Why Safari For Windows Is A Big Deal
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A lot of people have been saying, “HUH” or “WTF” in response to Steve Jobs’ announcement earlier today that Apple was making a version of Safari available to Windows users.
The most logical reason behind this move is so that developers can use this version of Safari to test their Web sites and Web 2.0 applications in Safari and make sure they’re fully compatible with the popular Web browser (which up to now was limited to Mac users.)
Today Steve Jobs also announced that the Apple iPhone uses a full version of Safari and he encouraged developers to design Web 2.0 and AJAX applications specifically for it. The iPhone allows Web applications to interface with the iPhone services such as the iPhone’s address book, mail application, and mapping that is provided by Google over the AT&T Wireless network.
Safari shouldn’t be ignored by non-developers as it is a very strong and fast Web browser. In fact, its twice as fast as Internet Explorer and 1.6 times faster than Firefox! Safari’s rendering engine is very slick and you’ll notice that most Web pages simply look better in it and are easier to read thanks to its unique font smoothing.
Safari is definitely worth a try no matter what kind of user you are.
Tags: ajax, web site design, website design
3 Comments
David
June 12th, 2007
at 10:17am
How do you get that Safari is popular? I don’t know anyone with a Mac that uses it. They all use Firefox. Safari pretty much stinks in comparison to Firefox and even IE 7. To be honest, I don’t really care if pages display correctly in Safari or not.
X
June 12th, 2007
at 4:38pm
Um, hate to burst your bubble, Steve, but Safari sucks.
Fast? Sure, when it isn’t crashing. Strong? The smell, perhaps.
It renders CSS worse than Opera, FF and IE, it has a Hell of a time working with large files (large images, movies, sound) and, even harder to believe, but it manages to crash and burn more often than Windows ME did.
The only reason Safari might be useful on Windows is to leech a few hundredths of a percent from the other browsers. Nobody in their right mind is going to use Safari as their primary browser. Even the people I know who use Macs as their primary computer refuse to use Safari.
Very few web designers actually care about Safari. It is a very, very little-used browser that is overly flawed and is Hell to make hacks to view a page properly with.
foobar
June 12th, 2007
at 5:23pm
Huh? Does *anyone* use Safari (other than long enough to realize it sucks ass?)
As for the font anti-aliasing - well, to each their own. Joel has a different opinion to yours (see http://www.joelonsoftware.com). I can’t comment as I wouldn’t waste my time even trying Safari on Windows, given how horrible it is on my Mac.