Someone Else

If you can read this then Apple have pulled off something really interesting.

Not that I expect a lot of people to be paying attention to my little blog in the sea of virtual "ink" that will be spilled over this, but what the heck.

Apple have released a public beta of Safari 3, the browser they are aiming to include in Leopard. Not too much unusual about that you say, unless you're a mac-fan, in which case the idea of a public beta for an Apple product is interesting in itself.

BUT the latest version of Safari is not just an Apple app, it's a Windows app too. No, really. I'm being serious. And also, I'm typing this article with it. Again, no seriously, I am.

It isn't perfect. I've already discovered that I'm going to have to go back and add the links above to the article via Firefox, but then this is beta software, so I'm willing to let that one go - especially when you consider that I'm sitting here quite happily typing away into a webpage edit-box from within Safari, using shortcuts like ctrl-i for italics quite happily.

But... Why?

Good Question (ooh, ctrl-b works too!). I've seen (on the uk.comp.sys.mac newsgroup) and thought of a couple of ideas already, which I'm happy to float here in the interests of kickstarting discussion.

• It's something to do with iPhone. Either dropping Safari onto someone's desktop is the easiest way of delivering some component needed for iPhone, or it's to provide Windows-based iPhone customers with a single browser they can use on both platforms. Not too sure about this one (especially the latter version of this idea) but it's not impossible.

• Browsers are sexy again, and Apple want some more action from Windows users. Again, not too sure that browers being a bit more of a trendier subject now than they were 18 months ago justifies the effort to port Safari, but exposing Windows users to more Apple technology as part of providing a nice gentle ramp towards switching to a Mac might have some legs to it. I'd expect this to be more of a romantic notion (but what's wrong with that?) than something justified with a spreadsheet though.

• Safari is faster than IE, and we (Apple that is) want to expose everyone to this wonderful browser. The above reason in different clothes. My feelings here are that on a vaguely modern computer, all the browsers are 'fast enough' so that speed is irrelevant. What matters now is 'how well does it render'?

• Putting Safari onto Windows "lowers the barrier" and reduces the excuses Windows-based web designers use for not tesing their sites with Safari. I'll admit I like this idea because it's mine. Despite being heavily biased towards this one, I'm not sure it justifies the porting effort by itself. I'm sure it's a planned part of the "collateral damage", as it were.