Ironman273 Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 I thought this article touched on some good points. It's long but worth the read. Apple picks a fight it can't winMike Elgan June 14, 2007 (Computerworld) Apple rarely competes directly -- with anyone. Instead of slugging it out with other hardware and software companies on a level playing field, Apple historically creates its own playing field from scratch, then dominates it utterly. While nearly the whole industry participated in what used to be called the "IBM-compatible" market, with clone hardware running DOS, OS/2, Windows and, later, Linux, Apple refused to play. Instead, the company always built its own computers that ran its own operating system. Those funny "PC vs. Mac" ads create the false impression of direct, one-on-one, mano-a-mano competition between PCs and Macs, but it's a marketing sleight of hand. While a Mac is a unified, tightly controlled hardware-and-software product from Apple, a PC contains an unpredictable mixture of hardware components integrated by any number of companies, lorded over (usually) by a Microsoft operating system. If PCs were made by Microsoft, and Microsoft didn't allow anyone else to make PCs, then you could make an apples-to-apples comparison, as it were, between PCs vs. Macs. But they're not, so you can't. While Dell competes directly with Hewlett Packard and hundreds of other companies in the PC space, Apple does not compete directly with anyone in the Mac market. Don't get me wrong; this isn't a bad thing. There are advantages and disadvantages to Apple's approach, and the success of Apple brings welcome choice to the market. Likewise with the iPod. The portable media player market is the House That Apple Built. The company owns the iTunes platform and largely controls digital music distribution. Steve Jobs is the most powerful man in Hollywood, and he doesn't even live there. Apple doesn't compete directly with anyone in the media player market because, like the Macintosh market, Apple created the media file management platform (iTunes), the content marketplace (digital file distribution through iTunes) and standards, and doesn't let anyone else play. With the iPhone, Apple is once again refusing to compete directly in the cell phone market. While some handset makers compete directly with each other in the Windows Mobile, Symbian and other "open" platform markets, companies like Research In Motion, Palm and, soon, Apple all play in their own respective, self-created sandboxes. Controlling your own platform has proved for RIM and Palm to be the way to go, and will also be successful for Apple. Apple is once again creating its own category -- call it the Mac OS-based cell phone category -- and I'm sure Apple will win 100% market share. I can think of only one example in which Apple competes directly with other companies on a level, open playing field: the software media player market. Apple's Windows version of QuickTime competes directly with Microsoft's bundled Windows Media Player, RealNetworks' RealPlayer and others. Although QuickTime holds its own, Apple doesn't dominate market share. But from a quality and usability standpoint, QuickTime is by far the superior player, in my opinion. For video quality, sound quality and ease of use, QuickTime rules in every element of the user experience. So why do I have such a bad feeling about Safari for Windows? By announcing a Windows version of Apple's Safari browser, Jobs uncharacteristically entered a mature market not created or controlled by Apple. This is Sparta The insular Apple universe is a relatively gentle place, an Athenian utopia where Apple's occasional missteps are forgiven, all partake of the many blessings of citizenship, and everyone feels like they're part of an Apple-created golden age of lofty ideas and superior design. But the Windows world isn't like that. It's a cold, unforgiving place where nothing is sacred, users turn like rabid wolves on any company that makes even the smallest error, and no prisoners are taken. Especially the Windows browser market. This is no Athens. This is Sparta. Apple sent its first emissary, the beta version of Safari for Windows, into the Windows world, and it was unceremoniously kicked into the well. Hours after Jobs announced Safari for Windows (and despite Apple's claim that Safari is "designed to be secure from Day One") security experts published information about some 18 security holes found in the new browser. Bloggers and message board posters lunged at the news, and heaped vicious scorn and ridicule on Apple and Safari. The browser is beta, and bugs are expected. Apple fixed the problems just three days after they surfaced. Apple-fan bloggers are aghast at the rough treatment. But they'd better get used to it. While security nerds were ripping Apple for a buggy beta, the UI enthusiasts started going after Apple for the look and feel. Here's a small sample. Apple can expect much more of this in the future. The problem? Safari for Windows just isn't Windows enough. Windows can only be resized from the bottom-right corner. Safari uses Mac OS X font anti-aliasing instead of Windows' built-in ClearType, and fonts look blurry and all bold, all the time. Menus are hard to read. Safari uses its own, unalterable, nonstandard key combinations for things like flipping through tabs. The list goes on and on. In Apple's Athenian utopia, the company's overwhelming superiority complex is a good thing. Its products are beautiful, Apple stores are breathtaking and the software user interfaces smack of sublime perfection. But when Apple asserts its "superior" user interface conventions in a Windows context where everyone is used to and comfortable with the Microsoft way, bad things happen. Windows users are forced to use iTunes if they want to play their iPods, which, like everyone else, they do. But it's a painful, time-consuming and irritating experience for many who are used to largely standardized Windows conventions of button, bar and menu placement and functionality. Apple gets away with its our-way-or-the-highway UI design with QuickTime because controls beyond the standard VCR "Play," "Pause," "Stop," "Fast-forward," etc., are unnecessary and therefore absent. But on a browser, Apple will need to do things the Windows way or get eaten alive. Although Microsoft's Internet Explorer dominates browser market share, Apple's real competition is Firefox, which most active and advanced users love and which is the other major browser not bundled with Windows. Most people inclined to install a second or replacement browser on Windows have already done so, and most have installed Firefox. Firefox fans are small in number compared with Internet Explorer users, but they're a passionate, enthusiastic and vocal crowd. It's these Firefox users that Apple will find at the entrance of the Windows browser market, with swords and shields at the ready. Mozilla has taken a play out of Microsoft's own playbook by making Firefox almost fully compatible with a World Wide Web largely designed to work on IE. Rather than fighting and resisting these de facto standards, it has embraced and even improved upon them. Will Apple follow this winning formula? The beta suggests it may not. Apple will need to approach Windows UI with humility -- a rare commodity at Apple -- and do things the Microsoft way, or pay the price in market share. Why pick a fight now? Some analysts are suggesting, and I tend to agree with them, that a primary motive for entering the browser fight this late in the game has little to do with browsers and everything to do with iPhones. Jobs announced Monday that the iPhone would support third-party applications only in the form of Internet-based browser applications. And guess which browser runs on the iPhone? Apple no doubt wants to provide additional incentive to software developers to build sites and applications that support Safari. See how Apple "thinks different" about these things? Rather than providing iPhone users with the existing universe of largely IE-optimized applications and sites in a browser that supports existing standards, and telling iPhone application developers to just go ahead and build universally compatible apps that will also run on the iPhone, Apple feels the overpowering need to once again build and control a new, proprietary playing field. This is the problem with Apple's plan: To control the user experience of third-party apps on the iPhone, Apple needs to control a quasi-proprietary browser platform. To get developers to build for the browser, Apple needs the power of market share. To get market share, Apple needs Windows compatibility and Windows-user acceptance. And -- here's where the logic fails -- to get a critical mass of Windows users, Safari needs to embrace existing Web standards, UI conventions and functionality. The iPhone will do fine in the market, and a smattering of cool apps will be written for Safari-on-iPhone. But I think Safari will get slaughtered in the bare-knuckled brawl that is the Windows browser market. Apple may believe that it can enter and dominate at least the "alternative" Windows browser market as it did the media player space. But this is an entirely new and unfamiliar world for Apple. Direct competition on a level-playing field that Apple doesn't control just isn't Apple's thing. Safari on Windows will fail. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitebread Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 (edited) Interesting article. I tend to agree. I think Apple is going to have a very hard time breaking into a market already dominated by IE/FF/Opera/Maxthon/etc. guylaroche Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigDaddy5 Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 (edited) This has to be one of the most poorly written articles ever written. I couldn't even tell what the author was trying to say with such a jumpy introduction. The points he makes are valid, I believe, but I couldn't finish the article after the introduction. Seriously...there should be some sort of introduction to what he is going to talk about, especially if he's going to make the jump from singing apples praise about apple creating market segments, and then come out of nowhere with a "why do I have a bad feeling for safari?" There was no build up, no transition, just a...bam. Anyway, maybe I'll read it later, I just couldn't get over how poorly the opening paragraphs were written. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tao muon Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 Interesting article, sort of. The iPhone is, IMHO, a love it or leave it thing. If you buy it, it's because you're already a devout Apple user. If you don't, it's because what you already have does just everything the iPhone promises and you don't see any real value in another device... particularly one two to three times more expensive than what's already out there. Or maybe you're one of those people that likes key fobs and status points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clonk Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 Great article, and it talking about in great detail one of my biggest gripes with Safari the moment I installed it on my PC, it doesn't feel like a windows app, and I didn't want to use it. Even Mozilla was smart and took the time to make Firefox feel at home on each of its respective platforms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Veteran Posted June 18, 2007 Veteran Share Posted June 18, 2007 Great article, and it talking about in great detail one of my biggest gripes with Safari the moment I installed it on my PC, it doesn't feel like a windows app, and I didn't want to use it. Even Mozilla was smart and took the time to make Firefox feel at home on each of its respective platforms. It's not that they made it look good on every platform (it looks like **** on OS X), it's that they made it so customizable. I can relate to this guy for sure. I would use Safari for Windows if I had to use Windows for an extended period of time, but only because I use a mac now. The font looks better for me, and the app feels more comfortable. Only OS X users, however, feel that way. And not all of them, either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuarterSwede Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 Rather than providing iPhone users with the existing universe of largely IE-optimized applications and sites in a browser that supports existing standards, and telling iPhone application developers to just go ahead and build universally compatible apps that will also run on the iPhone, Apple feels the overpowering need to once again build and control a new, proprietary playing field. Safari needs to embrace existing Web standards Hello, Safari is already more web compliant then IE. Am I the only one that thinks this article was crap!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arpit Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 i think, given that iphone dev is going to be safari based, the browser is not going to die, that is, unless the iphone fails brutally. apple doesn't plan to increase the market share with safari.. more like, that's an added bonus for them IMO.. they just want safari to be installed on the machines that would be used by developers for iphone apps. if someone can create a nifty little app for iphone for a few bucks using windows, but he needs to have safari installed for it.. why not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaJoR Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 Hello, Safari is already more web compliant then IE. Am I the only one that thinks this article was crap!? ANYTHING is more compliant then IE. When they made IE7, Microsoft continued to completely ignore all web standards. When I ran Safari, it worked better then Opera at handling webpages. It was pretty nice. But the other flaws were much too annoying for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillz Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 ANYTHING is more compliant then IE. When they made IE7, Microsoft continued to completely ignore all web standards.When I ran Safari, it worked better then Opera at handling webpages. It was pretty nice. But the other flaws were much too annoying for me. Not all web standards, just most of them. IE7 has better support for CSS, now includes full support for .png with alpha transparency, among a few notable others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted June 18, 2007 Veteran Share Posted June 18, 2007 Main problem with the article, is that it assumes Safari is a brand spanking new product, and hasn't existed on the OS X platform for a few years (and it isn't tied to the platform, you can uninstall it, Safari is only a UI around a system component, a LGPL licensed component at that.) Hello, Safari is already more web compliant then IE. Am I the only one that thinks this article was crap!? A lot of people still think Safari is some odd browser with support around the IE level. It's more in line with Opera, Firefox and Konqueror (duh!) of course (in some cases surpassing them, in others lagging behind a bit, but you can say that for all 4) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solardog Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 Those funny "PC vs. Mac" ads create the false impression of direct, one-on-one, mano-a-mano competition between PCs and Macs, but it's a marketing sleight of hand. While a Mac is a unified, tightly controlled hardware-and-software product from Apple, a PC contains an unpredictable mixture of hardware components integrated by any number of companies, lorded over (usually) by a Microsoft operating system. truth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacer Posted June 18, 2007 Share Posted June 18, 2007 ...But from a quality and usability standpoint, QuickTime is by far the superior player, in my opinion. For video quality, sound quality and ease of use, QuickTime rules in every element of the user experience. I stopped reading after that. Ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ethere Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 As far as Safari goes, I've been using it on Vista since the release, and I'm enjoying it. I really like the way it feels and renders websites, as well as the fonts that are used. Yes, it doesn't have everything that FireFox has (I miss my ad-block), but it's still pretty good for a beta release. The RSS reader is by far superior to that in FireFox (even with extentions) and IE. Other than ads showing up all over websites, I've pretty much been using Safari for most of my web browsing. I'll be looking forward to seeing the progression of this browser on the Windows platform. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samboini Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 Let's just say that on the Macbook I use I installed FF over having to use Safari. I would be very suprised if Safari ever exceeded 10% market share, at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leddy Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 ...But from a quality and usability standpoint, QuickTime is by far the superior player, in my opinion. For video quality, sound quality and ease of use, QuickTime rules in every element of the user experience. I don't know what it's like on Mac, but QuickTime on Windows is the most horrible video player I have ever had the misfortune to set my eyes upon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BajiRav Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 As far as Safari goes, I've been using it on Vista since the release, and I'm enjoying it. I really like the way it feels and renders websites, as well as the fonts that are used. Yes, it doesn't have everything that FireFox has (I miss my ad-block), but it's still pretty good for a beta release. The RSS reader is by far superior to that in FireFox (even with extentions) and IE. Other than ads showing up all over websites, I've pretty much been using Safari for most of my web browsing. I'll be looking forward to seeing the progression of this browser on the Windows platform. You could always use a host file. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazket Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 I stopped reading after that. Ridiculous. And how is it Ridiculous? If I'm not mistaking he said "in my oppinion". Windows Media Player doesn't play MP4 videos like QT does right? Windows Media Player doesn't have an option to "save as" another video/media format as QT does, does it? Windows Media Video don't use H.264 for high-quality/low-bandwith usage compression like QT MP4s does, right? Quick Time shouldn't be compared to Windows Media Player as an all-media handling app, but it beats WMP to the ground when it comes to video and its capabilities. Back to the thread's subject... Have you seen Apple's website where it says "The best Web Browser now runs on Windows"..... lol... they're taking it too serious :-/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harlem39s Finest Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 apple apps for windows suck badly, itunes, quicktime and now safari... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Decryptor Veteran Posted June 19, 2007 Veteran Share Posted June 19, 2007 And how is it Ridiculous? If I'm not mistaking he said "in my oppinion".Windows Media Player doesn't play MP4 videos like QT does right? Windows Media Player doesn't have an option to "save as" another video/media format as QT does, does it? Windows Media Video don't use H.264 for high-quality/low-bandwith usage compression like QT MP4s does, right? Quick Time shouldn't be compared to Windows Media Player as an all-media handling app, but it beats WMP to the ground when it comes to video and its capabilities. Back to the thread's subject... Have you seen Apple's website where it says "The best Web Browser now runs on Windows"..... lol... they're taking it too serious :-/ QuickTime is a massively different beast on the PC and Mac, on the PC it's mainly a player (a crappy one at that), on the Mac it's mainly a multi-media handling framework. And my WMP plays MP4 ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diek Posted July 4, 2007 Share Posted July 4, 2007 Not all web standards, just most of them. IE7 has better support for CSS, now includes full support for .png with alpha transparency, among a few notable others. Alpha transparency... yay for IE7? Firefox, Opera an even Safari beta on Windows do it, and FF/Opera have for quite some time. IE7 has the worst CSS support ever seen on any browser. It's just sad to be designing sites and noticing that it displays correctly on FF, Opera (I have to say even better on Safari beta -and I'm not a very Apple friendly person- ) and it's a mess with IE7 (and IE6... one can almost sit and cry). Safari, FF and Opera manage early CSS3 styles quite neatly (even Konqueror), but IE7? not really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ancodi Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 well, i am using Sifari right now, and I love it! i really do! the text is neat and easy to read, it looks awesome, it's just a shame it doesn't have the red-green-blue in the top right corner, like you can get in fast-stone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kizzaaa Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 This reminds me of the early days in 2001/2002 when everybody thought the iPod was a failure. One source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quillz Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 This reminds me of the early days in 2001/2002 when everybody thought the iPod was a failure.One source I dunno, the original iPod was pretty bad (IMO, of course.) While it made sense at the time to have it a Mac-only product, it was still stupid to cut off Windows support for so long, as well as the insistence of FireWire, something few PCs even today come with standard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DDStriker Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 I don't know what it's like on Mac, but QuickTime on Windows is the most horrible video player I have ever had the misfortune to set my eyes upon. Agreed. I thought i was the only one :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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