subfolders).
All that nightmare was ended when I found MediaMonkey [mediamonkey.com] from another poster here in Slashdot. I have been using it for almost one year and I wont look back anytime soon.
As a side rant, my brother is visiting me in the UK, he's got an iPod (I dont like them for the lockdown and DRM, I have a great OGG/MP3 Samsung YPZ5)... he was making fun of me because of my "hatred" against apple... until he needed to delete some songs from his iPod... and the only way to do that? using iTunes... but as I do not like Apple software (not iTunes, nor Quicktime...) I do not have it installed in my computer... therefore he is locked out, with his piece of shit brick until he can find a PC that allows him to install iTunes... on the other hand every PC where I connect my el-cheapo YPZ5 sees it as a external memory and I can add and delete music as I please without downloading any spyware or adware.
Re:Meh, Safari (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Review summary: "It's not the same as FireFox" (Score:5, Insightful)
If the OS X style anti-aliasing is what is used on the iPhone, then it makes perfect sense.
As some others have already pointed out, the entire point of Safari for Windows is iPhone development, not necessarily winning over converts.
Re:Meh, Safari (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Safari works better on MacOS X (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft Office (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel the same way with every new version of Office.
Safari has to include OS X's font rendering and UI because it's what will be used on the iPhone. Safari for Windows is a development platform for iPhone web apps, developers will need Safari to look and feel exactly as it will on the OS X version of Safari that's running on the phone.
As for the look of the fonts, Apple's rendering attempts to portray the font as accurately as possible, which is important for their desktop publishing audience. You're used to what Windows does, which packs every line into the pixel grid so that it's thin and inaccurate. When you see what Times New Roman is actually supposed to look like on a screen, you think it's "blurry" because you've been staring at the 1-pixel wide, hackish typography of Microsoft's rendering for so many years.
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
still loading, so I switched to Safari and posted this. Hopefully FF will finished soon.
Any day now....
What it tells you. (Score:3, Insightful)
In spite of his obvious and heavy bias towards Gecko, he chose KHTML. That should tell you something about the quality of the Gecko codebase.
What it tells me is that KHTML was better suited to the task. Without knowing more about programming for OSX, I can't tell you more than that other than both Gecko and KHTML could have done the job.
Konqueror has spoiled me. KIOslaves rock. Nothing comes close to it in terms of a unified desktop experience.
Re:Slimmer and faster? I'm there! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually this is a thought that still goes through my head.
Apple basically told their entire customer base that the users were TOO STUPID to use a mouse with more than one button, and every Mac Fanboi rushed out to agree with Apple, not even realizing that they were arguing how stupid they were in agreement with Apple.
The religion Apple generates is almost scary sometimes. I do give them Marks for having a brilliant marketing department, it is up there with Jim Jones. However, I'm scared that they will release iKoolAid...
Re:They missed the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Pass [wikipedia.org] the Acid2 [webstandards.org] test?
Re:Pshhh... (Score:4, Insightful)
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1068/jtor5gjn8
I will use it (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't have to be a killer app. It's just another option, and I think it's fairly obvious that it's to assist people who want to develop applications that are likely to work on the iPhone.
Further evidence indicates it may have come to the point where so much of Safari was already included in iTMS support in iTunes that they "may as well" release the whole browser, and see how people react.
I find it endlessly amusing how Slashdot is repeatedly posting Apple bashing articles since WWDC. It looks like Jobs spit on taco's car or something. There has to be some kind of grudge here. And as for the rest of you, why do you complain about a free product like this? Are you Apple investors or something?