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Safari Killing Opera for Mac OS X?
analog_line writes "According to an article at News.com, the folks at Opera have given an ultimatum to Apple: Use the Opera engine in Safari or we'll have to rethink developing Opera for the Mac. While I know people who use Opera for the Mac, I find it hard to believe that Opera thinks they'll get any response other than, 'enjoy developing for one less platform.'"
So what if Opera sued Apple for the same reason Netscape sued MS?
Apple is probably planning on bundling safari with OSX. Granted, they probably won't integrate it. Is this right or wrong? Is it anticompetitive? Analysis?
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
IE already comes with all Macs.
Safari will probably take IE's place as the default.
Is Safari really already so much better than IE that Opera and others see no hope in going up against it?
Is the sole selling point of alternative browsers really just that they're not from MS?
I don't understand why there's a willingness to work on alternative browsers when the default is from MS, but not if the default browser is from Apple. If Apple makes a feature complete, windows version of Safari available for free, how many of the alternative windows browsers will close shop?
"We think Safari is one of the best and most innovative browsers in the world, and it seems our customers do too," the Mac maker said in a statement. "No one is making Mac users choose Safari over Opera--they're doing it of their own free will--and Opera's trashing of Safari sounds like sour grapes to us."
Boy, that sure doesn't sound like someone in Public Relations would say. It'd be interesting to know just who it was at Apple who said this, as it seems more inflammatory than anything else.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
1>I think this is sounding like Opera might be in some trouble. This sorta reminds me of when Be Inc said "Open up your specs or we'll stop developing".
What does Opera think it will accomplish other than they won't have to spend money to make opera?
2>If this was to start a war like the early NS vs M$, I don't think Opera would have a chance. For one thing Safari is based on {GPL'd}KDE software and therefore Apple has released it's changes to the source code. It's a lot faster than Opera. Opera just sucks! I don't know what happened, it used to be the fastest browser around circa version 3. Maybe they need Helmar back in charge of Project Magic?
Is he still hanging out in Africa as was his last post to the Opera NNTP server several years back?
I have an Idea, how about Opera, instead of trying to force it's outdated browsing engine on others, why don't they just go grab apple's changes and use those at _THEIR_ new engine?
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Sorry bout the AC posting, but I think you're confusing Opera with OmniGroup and OmniWeb.
Ken Case, the CEO of OG and developer of the OW engine, said they would take a look at WebCore. I don't recall hearing anything out of Opera until now.
I think the most disturbing thing about this article is that CNET's treating Opera's whining as actual news.
Didn't they just say they were happy about Safari about a week ago?
No, that was Omni (a NeXT software company that has moved over to OSX). They produce a different browser but are thrilled about the Webcore (open source) engine since in their opinion this will allow them to make a better interface without having to worry about the engine. Omni believe it or not actually is better at cool looking easy to use interfaces than Apple (which is saying a lot).
1) Opera is out playing on the playground and bragging about how fast he is. 2) A new kid shows up and is actually fast. 3) Opera yells some obsenities. 4) Opera takes his ball and goes home. Kind of a testament to how good Safari is. Do you think Opera would be making this stink if Safari was no good? It's like saying, "the Mac browser market was pretty easy to compete in because all of the browser were mediocre, but now Safari raises the bar and we don't feel like jumping" I know there are some definate advantages to being backed by Apple, but I still think no one would be complaining (except Apple fanatics) if Safari were just another average browser.
Like puzzle games? Warehouse51 for iOS
A reliable source mentioned to me a while ago that Opera was negotiating with Apple for a place on their desktop. Perhaps at the time Apple was debating whether to re-enter the browser market after having abruptly jilted poor old Cyberdog, and was contemplating an alliance outside of IE. So maybe Opera felt it had some assurances in place that their product would get a needed boost from Apple and relied on that to develop Mac product that was otherwise not worth the trouble, and maybe Apple pulled a fast one. Apple has been known to undermine developers in the past, and while it certainly has the right to do so it shouldn't deliberately alienate them. I know Apple feels it has to keep its next "killer app" under wraps until the next MacWorld, but there must be ways to telegraph intentions (or sign NDA's) with allies w/o tipping off competitors.
All guesses. But it does make Opera look less irrational.
Was back when I thought it took a great deal of time and effort to develop a high-performance browser, and bought Opera's performance claims. Then I met Chimera Navigator. Whatever happens, I think the for-profit model of browser development is dead.
by Opera's logic, we should hear the following press release... "Microsoft has just announced its own web browser, dubbed "Internet Explorer", and in a fit of childishness, we no longer see a point in developing Opera for Windows." because if we don't.. then its obvious that they are basically just pussies.
(Note to opera guys - you make a browser for Windows, and so does Microsoft. A little consistency with your whining would be nice)
if its not as obvious as the dead-squirrel on Congressman Trafficant's (D) head - the real issue is that Apple, in about 5 minutes during Steve's demo at MWSF, proved to the world that they can flat-out out code Opera and beat the bajezzuz out of them at their own game of "lightweight, small, fast, easy to use broswers".
They are pissed that they got so soundly defeated by a "hardware" company.
Life's tough, get a fscking helmet. - Dennis Leary
And damnit, that goes for everyone else who's whining about Apple making applications for Mac OS X and are complaining that Apple is "killing" the "small developers.
Good God... they GAVE you developers tools free with every copy of the OS, and have a website that guides you by the hand for FREE on how to make apps.
There are tons of tiny apps - PageSender, Watson, Interarchy, VueScan jump to mind - that are small, cheap, and GOOD!
At least guys like Waston have sack. They admitted that they were on their laurels, and - and this is the most important thing....
Watson is the BETTER thanks to Sherlock 3!
Its called competition. At all levels. As soon as someone makes a better video editor than iMovie - then bully for them.. i'll use it.
I might have paid "twice as much for my Mac as what i could get for a Windows box" but you know what?
i don't think or feel like i did, and things like Safari are the reason why.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
I have been a long time Opera users at the point I made my switch from Windows and Linux to Mac. I was a registered user of Opera and used to tell tell all my friends about it. My intent when getting my Mac was to buy the cross-platform upgrade and run Opera as my main browser. However before I spent the money, I tried out several of the other browsers and ended up buy an OmniWeb license. While OmniWeb has pretty bad standard support (especially CSS), it worked with most of the pages I used and I liked a lot of the options and settings it provided. For some reason, I could never place my finger on, Opera didn't feel at home on my Mac. I guess I'd gotten used to the MDI interface under windows... and Opera 5 beta or so just didn't feel polished/user friendly enough when I tried it.
Having mostly used OmniWeb for a while, when Safari came out I decided to try a bunch of different browsers again. Opera 6 looks a lot better than it did the last time I tried it, and I'm actually thinking seriously about switching back to Opera. I've also thought about switching over to Safari once it's not a beta and converting back to OmniWeb after it switches over to WebCore.
Personally I think that Apple's switch to Safari will help non-IE, non-gecko browsers and websites might adjust just a little to handle different browsers. One thing I can't help but wonder is... is this a tactic by Opera to get people to look at/buy there browser. After any media attention is good.
Anyone who develops for the Mac knows that everything is an uphill battle. You have to fight the good fight and make the best product you can knowing ahead of time that your market share will be slim. With this in mind, why are the developers of Chimera and Opera moaning and groaning about competition? Anyone that is a part of the Mozilla organization knows full well of this. Seeing that the Opera developers already compete on the Windows platform, what's the problem with competing on the Mac platform as well? They already compete with IE, OmniWeb, iCab, Chimera, Mozilla, etc. on the Mac platform.
/System/Library/Frameworks, /Library/Frameworks, or ~/Library/Frameworks, who cares? This makes it easy for developers to write applications that have HTML view's in their own programs. Gecko (CHBrowserView) could even be packaged as a framework and exist right along side WebKit. If you want you can delete any framework on your system that you don't like. While Apple may not give you the option to run Mac OS X on x86 machines, it does provide real software options, unlike Microsoft.
If anyone thinks Apple is going to pull a Microsoft and start saying that Safari is an integral portion of the OS and cannot be removed, let's look at their track record on other bundled applications. iTunes can be replaced by Audion and still have iPod support. Apple does nothing to prevent this. iChat can be replaced by Adium. Mail can be done away with and be replaced with Mutt, Pine, Entourage, etc. iMove, iPhoto, etc. can all be deleted and other applications may be used in their place.
I can drag Safari into the trash and it's gone. Should Apple release a version of Safari that links to WebKit frameworks installed in
Opera has a head start on Safari... instead of giving up, they could just try and out-innovate Safari they way Watson has out-innovated Sherlock.
Problem is, and we have seen it before, end users dont really care what browser they use ( or other applications for that matter), as long as long as they can check their webmail and surf. Lots of browsers do this just fine. Some do it better than others. But the fact remains that most end users will just use use what came with the system.
Ive used opera quite a bit on pc's and it's pretty fast. Bout a month ago i put it on my macintosh, a blazing 80Mhz runnin macos 9.1. It was dog slow compared to ie on that box.
Your post sums up my feelings quite well. I've tried just about every browser out there for both Mac and Windows.
:-)
(Windows at work because it pays the bills and Mac at home because all those Windows problems pay my bills quite well.
My default browser on my NT box at work is Opera 6. (I recently downloaded the Opera 7 beta and gave up the first day. They've got a long way to go with THAT beta before it's ready.) I made that decision because it IS fast and compatible and feature rich. I epecially like tabbed browsing, especially on Windows. It makes up for some of the other fundamental flaws in the Windows interface.
(For some reason, tabs are not nearly as important to me on a Mac. Haven't thought it through, but for some reason they're not as valuable. I've used Chimera but don't miss the tabs on my Mac. I've become almost dependent on them in Windows. It has something to do with the giant suckage that is the Windows GUI.)
On my Mac at home, I've tried them all and had settled on Omniweb (prior to the intro of Safari) because it had hands-down the best text rendering and most Aqua integrated interface. It was a true pleasure to use except that it sometimes choked on complicated (non-standard) Javascript and some CSS. I had to keep IE as a back up for the occasional site that OW puked at, but I used OmniWeb 99% of the time.
I tried Opera for Mac, but it was lagging WAY behind the Windows version and after a few days of use I could not find ONE compelling reason to continue using it. It blew goats. It had at least as many of the site compatibility problems as OmniWeb but wasn't as pretty. In fact, it was downright UGLY all the way around -- page rendering as ugly as IE with an interface even UGLIER than IE. It was not at all faster than OmniWeb. On top of all that, I had banners flashing in my face all the time reminding me I hadn't paid for this load of un-Mac-like crap. AND no tabs. (The primary reason I use it on Windows.)
When Safari was released, I downloaded it the first day but frankly didn't expect much because I knew it was beta. It has been my default browser since the evening of day one. I NEVER open IE anymore and rarely use OmniWeb for anything. I have recommended it to my non-geek mother and sister and they both love it. It's elegant and clean and pretty and FASTER than greased owl shit.
Opera for Mac sucked because those bone heads don't know how to develop for Mac, or don't care to. Either way, their Mac offering sucked and now they're pissed because even their Windows version can no longer honestly claim "Fastest browser on Earth."
If they don't want to develop for Mac anymore, I say good riddance. We still have half a dozen browsers to choose from on the Mac platform and they're ALL better than Opera.
System wide bookmarks would also be nice, as would the ability to have bookmarks in multiple folders. So too, would be the ability to remove menu items, and otherwise prune the interface down to what you want. Quick cookie swapping would allow you to change identities on the fly, without the tedious task of logging out / logging in.
But then we're talking about the power user, and not the simplicity and elegance of OSX. We're talking about Opera.
Opera: Baffling newbies since 1995
-C
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