Kind of an unexpected news item: Apple is releasing Safari Public Beta 3 of their up until now Mac-only Safari Browser for Windows !
Even though i am not a huge Apple-fan (yes, their iPod was a revolutionary invention and so is Mac OS X), I immediatly wanted to look at this new enemy after the two main competitors (IE and Firefox) sort of became friends (MS is very much embracing Firefox these days and seems to be doing quite a lot to accommodate other browsers as well. In my opinion, the last months have been the most promising for Web Developers).
At first, I was thrilled knowing that there would soon be a different browser in the game, but after installing it, I must say that I am WORRIED!
a) Apple continues to dictate more and more their terms: Downloading the browser is not possible without leaving your email address. Not a real issue, and fake addresses are accepted as well. The iPhone will (rumours tell) have a permanent SIM-card, thus Apple dictates which Networks you can use - and even makes money with each conversation you hold through your iPhone...
b) Apple is trying wherever possible to include Quicktime in your download. iTunes requires you to install Quicktime (i forgot to mention that I do not need Quicktime, find it a memory hog and for a Windows Application, the User Interface is just not to my taste). And at the moment, they offer a download link for Safari including Quicktime, and one link with just Safari. I assume that the second option will be gone soon.
c) The browser displayed most of my test websites I looked at (www.news.com, www.mozilla.org, www.cnn.com, www.joinup.ch) in a horrible layout, leaving even news headlines on www.cnn.com completely unreadable (several lines of text on CNN only rendered as a single pixel line !
d) The User Interface looks like the typical Apple User Interface (take iTunes or Quicktime).
Nielsen or any other Usability-geek probably starts to shiver as we speak.
e) Installing Safari went smoothly (without Quicktime of course :-)) on my Office PC (standard-config), but launching Safari twice resulted in two crashes after visiting a few Web Sites, having used it for merely three minutes.
Granted, it's a beta, but it's a public beta, and it's beta three.
But it's public.
It does look good for everyone who likes it - but it doesn't at all fit into any Windows UI. And it doesn't work. Crashes and very very obvious rendering issues (big parts of Web Pages were simply missing!) don't speak for Apple this time.
Every Beta 1 Microsoft for example releases is much more stable than Safari Beta 3. So for now, i'd recommend to either use it on a Mac or not at all. Take Firefox or even IE7, you'll be much happier.
It remains to be seen how this all affects Web Developers. Will the have to embrace yet another browser that renders completely different ? Or will Apple manage to adhere to Standards at least in the area of a Browser like Firefox or Opera ?
I hope so - otherwise, developing Web Applications will get even more costly on the part of CSS and styling then it already is. And that can not be in any interest, not even in the Google/Apple/Yahoo conglomerate.
Let's see - it definitely won't be as peaceful anymore as it has been in terms of browser-war.
:-)
