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Microsoft Kills Off Mac IE, Blames Safari
aliebrah writes "CNet reports that
Microsoft will not release any more major upgrades for Internet Explorer on MacOS. They cite competition from Safari as the reason for this decision, and say that Safari is a better browser for Macintosh systems. Ironically, they also say that they can't compete with Apple, because Apple has better access to the underlying operating system."
Yeah, that must be rough. Today's SlashDotFunQuiz is to predict the order in which, impact when, and years until these other Mac products get the axe: Media Player, MSN Messenger, Office, Outlook, and Virtual PC.
that Office will certainly be last. That's still a good source of revenue.
.-.--
There's no way the cult of Apple will ever disappear completely. The Apple crowd are the ones who produce most of the attractive media anyway. Maybe one day I'll stop seeing sites that require IE because of this decision.
Is Safari a w3c compliant browser?
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
.. anything that doesn't make them money. Remember, they're ruthless business people, not ruthless idiots.
(even though it can be hard to tell the difference)
I think they are confusing Windows and Mac OS X. The underlying operating system, Darwin, is open source. Or are they referring to the window manager? Why would they need access to the Window manager source???
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
This move by Microsoft could be the beginning of standards acceptance by web developers. Too many sites require Internet Explorer to work. Maybe web developers will wake up and start supporting standards, instead.
Alternately, this could spell big trouble for Apple. How will my Mom feel when she can't check her mutual funds using her Macintosh because the browser isn't compatible?
Is this an example of a development community unwittingly aiding and abetting Microsoft's abuse of monopoly power?
Microsoft felt that customers were better served by using Apple's browser, noting that Microsoft does not have the access to the Macintosh operating system that it would need to compete
When is Microsoft going to realize that tying their products into the operating system isn't synonymous with competition.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Anyway, Mozilla played as much part in its demise. I've used Moz since it's been available for OS X and aside from being slightly sluggish in early versions, it has always been a better, more stable, more compatible browser.
Not all of Mac OS X is open, though. Microsoft will never get access to QuickTime's source or Quartz's source. The second one is the problem, you see, because Safari uses low-level Quartz calls to render text. Safari's faster because of that, but unfortunately, only Apple has access to this.
/think./ I might be wrong. Any ADC member out there who has more information, hit the reply link down below. ;-)
I
Anyway, it's still a bullshit excuse from Microsoft. Look at how fast Camino is, for example. The Camino team has the same level of access to the DOCUMENTED APIs that Microsoft does, and yet their browser doesn't blow monkey dongs.
But that's Microsoft for you.
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
MacIE was the best browser Microsoft ever made: it was nearly 100% CSS1-compatible, and shared none of the WinIE's vulnerabilities.
Not to mention it had far better HTML (standard) support than WinIE, better PNG handling, a good DOM level 1 implementation, and support for ECMA 262, not "Javascript" or "JScript".
Tantek Ãelik and team did a wonderful job, and it's a real bad decision by the Seattle Moloch to axe their one product you cannot complain about in all fairness.
Microsoft should have based WinIE 6 on MacIE5.
I hope the people that worked on MacIE are the ones that will build the next-gen IE, and not those incompetent hacks who made the Windows versions.
As soon as they can make more money doing so than continuing as they are now.
After seeing that they "can't compete with Apple":
Pot. Kettle. Black.
I'd say "How do you like them apples", but it's too obvious a pun.
To be half serious, it was obvious this was coming - they've been in maintenance mode on IE/Mac since MacOS X 10.1 (fall 2001) - the only updates they've done since then have been for security/critical bugfixes. Until Safari, Mozilla/Camino was the only real option for a forward-looking browser.
Also, apparently there's a IE release coming out Monday, after which it's over except for the aforementioned security/critical bugfix patches. If IE breaks on 10.3, for instance, it's a pretty good bet that a fixed IE will ensue - elsewise their browser share in the Mac market goes to 0% real quickly.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
This is not such a bad thing.
It means that as long as Apple retains its current market share, there will be a sizeable portion of internet users browsing the web without IE, which will hopefully result in less browser-specific coding by webmasters.
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
Needing access to the underlying OS is just a poor excuse. Mozilla is a far better browser than IE, and that works on just about every OS imaginable, so presumedly you don't need to low level OS know-how to make a top notch browser.
They say competition from Safari, but I believe the most important statement is "Some of the key customer requests for Web browsing on the Mac require close development between the browser and the OS, something to which only Apple has access,"
This is the argument that they made about their browser and their OS. What better way to bring credibility to their argument that stating that another OS will be better served with a browser that closely integrates with its OS.
Hah. A little competition.....and Microsoft bails out.
Does anyone really believe this? If you do then I've got a couple of landmarks and bridges for sale if you're interested.
Safari, and Apple's access to the OS, is just lip service done by a PR rep looking for some reason to excuse themselves from the Mac market. The Mac port of IE simply makes no business sense anymore -- In the era of the struggle between Netscape and Microsoft, when Netscape had the monopoly on web browsers basically by giving it out for free, it made sense from a PR perspective to get as big of a marketshare however possible, even if it meant dumping millions into developing software for users who don't add a penny to your revenue stream. Microsoft won the browser war quite handily, now capturing some 90%+ of web browser clients. That's old news, and the web browser wars don't get media or investor interest anymore, so it isn't even justified via indirect reasons.
Indeed, the last major browser update from Microsoft was, what, 3 years ago? Clearly Microsoft either has something very large underway (just as Mozilla catches up), and again the Mac market doesn't represent revenue potential, or the arena in general just doesn't hold much interest right now.
Most here, obviously in light of the fact that MacIE is such a piece of crap, are more worried by the thought of MS killing Office for OSX. People claim that MS will break support for older versions of Windows Office on Windows because they don't care.
Wrong, they have to care. About 10% of all Office users are still using Office95, about 20% still using Office97, about 40 to 50% still using Office2000. (Office2000 can open OfficeXP documents without many problems). Not that many moved to OfficeXP. A new office that cannot save old Office compatible documents will not get many customers. MS will not willingly shoot themselves in the foot.
Your Office X will remain compatible for a number of years yet, no worry. After that you can switch to OpenOffice.
isnt the xbox losing tons of money?
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I disagree. There are myriad things that MS could do to please the Slashdot community. They have simply never done any of them.
Sigs are bad for your health.
Quartz would actually be useful for many other projects, which is why Apple doesn't do it.
How? The source is only useful to people a) debugging the code, or b) interested in by-passing the API to shoot themselves in the foot by using internal, unpublished features. Apple keeps it closed source to maintain their competitive advantage in being the most visually appealing desktop experience, not to spite anyone.
but also learn Mac-specific stuff like Objective C in addition to the APIs.
This is uninformed rubbish. Objective-C is in the gcc compiler. Mac OS X uses the gcc suite. There is nothing "mac-specific" about Objective-C. The API has been around for over 10 years. It's called OpenStep, and if it has survived that long commercially, then perhaps it just might be worth learning. Lastly, we have source compatible OpenStep libraries for many other Unix OSs: GNUStep.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
picture it like this... the browser war is over, microsoft won (I don't like it any more than the rest of you, but let's face it) Even Mozilla has conceded and is dropping their browser suite to work on niche applications like pheonix. This being said, microsoft will now move on to phase II which is complete integration of IE and WinOS, making upgrades to the OS and IE synonomous (and $$$$). Since they can't integrate IE into the macOS they would have to dump money into a standalone development project just for Mac... something that would probably end up hurting them because now all of their fancy features that they're rolling into their overpriced OS are available for free on Mac.
you and I may not "buy it" but plenty of people will.
ôó
Microsoft's biggest competitor is themselves,
That's what happens in a Monopoly. What did you expect?
it is highly likely that there is nothing Microsoft could do to please the Slashdot community
I think it would be closer to the truth to say there is nothing they *will* do to please this community.
What, do you expect us to just "get over" the fact that they demonstrate a propensity for evil over and over again?
Any action they can take will receive the same scorn and criticism, by the same group of people.
Of course, because they keep demonstrating an infinite propensity for being a pack of jerks.
There are lots of things they could do that would make slashdot people happy - they just happen not to be in Microsoft's financial interest. That's what happens in a monopoly market- your financial interest becomes opposed to the interests of consumers because there's no longer any pressure to please them. If Microsoft didn't own the file formats for Office they'd be forced to compete.
Defenders of Microsoft love to describe the objections to their business practices as "the same old story" and "tired" because they have no defense other than the fact that they've been doing the things people describe so long that they can't believe anyone is still complaining about them - it's obvious to them that no one has the power to stop them from being evil so the complainers should just "stop whining" about Microsoft's behavior.
Well, F that my friend.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
yes, that's third party access to the mac OS. its open source now, COME ON!
microsoft is playing this one like a dissociative lunatic, they are the ones that don't give access to shit, accusing apple of doing (which they aren't) what m$ has done for years. maybe its to convince people that just don't know about the current state of affairs that this is being forced on them by apple. sheesh!
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
Since we know that IE loved to make its own standards, which causes other browsers to choke or have the site reject them because they aren't using IE, I'm more worried that Mac users may lose a browser that had a fighting chance of accessing pages made by the MS webmaster drones (that is, a webmaster that does not assume non-MS users will access the site and uses proprietary code in the page that only IE/Windows understands).
The good thing is that Apple's new web browser team is very ferocious in adding features. The first thing many screamed about when Safari came out was tabs, and now, they're there, along with other features. Apple could take a lesson from the Omni Group and its browser OmniWeb, which had a preference that could make the browser say to sites that it was IE/Windows, IE/Mac, or other browser to fake it out and allow access. From there, Apple should add preferences to give Safari as many IE compatibility elements as possible--better, add them as options that the browser can sense when you go to pages that use IE/Windows features that normally aren't compatible. The user can opt to switch on these features from a modal dialog that appears on downloading the page to make things work a bit better.
The waning of IE/Mac isn't good for people like myself who try to make Macs fit better in the enterprise. PC/Windows users aren't used to choice in the browser world, so IE is their only browser, and Netscape is now a rarity in business circles. Many business-related pages are created with the various MS tools, and many webmasters are unaware that there is a Mac version of IE, much less the fact that it works much like its Windows counterpart. This change will mean that techs will have to educate the webmasters of Safari's differences to get business pages to work--not that such explanations get lots of results anyway.
The positive news is that Safari generally holds its own in compatibility more than any other browser, and has even shown more compatible than IE/Mac in some of my trials at work, which I why I use it almost exclusively today. Will the loss of IE/Mac throw Mac users back in a web-access Stone Age? Probably not, but you never know what some whacked out ideas have to be added as features in some feature MS webmastering tool that work only for IE/Windows.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
This is part of an interesting pattern of MS killing off competing products, esp. on competing platforms.
I submitted a story (which was rejected) about this little gem:
Microsoft has purchased the RAV antivirus program, and will discontinue the Linux version.
Now this is interesting: they kill IE for Mac. They kill a product that allows a Linux/Sendmail based system to scan for viruses before they are delivered to the end user.
Question: has MS lost all fear of anti-trust action, and begun the final offensive against all competition?
Do bears excrete in the forest?
Do trolls post on Slashdot?
www.eFax.com are spammers
1) You can write programs in pretty much what ever language you want. There's Java programs, there's C programs (Carbon), heck there are even Python and C++ bridges to call the Cocoa API. There's also RealBASIC too. Objective-C maybe the prefered langauge, but it's not the only one.
2) Would you really try to see a linux program ported from windows without first try to figure out how the system works? I think your 1 to 2 year learning curve to be way too steep - OS X doesn't have that many nuances.
3) What cost of development? You mean the free development tools? Yeah, that's hard money to make back. Plus, mac users, IMO, are much more likely to pay shareware fees than linux users.
I am so confused. Why is it starting to go around that it is hard to program for Mac OS X? My theory: FUD being thrown around because people are starting to realize that it's really really really easy to program for Mac OS X... but it's just a theory.
Matt Fahrenbacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Try looking at other companies -- you'll be suprised how many others demonstrate a propensity for evil.
What, you expect me to *disagree* with you?
Look, businesses are amoral because they are not natural people and are, in general, only held accountable for their profit status.
This is only a little bit bad when companies have to worry about their competition- they are afraid to piss anyone off because they'll lose market share, so they only do what they think they can get away with.
In monopoly conditions companies don't fear their competitors, so they don't fear their customers and don't make changes to keep them happy. In this case, we have a market monopoly, reinforced by copyright monopolies over the file formats, so powerful that the company doesn't even fear the *government*.
So you are saying "everyone's doing it".
I'm saying 1. That SUCKS and 2. it REALLY SUCKS when a powerful monopolist does it.
I imagine you'll tell me to get over it again. Thanks for the tip. F that.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Yes: donate money to the right politicians.
Microsoft will do what they can to stay on top of the OS market, but the server products are being pursued for a whole other reason.
E-commerce.
Microsoft is simply expanding into other markets to ensure stability and future financial growth. Would you argue that the X-box is an attempt to lock people into using Windows and Office?
-Lucas
Wrong, wrong, wrong. MS does things that other companies do not. They are in a business who fundamentally depends on the size and quality of their developer community. What did they do? They offered a better deal on APIs than everybody else was offering. They promised equal access to the entire API and a chinese wall between the app dev side of MS and the OS dev side of MS. So what happened? People flocked to the platform in some measure because of those promises.
Those promises have now been revealed as a lie, a fraud, a common deceit that was of such a scale that tens of thousands of career paths were altered by it and billions in MS profits hung in the balance. It was a criminal conspiracy to commit corporate fraud *AND NOBODY PROSECUTED*. The Democrats fell down on the job because when MS admitted a few years ago that the chinese wall was a myth and 100% access to the Win32 API was a myth the Dems were in charge of the executive and they wanted a poster boy defendent for an anti-trust revival. This was viewed as a good way to rally the troops and improve their electoral chances.
Republicans didn't cover themselves in glory either, concentrating on defending MS in order to minimize the electoral gain of a revitalized anti-trust national mood. There's a very good case of doing an Arthur Anderson to MS and indicting the company. Depending on the statute of limitations limits for the particular crimes, MS officers could end up in club Fed for what they've pulled over the years.
I don't particularly like monopolies but there are problems with MS that are not monopoly related in the least.
"Apple has been notorious about giving little or no access to the OS to develop software."
Hate to break it to you, but a majority of OS X is open source.
"This has been a major reason for most companies not porting software to the Mac platform."
So, what you are saying is that developers are/will not port software to OSX because Apple does not provide enough source... I guess that is why all the developers flock to Microsoft - Microsoft loves to provide Windows source.
Ha. You are a moron. Name me one significant application that is not avalible on OS X...
Keep clicking on that Start button!
... as long as you're the biggest, that translates into more antagony
Big isn't always bad, not is small good. if that were the case, everybody would be crapping all over IBM and cheering on the SCO underdog in its valiant fight to knock the big evil IBM down a peg.
People hate MS because they are amoral in their behaviour--they "don't play nice". They implement perverted versions of open standards (bastardised kerberos, broken email and DNS, improper use of the HTTP protocol in IIS which IE handles OK but all other browsers occasionally choke on...). MS wipes the floor with competitors by imitating them and undercutting them to the point of giving away the executables--and if that doesn't erase them completely they "bundle" then "integrate" applications (already there with IE--that'll be followed by Media Player, then NetMeeting, Outlook and if left unchecked the rest of Office too). Nasty and evil ain't it? big didn't make them bad--big just allows them to get away with it.
Not that you need to be big to be bad. Witness the actions of SCO--that evil little bastard of a corporation. It is a pipsqueak with a loud annoying bark. They are flexing all the muscle of IP ownership they can conjure up--launching a ludicrous billion-dollar lawsuit against IBM. They vomit up propaganda press releases and threatening letters to Linux vendors and developers. In doing all this they look petty, greedy and entirely devoid of scruples. It conjures up thoughts of SCO directors laughing maniacally as they plot to pump-and-dump their stock or force-feed it to IBM at hyper-inflated prices as a settlement. Besides that, all it does is make the pointy-haired bosses who were finally opening up to Linux alternatives have more doubts and excuses to stay with the rickety old status-quo from Microsoft. Not only to the powers-that-be at SCO not seem to care about the health of the industry, they don't even seem to care about public image or even corporate self-preservation! Nasty, evil little bastards.
Contrast that to IBM. They are HUGE and for decades were the epitome of CLOSED source (right down to men in dark suits bearing NDAs and security bordering on paranoia). IBM has learned to "play nice"--at least to a degree. Their paid staff contribute immensely to Free software projects (Linux, Apache and I believe the Postfix mail server among them), port their closed applications to Linux (DB2...) and support linux on a wide variety of systems. They participate in the development of open protocols and use and promote them faithfully. They do all this despite being big enough to get away with doing much less. Yes they are a big faceless corporation, and yes they were prodded in that direction by antitrust suits and advancing technology making their mainframe operations look obsolete. The fact remains though, that IBM is now "playing nice" and that keeps \.ers and their ilk off IBM's back. Atta boy, IBM!
Don't believe what they say about "Safari being a better option" due to better access to the OS. Those comments are pure smokescreens.
.NET. Only people who purchase Longhorn will be able to use those sites then, and Microsoft gets money from both sides of the equation! Over time, the more rampant Microsoft-only web content becomes, the more users will be driven to Windows. And of course we can't forget that Office will be on Mac only up until it's turned into a service, at which time all Office users will have to purchase the newest Windows machines and pay monthly fees to use it.
The end of Mac IE goes along with their plan to halt Windows IE development...free IE, anyways. Microsoft never fails to look out for the worst interests of competitors, while at the same time making the max cash, and the seemingly innocuous end to IE development has devious goals: Make money off of IE, and force people to buy Windows. How to accomplish this? Get e-commerce sites, and over time other service sites, to use
It's not a fast-approaching reality, but it's the reality of Microsoft's dreams, and a reality they are slowly creating behind the average consumers' backs.