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Apple's Safari, So Far

Posted by malebolgia on 22 September 2003 - 18:27 · 49 comments & 853 views

When Apple kicked off 2003 by releasing its own browser, "Safari," Macintosh users greeted the release with enthusiasm. In Safari's first six months, users downloaded more than 5 million copies of the beta software. But analysts voiced a concern, which turned out to be well-founded. In early summer, Microsoft announced it would no longer release new versions of Internet Explorer for Macintosh. "Was this a self-fulfilling prophecy?" Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg wondered.

"Apple clearly needs to be in charge of its own destiny for critical parts of its operating system, like the Web browser. On the other hand, when Apple took control of that destiny, it led Microsoft to pull back from their IE development, which was the thing that Apple feared in the first place," Gartenberg told NewsFactor. Without a future version of IE, Safari's performance becomes critical for the Macintosh's famed user interface. Is Apple's browser up to the task?

News source: NewsFactor

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(1 reply) #1 Posted by Chicane-UK on 22 Sep 2003 - 18:30: Using it now, and have been for the past 3 weeks or so.

On the whole I have been very impressed with it... a couple of little performance issues, but really nothing to write home about. I actually prefer it to the Macintosh version of IE!!

(2 replies) #2 Posted by kirk26 on 22 Sep 2003 - 18:37: Safari still doesn't show my Outlook Web Access correctly. Half the time my text is jumbled up and I have to increase my font size.

(1 reply) #3 Posted by CiamS on 22 Sep 2003 - 18:53: I use OWA in Safari all the time, and have never had any issues. Odd. In fact, there are some features that show up in Safari that don't appear in Windows/IE that I really like...

-C

(1 reply) #4 Posted by Coolme on 22 Sep 2003 - 19:02: Great, more spending, less profits for Apple

(1 reply) #5 Posted by kairon on 22 Sep 2003 - 19:18: Yeah, lets not develop a browser and set ourselves up for a big loss when MS pulls IE. Really though, I'm sure the people who worked on Safari mostly worked at Apple already, so no-little loss is involved.

(5 replies) #6 Posted by bangbang023 on 22 Sep 2003 - 19:46: what about those sites that require IE? what are mac users going to do about that?

#7 Posted by SimplyPotatoes on 22 Sep 2003 - 21:15: go fight at browserwars.com thatsa coolwebsite

(4 replies) #8 Posted by C_Guy on 22 Sep 2003 - 21:17: Why is Apple so surprised that Microsoft pulled out? Microsoft makes absolutely zero profit on Mac IE. They only made it in the first place to enhance their customer base.

Even the most novice Mac Users would be more likely to choose a web browser biult by the designer of their Operating System (Mac) than a competing company (Microsoft) unless they had a strong brand loyalty to the competitor. But in that case they would be using Windows anyway.

It makes total business sense for Microsoft to pull out.

(9 replies) #9 Posted by nic on 22 Sep 2003 - 21:40

QUOTE

Apple clearly needs to be in charge of its own destiny for critical parts of its operating system, like the Web browser.

So wait, now the web browser is criticle to an Operating System? Ohhh...

#9.1 Posted by dp123 on 22 Sep 2003 - 21:46: Why are you dumbasses taking Gartenberg's silly quotes and taking as if they were from Apple? Gartenberg has never understood Apple.

#9.2 Posted by C_Guy on 22 Sep 2003 - 21:52: In the case of Windows it's not critical, it's a fundamental component. Apple has yet to innovate that far.

#9.3 Posted by nic on 22 Sep 2003 - 21:59

QUOTE (#9.1)

Why are you dumbasses taking Gartenberg's silly quotes and taking as if they were from Apple? Gartenberg has never understood Apple.

I never specified that the quote was from Apple. I merly quoted the article. What kind of dumbass makes such assumptions?

#9.4 Posted by dp123 on 22 Sep 2003 - 22:01: Well, I would disagree with C_Guy's appraisal but the two situations are vastly different. Apple allows for the elimination of the app without destroying the underlying web framework. Apple allows for any browser to be easily selected as the primary browser. Removing the browser app has no effect on the system.

MS was foolish for insisting that if you remove the app, you must also remove the underlying components which broke the system. That sort of idiocy is what got them in trouble.

#9.5 Posted by dp123 on 22 Sep 2003 - 22:04

QUOTE

I never specified that the quote was from Apple. I merly quoted the article. What kind of dumbass makes such assumptions?

Oh... uh, huh. What you wanted to do was to try to some sort of hypocrisy... But how can it be hypocritical if the situation is neither comparable or the way that Apple would describe it or sees it as or speaks of it... Oh, it's not.

So... I guess if your point was to show how Apple isn't hypocritical in this case, you've done so...

#9.6 Posted by nic on 22 Sep 2003 - 22:39: No. Just the first time I ever heard a statement like that, thought I'd comment about it.
Shhhieeshh....... can the stick get any further up there guy?

#9.7 Posted by clonk on 23 Sep 2003 - 02:35

QUOTE (#9.4)

MS was foolish for insisting that if you remove the app, you must also remove the underlying components which broke the system. That sort of idiocy is what got them in trouble.

Microsoft was not foolish for building their browser into the operating system. It makes sence from a programming perspective; why write two explorers to do the same thing when one can do the job. Honestly if it was anyone else other than Microsoft that decided to that this route they'd be getting praise.

#9.8 Posted by hoodedone on 23 Sep 2003 - 03:10

QUOTE (#9.7)

why write two explorers to do the same thing when one can do the job

Because uh... they're *not* the same job? Honestly, just because MS named them both "Explorer" doesn't make them interchangable. Looking at directories != looking at webpages. At all. A file browser is for looking through your folder heirarchy, while a web browser is for looking at web documents.

KDE has done something similar with Konqueror, but it isn't as stupid as what MS did, partly because you're not bound to KHTML -- you can use Gecko in Konqueror, and partly because the web and file browsers don't get in the way of each other as much.

#9.9 Posted by JaggedFlame on 23 Sep 2003 - 12:53: The whole point was that explorer could start rendering web pages, because the goal was to make browsing folders the same as browsing a web page with your files listed. If you ever looked at Windows 98 and Neptune betas, you might see where they were planning to go with it.

(3 replies) #10 Posted by Bryan000 on 22 Sep 2003 - 21:46: If it's anything like KDE's Konquerer browser (and obviously it is :p) I'm sure it's VERY up to task.

There are a few other good browser alternatives for any Mac user not satisfied with Safari. Mozilla (and all of it's variants) and Opera being the best IMO.

(5 replies) #11 Posted by Justin Hancock on 23 Sep 2003 - 00:36: Anyone who uses IE for Mac deserves to be shot. Better browsers are everywhere. Camino, Safari, iCab, Firebird, Mozilla, etc.

(3 replies) #12 Posted by Jelly2003 on 23 Sep 2003 - 06:42: Apple probably started developing its own browser because it knew that MS was going to cut development of IE.

With M$ stopping the development of IE on WIndows too I really hope that this move spells the end for IE's glory days.

Apart from its ability to render cool effects, IE isnt a very good browser, no tabs, no pop up blocking, no advert blocking, etc. Its high time that people started supporting other browsers.

#13 Posted by nacs on 23 Sep 2003 - 17:58: Speaking purely from a web developer standpoint, I'm glad MS decided to stop development on IE for the Mac.

IE for the Mac has so many rendering issues, half-assed CSS implementation and non-standard methods that it's a pain to make that browser work render something that works correctly with every other major browser out there.

#14 Posted by puredeath on 24 Sep 2003 - 20:53: I hope this safari venture is a disaster for a mac, and the whole company colapses. So many incompatibility issues with the code and formatting, I can't even begin to number. I have to support netscape 4.7 and now this piece of ****! God knows mozilla is the only thing that is right with the IE competition, everything else should be shelved or burned!

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