Microsoft Ends IE for Mac

RandomMacUser writes "A while ago, Microsoft stopped updating IE for Mac, freezing it at version 5. But according to this Microsoft webpage, all support will cease December 31, 2005, and any official distribution with cease January 31, 2006. Also, the webpage suggests 'that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.'"

Comments

I'm bummed.

[yroJJory]

Yeah right.

Long live Safari and Firefox!

Re:I'm bummed.

[sgant]

Now if only they would end IE for Windows.

Re:I'm bummed.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's kind of like looking at a supermodel and going, "Yeah, but remember the monkeys."

If you want to be proud of Safari's ancestry, good for you. Just don't make the mistake of thinking that it means anything.

Re:I'm bummed.

[toddbu]

an excellent browser

Our experience has been that DHTML support on Konqueror is still far behind both Firefox and IE. We'd love to support it, but we spend enough time putting in hacks for the big two browsers that we really don't want to take the time to make Konqueror work right. It's also why we don't support Opera, although Opera seems to work better than Konqueror.

don't forget where Safari comes from

Last I'd read, there wasn't much cooperation between the teams. That makes a bad situation even worse. If we could target Linux/Mac in one step we'd think about supporting Konqueror. Our solution has been to tell our Mac customers to install Firefox and be happy. Most of them thank us for pointing them to a browser that works halfway decently on all sites.

Re:I'm bummed.

[leathered]

"Our experience has been that DHTML support on Konqueror is still far behind both Firefox and IE. We'd love to support it, but we spend enough time putting in hacks for the big two browsers that we really don't want to take the time to make Konqueror work right. It's also why we don't support Opera, although Opera seems to work better than Konqueror."

3.5 is very much improved and is said to be one of the most standards compliant browsers out there. It now passes Acid2 unlike FF and IE. Not entirely useful to the user but nice to know nevertheless.

"Last I'd read, there wasn't much cooperation between the teams. That makes a bad situation even worse."

Yes I remember reading about that. Apparantly the teams are working much closer now and the Konq devs have access to the Safari CVS. Version 4 promises to have the best of both browsers. Don't get me wrong, Firefox is excellent but I love the speed (as fast as Opera IMO) and the integration into my KDE desktop that Konqueror provides.

Re:I'm bummed.

[Toonbobo]

At my school, everyone that uses a Mac with OSX is forced into using IE, because Safari and all programs are locked. It really makes me up-set. I wish the schools IT person wasn't so dumb.

Re:I'm bummed.

[jp10558]

Personally, I think limiting to two browsers is as bad as one. Just write a site to standards, and let the users use the browser and UI they like. I hate web sites telling me I can't use the UA of my choice.

Re:I'm bummed.

[Metasquares]

Coding to standards does not always mean it will display properly on all browsers. Even after writing standard sites, I find that I need to tweak some things to get the site to display well on all browsers that I test with.

This is particularly bad on IE Mac, which is why words cannot express how glad I am that the browser is being discontinued.

Re:I'm bummed.

[pluggo]

Maybe they disabled everything except IE for security reasons...

*ducks*

Re:I'm bummed.

[toddbu]

Just write a site to standards

Standards are often silent on lots of details, and it's really up to the browser devs on how to do an implementation. For example, is padding included in the width of an element, or not? It depends on whether you're using IE or Mozilla. Go to the microsoft.com home page in IE and Firefox and see how the left nav behaves differently when you hover over an element. Which browser complies with the standards, or do they both? Well, that's anybody's guess.

I hate web sites telling me I can't use the UA of my choice.

And I hate the two guys that use Billy-Bobs-Web-Browser-That-He-Wrote-In-A-Weekend telling me that I should support his browser. Of course it's in our best interest to support the widest possible audience, but you have to weigh that off against the richness of the experience. I don't want to give 100% of the people a crappy UI because 0.001% of my potential market doesn't support a feature.

That being said, we would like to support another browser in the Linux/Mac space if possible. It will keep the Mozilla folks on their toes and get them to fix some really nasty problems like memory leaks.

Re:I'm bummed.

[smallpaul]

For example, is padding included in the width of an element, or not? It depends on whether you're using IE or Mozilla. ... Which browser complies with the standards, or do they both? Well, that's anybody's guess.

No: you could just read the standards or documents written about them:

http://www.quirksmode.org/css/box.html : "In the W3C box model, the width of an element gives the width of the content of the box, excluding padding and border."..."Mozilla, Konqueror/Safari and Opera 6 and lower follow W3C's standards."

Re:I'm bummed.

[vdboor]

If I write my page and assume one model [width interpretation] then it will break in another browser. You can't just write to "the standard" because then your pages will look like crap. I can't tell my customer that "W3C says to do it this way, so sorry it looks like shit in IE".

Sounds like you never heared of the CSS code to make things work..

You can write the following CSS:

anElement {
padding: 20px;
width: 200px;
}

* html anElement {
width: 240px; /* width + padding for msie5 */
w\idth: 200px; /* width restored for msie6 */
}

This is indeed a hack, but it's relatively safe. The "* html" selector only works in MSIE, it's valid CSS. MSIE believes there is another element above the html tag. The w\idth is valid CSS too, hexacedimal/special characters can be escaped. This is something MSIE 6 supports, so it reads the correct width too. As of MSIE7, it supports the correct model and they've fixed the "* html" selector bug, so your code continues to work in the future too.

And voila, the site works in all browsers.. Remember to put the following at the top of the page, so it triggers the same rending mode [strict mode] in all browsers:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transition al.dtd">

Re:I'm bummed.

[jrockway]

> We have an application that schedules people, and if you can't take an action on the schedule then it's pretty worthless.

Ever hear of "links"? They let you take action by clicking on them. I wrote a scheduling application that is 100% valid XHTML and CSS and works perfectly in every browser, including ones like lynx and w3m. When you want to schedule something, you click the link and the reservation is committed to the database. Using AJAX / javascript / java / flash is pointless when you can get done what needs to be done with traditional web standards.

Re:I'm bummed.

[vux984]

IMO that mess is the sort of nonsense that only makes things worse in the long run.

For starters; its not a hack its a BUNCH of hacks all dangled together that only works if you put it all in just the right order and test it with just the right browsers, while praying in a cemetary with a dead cat. Throw something else at it, something new at it and who knows what will happen, or even what should happen.

I'm sick of reading CSS that says the same thing 5 different ways, each mangling the syntax and semantics 'just-so' to get something read by one browser then ignored by another, and then fixed back up again for a 3rd that manages to parse the previous 'wrong' directive but actually handles the feature correctly ... of course we have to mangle it just so that yet another browser ignores it...

Thank god there are only only a few mainstream browsing engines... we'd spend years doing the combinatorial regression testing for each time we modify a line of css if we had many more.

And god forbid one of the browser engines gets patched, fixing a bug or adding a feature that causes them to parse the 'wrong' CSS directives.

For myself, I simply don't mix width and padding on the same element. I usually double box when I need that feature. Its a little heavier in terms of code, but it doesn't rely on a dogs breakfast of browser parsing errors and voodoo magic to look right. And unlike you I can rest assured that if it doesn't look right in the "next browser engine" its not a batch of conflicting mangled CSS directives causing it.

Even dynamically loading separate CSS sheets for different browsers is better than your hackfest, a default w3c standard one, and one(s) to work around specific bugs in specific browsers that you want to support. Then later, you can easily drop support for these hopefully then-obsolete browsers.

PS -- If you want ***strict***, why wouldn't you specify a strict doctype instead of a transitional one??

Re:I'm bummed.

[Dolda2000]

Standards are often silent on lots of details, and it's really up to the browser devs on how to do an implementation. For example, is padding included in the width of an element, or not? It depends on whether you're using IE or Mozilla.

Actually, from CSS 2.1, 8.1:

content edge or inner edge The content edge surrounds the rectangle given by the width and height of the box, which often depend on the element's rendered content. padding edge The padding edge surrounds the box padding. If the padding has 0 width, the padding edge is the same as the content edge. border edge The border edge surrounds the box's border. If the border has 0 width, the border edge is the same as the padding edge. margin edge or outer edge The margin edge surrounds the box margin. If the margin has 0 width, the margin edge is the same as the border edge.

As you can see, the width of the padding is not included in the width of an element. This is even one of the things that Microsoft will fix in IE 7. Microsoft may not deserve all the flak it gets, but they most certainly deserve this -- not following the box model is one of the most notorious bugs in IE's CSS implementation. You may actually want to read the standards before you blame Microsoft's mistakes (or the mistakes of any other web browser implementor, for that matter -- I just couldn't think of any others that make any significant mistakes) on them the next time.

And I hate the two guys that use Billy-Bobs-Web-Browser-That-He-Wrote-In-A-Weekend telling me that I should support his browser.

And noone is telling you to (at least, if they are, you are in your full right to apply a clue stick to them). All you have to do is make sure that your site complies with the W3C's standards, and it will be Billy Bob's fault if his web browser doesn't render your site correctly.

I don't want to give 100% of the people a crappy UI because 0.001% of my potential market doesn't support a feature.

I would argue that if you try to use a hypertext media (such as the WWW) as a "user interface", you're already doing something wrong, but I can save that for another discussion.

Interesteing Problems

[ben_white]

I use a Mac and love it, but I am concerned about this development, as there are few websites (including my bank) which don't work with Safari (and my bank's web pages don't load correctly on Firefox).

Re:Interesteing Problems

[amembleton]

Well, if Mac users cannot get hold of a supported copy of IE, then it might force websites (such as your bank), to test their websites against browsers other than IE.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[Hiro Antagonist]

Have you told your bank? Because problems like this never get fixed if nobody complains. More importantly, if you tell them that their pages are broken in Firefox/Safari, and they tell you to get IE, switch banks, because businesses tend to listen when they lose customers because of things like this. When you close your accounts, and they ask the reason, tell them why.

You wouldn't buy a lawnmower that only worked on 'Black & Decker' grass, you wouldn't buy a knife that only cut 'Chicago Cutlery' brand onions, so why the hell would you do business with a bank that forces you to use tools that you don't want to, namely, Windows and IE?

Re:Interesteing Problems

[garcia]

Or, in a more likely scenario, they aren't going to care and they will continue to only support IE for Windows or other browsers that happen to closely mimic its behavior.

And switching banks because of browser compatibility isn't an option for most people.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[Androclese]

I had the same problem with Bank One (Chase). I explained to them that they needed to get with the times and update their website; especially considering that IE is full of security holes and no developed for on Mac.

She told me nothing was going to change.

She was wrong.

I changed banks to one that had Safari / Camino / Firefox browser support.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[thesnarky1]

What he said.

I've tested my bank against all the browsers I can get my hands on. It works quite pleasingly. Displays the same on all of them.

I've also recently closed a bank account due to poor service, and they asked ye olde "why are you choosing to switch away from us?" I had the good pleasure of expressing my complaints, and the person on the other side said "Huh, haven't heard that before, I'll pass it along." Whether they did or not, I don't know, but they DO care about business, and some employees even like to see their business succeed.

I know some businesses around my college don't test on certain browsers because they think no one uses them. I was helping one guy out, and mentioned I use Firefox, and he was taken aback.

Unfortunatly (or perhaps fortunatly) it IS still a Microsoft world, and many people don't know other browsers exist. I you come across a website/company that doesn't utilize a browser, let them know, it does work.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[SethJohnson]

Wells Fargo is browser-independent.

Seth

Re:Interesteing Problems

[unapersson]

Omniweb is probably just ignoring the attribute that says, "don't remember this password".

Re:Interesteing Problems

[damsa]

If you were a small bank and you lost Steve Jobs, it would make quite a difference financially.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[dynamo]

Except when you consider that mac users are going to have disproportionately larger bank accounts.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[Paradise Pete]

there are few websites (including my bank) which don't work with Safari (and my bank's web pages don't load correctly on Firefox).

What everybody else said, let them know. But do it with a letter. A real one. That still makes a big difference.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more likely that the bank would see supporting Macs as part of their effort to get "the pink pound" (in the UK obviously).

Re:Interesteing Problems

[csritchie]

There is always Virtual PC 7 for the Mac.

I work on a Power Mac and for the majority of my workflow I can accomplish everything I need in OSX. For those few administrative details and even fewer sites I need to deal with that depend on Windows or IE, Virtual PC comes in handy.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[tftp]

That's true only before they buy their Macs.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[ben_white]

We have already tried to convince our bank to support Mac users. I have a good relationship with the bank and my banker, and she pushed the issue up the management chain. I got a nice letter from the home office that their IT guys estimated that Mac support would affect 1% of their users, and wasn't worth the investment necessary to implement it. They actually asked if they could buy me a PC and a copy of Quicken for the PC to make sure they kept my business.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[urbanRealist]

Try Opera. I've come across sites that will only work in IE and Opera because Opera will lie and say that it's IE.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[Nugget]

That's exactly correct. In fact, you can make Safari start remembering your Wells Fargo login credentials by doing this and then restarting Safari:

sudo sh
cd /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Versio ns/A/Frameworks/WebCore.framework/Versions/A/
mv WebCore WebCore.orig
perl -pe 's/(\000)a(utocomplete\000)/\1_\2/gsi' < WebCore.orig > WebCore

Re:Interesteing Problems

[Matey-O]

More importantly, Wells Fargo ACTIVELY tests and updates support for browsers. I've noticed it won't work for beta versions of browsers, but very very soon after the browser gos gold, support is added. I've been very impressed with their attention to detail on their web related stuff.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[MTO_B.]

Also, do this.
Firefox > Help > Inform about an incompatible website...
Fill the details, send.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[rtb61]

What an odd thought. Of course it makes a difference for a bank to lose a group of customers, not just one. No bank is ever going to be happy to lose 5% of their customers (it is a cost thing, if the cost of retaining those 5% of customers is lower than the returns you will generate by retaining them you make the expenditure, not forgetting of course the relationship between greater turnover and fixed costs and overheads)

Besides this story is more about microsoft giving up markets, giving up growth and focusing on reductions of expenditure to sustain profits. In this case combining the retrenchment of all the people working in this area togethor with a significant increase in offshoring trying to sustain an appearance of profit growth so that a few senior executives can dump as many shares of microsoft as possible prior to the inevitable.

You will most likely find that this is a sign of the future direction of microsoft as they start give up more and more market segments, it is a sign of malaise and stagnation in managment, they basically don't know what else to do.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[soren42]

Actually, this is somewhat incorrect. I am a VP at top 5 US bank, and I used to lead the team that develops our public website. There are significant regulations and compliance issues that arise with public software testing, including the website. While I can only speak for my employer, we test against IE for Windows and Mac OS, Firefox on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, Safari, and Opera on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Additionally, we certify our site uses 100% W3C DTD-compliant DHTML and is fully accessable by users with disabilities.

There are certain laws that have been applied to banking websites, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and other anti-discrimination laws. Besides, it's much easier and cheaper for a bank's web team to design with accessability and browser compatibility in mind up front than do a bunch of back-porting and fixing when the customer complaints start rolling in - or worse, when the customer lawsuits start coming! Most banks I deal with also now hire external services to audit their sites for accessability.

Of course, these are only my opinions and do not officially represent the views or practices of my employer. YMMV. Blah blah blah.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[gizmonic]

How long ago was that? I've been banking online for the past 3 or 4 years with Bank One (ever since they bought First Chicago) and now Chase. I've *never* had a problem using Firefox from my Mac or my PC on thier site. Just curious if this was some time ago as my experience in this century has been that there have been no issues at all. I'm wondering if they saw the light a while back...

Re:Interesteing Problems

[macosxaddict]

Hey, I know what I'll do! I'll tweak this compiled library, which I don't have source code to, by running this Perl script I found on the Internet! The library only controls unimportant things for which I need no guarantees of connectness, like my online banking. Gosh, I'm so glad there have never been any viruses or security holes in software ever.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[eweu]

Hey, I know what I'll do! I'll tweak this compiled library, which I don't have source code to, by running this Perl script I found on the Internet! The library only controls unimportant things for which I need no guarantees of connectness, like my online banking. Gosh, I'm so glad there have never been any viruses or security holes in software ever.

You don't have the source code? I do.

Re:Interesteing Problems

[Fred_A]

I buy mine from a guy called Bob who hangs near the subway exit, why ?

Hmmm.

[Caspian]

...the webpage suggests 'that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.'

In other news, the RNC chairperson suggested 'that Republicans migrate to other parties such as the Democratic party', and North Korean leader Kim Jung-Il suggest that 'North Koreans embrace alternative political systems, such as capitalism'...

What the?

[omeomi]

The next article down the page says: "Find out how Internet Explorer 5 for Mac can show you the Internet in new, exciting ways." ???

What?

[trepidation_i_am]

They dont recomend Firefox? Well I never..

Wait, is this supposed to help M$?

[Daedius]

Guess that just means more firefox users on Mac now. Now with versions optimized toward their architectures now too.

Re:Wait, is this supposed to help M$?

[rdoger6424]

Excuse me while I burst into flames, but Firefox just doesn't work on my Mac Mini. It's inefficient and not (yet) good for the mac. I haven't tried camino yet, so that might be better (Camino's cocoa, right?), but Firefox just doesn't get the job done efficiently.

Speaking of Safari (Gap.com)

[SuperficialRhyme]

Speaking of safari, does anyone know why some websites are locking out safari users?

I got caught in the net to catch them by some messed up code (using Firefox on Linux) as my wife gets the "we don't support safari" error message from gap.com.

Is there something safari doesn't support that gap.com would need? or what reason is there to lock out your userbase?

Changing the user-agent string apparently fixes things, but who wants to order from a company that doesn't allow you as a customer?

Anyone have any answers as to what breaks on the page in safari?

Re:Speaking of Safari (Gap.com)

[skurk]

No idea. Maybe it's a "better safe than sorry" approach, who knows. The least they could do is add a "Click here to continue at your own risk" link.

My bank says they don't support Safari either, but when I set it to identify as, say, Windows MSIE 6.0, it works like a charm. Same goes for gap.com.

I guess this is what happens when you spoon feed developers with only one technology. :-/

Re:Speaking of Safari (Gap.com)

[SuperficialRhyme]

Well, amusingly enough Gap.com doesn't allow IE on the Mac either. Only Netscape 7+ and Firefox.

Here's the full message:

        We're sorry, but we do not support the version of the browser you are using.
        Our site works best with the following browsers:

        PC users
        Internet Explorer 5.5 and above Download browser
        Netscape 7 and above Download browser
        Mozilla (including Firefox) 1.0 and above Download browser

        Mac users
        Netscape 7 and above Download browser
        Mozilla (including Firefox) 1.0 and above Download browser

        We're working on supporting Safari. Please check back soon.

Re:Speaking of Safari (Gap.com)

[cmdrbuzz]

He wasn't ever CEO of GAP, however he did sit on the Board of Director's for a while.
The CEO of GAP also sat on Apple's Board as well.

Re:Speaking of Safari (Gap.com)

[Reaperducer]

I had this problem with the Gap web site a few weeks ago.

I solved the problem by shopping at another online store. The Gap lost about $800 in Chrismtas sales from me that I spent elsewhere. If I was a shareholder, I'd be pissed that they're turning away customers.

I hope they saved at least that much by hiring incompetent web site developers.

Re:Speaking of Safari (Gap.com)

[lancejjj]

The GAP sez:
    We're working on supporting Safari. Please check back soon.

Well, that's understandable. It can be a chore for retailers to support the web.

Maybe I'll wager $12 that GAP spent more money talking about and implementing the "we don't support Safari" message than it would take to get their site to support Safari. Who wants to take me up on that one?

Go ahead, let me know. Someone analyze their site and let me know what it'd take for Safari support.

Re:Speaking of Safari (Gap.com)

[yarbo]

It didn't work for me either: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051213 Firefox/1.5

Re:Speaking of Safari (Gap.com)

[gizmonic]

To make your protest and boycott truly useful, you need to take one additional step. Simply telling Gap they lost your business won't help. Instead, send them a nice printed letter explaining exactly why you shopped elsewhere, and that you had intended to shop there first until you were turned away. Then, include photocopies of the reciepts, so they can see actual physical evidence of lost purchases. It puts a concrete number on an abstract idea of "losing a customer" and lets them see, exactly, what they have lost.

Re:Speaking of Safari (Gap.com)

[igb]

I simply stopped buying from virgin-wine.com, and mailed them to say their IE-only policy was the entire reason. I also spoke to a developer, who seemed pretty switched on, who had made the point to management that not-IE may only be 4% of the market (this was some years ago) but it wasn't only 4% of _their_ market. If your target audience is high net worth, under 40, urban drinkers of mostly new-world and non-traditional-appelation French wine, then Macs are rather more than 4%!

I got a thirty quid voucher and an invitation to return last month, and lo it works with Safari now.

ian

Re:Confused

[m50d]

They don't. They just click the blue e for internet icon.

Chalk one up for truth in advertising.

[JonTurner]

>>Internet Explorer 5 for Mac can show you the Internet in new, exciting ways.

Well, getting hacked *IS* exciting. Downloading antispyware updates would be a new experience for most Mac users.

At least they're honest.

Not surprising

[Bogtha]

Back when the most recent MSN redesign was launched, it didn't initially work in Internet Explorer on the Mac, and that was way back in January. If Microsoft's web developers don't even bother testing in it, then I don't think it's too important to them.

Re:Confused

[amembleton]

the only reason I have in installed on my Windows machines is soley for Windows Update

How do you not have it installed on your machines? By default IE is installed with Windows and I haven't managed to remove it.

It's not just the mac version

[Bert64]

The windows version hasn't seen major updates for years... In many ways the mac version is more up to date than the windows version, at least it has vastly superior CSS support.

Re:Microsoft admit defeat?

[sseymour1978]

Umm.. only world domination technique here..

1) Bad browser for mac takes it to the knees.
2) While windows version is good and shiny...

Too hard to implement. cancelled.

Once A Great Project

[sophiaknows]

It's been easy to hate on since MS stopped updating it in like 2001 anyway. But IE 5 for Mac was the best and most standards compliant browser on any platform the day it was released. Awesome work by the original team. Sad it came from MS. Sadder still that they basically abandoned it once their contractual obligations to Apple were up

Re:winners and losers

[rekoil]

...um, don't forget there's no IE for Linux to begin with...

Re:Same story with Linux, FF and Opera

[SuperficialRhyme]

This thread from the ubuntu forums might be of interest to you. I couldn't figure out why I was getting stuck this morning, so I wondered if it was just an ubuntu issue (or all firefox on linux). Apparently someone with FC3 was also locked out, so it seems they've locked out linux users.

A casualty of the Intel transition

[rekoil]

This is most likely due to the upcoming Intel transition. IE is written against the Carbon APIs (and most likely in CodeWarrior), which by all accounts (including Jobs himself) takes substantially more code refactoring to make Intel-compatible than a Cocoa application. IE simply looked at the dev costs of continued maintenance in light of making it Mactel compatible, and said "meh, it's not doing anything for us anyway". And they need those brains working on porting Office:mac, which actually does make MS money. Personally, I haven't launched IE on my Mac in months, so I doubt I'm going to miss it.

Re:A casualty of the Intel transition

[sophiaknows]

This is completely a product of the fact that back when MS was facing white hot antitrust heat in the late 90s they made an agreement with Apple to create and support new versions of Office and IE for the Mac for a period of years. Those years are now up. They'll probably release new version of Office because there is still money in it. But supporting IE on Mac gaint them nothing that their overwhelming market dominance doesn't already give em.

Re:A casualty of the Intel transition

[cheesy9999]

Except for the fact that Microsoft had announced they were discontinuing IE for Mac BEFORE Apple announced the switch to Intel.

Re:MS gets wise

[Michalson]

Exactly. IE is a free product, but costs Microsoft money to develop (it's not just a port of Windows IE). Office for Mac makes money, but IE only exists to try and "enrich" whatever platform it's on. Back in the day IE was actively developed for the Mac (along with some major cash from Microsoft being pumped into Apple's stock) it was because Apple was down on it's luck.

There was no way Microsoft was going to let it's main "competitor" die off. If Apple disappeared, it would allow enough space in the desktop market for a new, real competitor to enter (like Linux - at the moment Linux has to compete with both Windows *and* OS X, making it much harder to be accepted as a mainstream consumer desktop OS).

A long as Apple is in the picture taking up the number 2 position, Microsoft has a safety against real competition on the desktop, simply because of how certain brand markets tend to operate (Coke vs. Pepsi, Intel vs. AMD, etc). Now that Apple is doing well, there is no reason for Microsoft to pay extra money to keep Apple in the game. They can just sit back and watch Apple act as an albatros in the plans of Linux and any other potential desktop competitor, safe in the knowledge that Apple itself will never actually grow beyond a certain percentage of the market.

Re:Demonstrates IE's market dominance

[gnuLNX]

"The Mac is a niche market and always will be and Firefox isn't a real threat to IE "

I think you will eat those words in 2 years time.

Damn near all developers are coding on Unix platforms and porting to wintel these day's. With the Mac move to intel processors OSX will become the defacto standard platform that all cross platform applications will work on. Microsoft see's the real threat. Many developers (myself included) only support Unix/Linux and Windows because 3 is just to hard. But with OSX moving to intel it will be a total cake walk...in fact it will probably hurt Linux some. I know my primary development machine will become an Apple with OSX on intel procs.

Seems like a wast of time to me

[stunt_penguin]

Couldn't they have just emailed both people still using IE on the Mac and saved themselves the trouble of a whole press release.

Re:Seems like a wast of time to me

[snookums]

Actually, the latest comprehensive browser stats that I saw show 30% of Mac users still using Internet Explorer (link). My anecdotal personal evidence backs this up -- many Mac users I know still don't use Safari.

I think the reason has to do with the whole OS X upgrade thing. A new version of the OS costs $130, and the only way to upgrade Safari is to upgrade the OS. A lot of OS X users never bother to upgrade from the version that came with their Mac. Consequently, they're stuck on versions that either never came with Safari installed, didn't have it as the default browser, or can't run anything better than 1.0 even if they it wanted to.

As a web developer, I have to say that the standards-compliance of 1.0 is pretty poor and a lot of site layouts will break when using it. For instance, an absolutely positioned element will always take its position from the document origin, rather than that of the parent (relatively positioned) container. This is a huge deal that will cause all manner of breakage on most sites using CSS positioning.

If Apple really want to wean people off their Microsoft dependency, and do the right thing by their users, then they should back-port Safari 2.0 to older versions of OS X and release it as an automatic update. If I.E. 6 for Windows is a 5-year-old browser that runs on 10-year-old operating systems, why can't Apple's 6-month-old browser run on a 5-year-old operating system?

Re: This highlights the actual problem, which is..

[fyngyrz]

...Java, ActiveX and all other client-side processing designs for web sites.

No, really. If the server does all the work and uses nothing but standard CGI, then the web site will work for everyone. Everyone. If you really stick to basics, sites that deal with numbers can work for such crufty old things as text browsers without a glitch. If you must have images (say, for graphing your banking activities) then sticking to JPEG and GIF will again gather in by far the widest array of users.

Every time some developer chooses client-side processing of any kind, they are locking out users. Which is form over function, and as such, I think is a very poor decision.

It's one thing to be bleeding edge when you're showing off and nothing depends on it; it's entirely another to get the blood from your legitimate clients because you want to use new stuff.

Re:winners and losers

[gnuLNX]

"Apple, which over the years has been losing support from software and peripheral vendors, and may some day soon wake up and find itself in third place on the desktop, behind Linux"

I would agree except for the fact the Apple is switching to Intel processors which means we will have a BSD unix OS with enough company dollars to add all the polish to the final product. Remember many of us don't mind paying for a good product. The reason I use Linux is because Windows is a horrible platform for developers and Macs are to expensive with obscure hardware (good, but obscure).

Having just used (ok played around with) a friends developer edition Intel Mac I can say that I am sold. We are both Unix developers who port applications to Windows. He does all his development on the Mac side and let me just say I am envious. For the most part he has a solid Unix platform that just plain works. That and combined with some of the developer tools on the Mac like the shark profiler...shit I am sold. I love Linux like a little brother. A naggin little brother that alway's needs tinkering with. When it comes time to for development I don't want to dink around with getting video cards working so my OpenGL app renders correctly on every card (this is a bigger problem than you might expect). I also don't want to test the application on every damned Linux distribution out there. Nope I want to sit down and code to a standard machine (Intel-OSX) and then port it to the other platforms. basically I am a wanna be Mac developer. I can't justify the cost of a Mac right now since they are switching platforms, but soon...ah yes. soon.

However I am a developer and not Joe six pack (Joe doesn't like the same beers as me!!). However I do believe that many developers will be sold on the Mac platform and this will create a large spike in applications running on both Mac and Linux. I personally think the OSX/Linux combo will be the 1-2 punch for Microsoft. Steve just has to get the computers to a reasonable price...still charge a premium but make it affordable for Joe Belgian style six pack.

disclaimer: For the most part I am an idiot...I tried to audition for an idiot role in a film, but did not get the part. I have never slept in a Holiday in Express so you should probably take what I say with a small grain of salt.

Cheers

Office, not IE, would be the killer

[Nice2Cats]

Apple doesn't have to care about IE, because Safari and Firefox do the trick a lot better now anyway. What Apple has to be scared shitless about, however, is Microsoft killing Office for OS X. There is nothing in the Apple universe to replace MS Office at the moment for Joe Average -- NeoOffice/J (OpenOffice for the Mac) works fine for me, but most Apple users I know gag on it not being completely aquified. Without a full office suite -- single programs like Pages doen't count -- Mac sales plummet. And please don't even mention Apple Works, which should be taken out and given a clean, quick, merciful death.

I have no idea why Apple let themselves get into this situation where Microsoft can do very serious damage any time they want. What Apple should do is a second Safari -- admit they can't support a complete office suite by themselves and start pushing a version based on NeoOffice/J or OpenOffice. Sooner or later, Bill Gates is going to pull the plug.

Don't forget Opera..

[the_rajah]

The Mac version of Opera works great, too. I've got four browsers on my old iMac G3-333 that runs Tiger. IE, Safari, Firefox and Opera. My linux boxes have Firefox, Opera and Konqueror. My bank's site gives me a non-supported browser warning when I access their site with Opera, but allows me to proceed and, other than some minor rendering problems, works OK.

Re:MS gets wise

[Mikey-San]

It's more "whining" than anything else, you just have to go back a little bit to find it:

Although Microsoft may continue to provide security and performance updates, no major new releases are planned, Microsoft Product Manager Jessica Sommer told CNET News.com. Sommer said that, with the emergence of Apple's Safari browser, 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.

http://news.com.com/2100-1045_3-1017126.html

I call complete and utter whiny bullshit on this. It's not that they CAN'T compete, it's that they don't WANT to compete. OmniWeb dropped their proprietary rendering engine for WebCore/Kit and began focusing even harder on their wonderful UI. Why couldn't Microsoft have done this? Lots of applications have integrated Kit/Core, from third-party Web browser to instant messaging clients. I guess Microsoft doesn't have the resources that some 18-year-old kid with an ADC account does, right?

Irony: "We can't compete because someone else makes the OS and we don't have full access to it." - Microsoft

Call me a fucking waaaaaaaaaaaaaahmbulance, Redmond. You lost on this platform because you couldn't make a good Web browser if you tried, and all you did was blame someone else.

Re:Who is really suprised?

[pboulang]

I think you mean you doubt it because they make money off of it. They were not making a dollar off of IE, so it is no surprise as a business decision.

Now we can get rid of MacIE!

[AnamanFan]

This is the best news I got this weekend!

Working for a certain college in Boston, I have to deal with MacIE for all my web applications. Why? Because of PC users.

On our campus, we have eMacs as kiosks in the halls. Using Fruitmenu, there are three programs in the 'Internet' folder: Safari, Firefox, & MacIE. For the Mac users, they all go for Safari or Firefox. However, PC users will use Internet Explorer. Why? Because that's what they use on the PC, so it must be the same, right? :rolleyes:

It wasn't removed due to a bit of bureaucratic mixups and politics. As a web developer, I was breaking one of my rules and using user-agent detection to sniff out MacIE and explicit instructions to use Firefox or Safari on that kiosk.

Now that I can point to Microsoft officially stopping support, it will be a lot easier to get the application removed all together.

Re:Demonstrates IE's market dominance

[Tony Hoyle]

You've been on *way* too much cool-aid.

'all' developers coding on Unix platforms? WTF? The majority have never even used it.

OSX just isn't standard enough for cross platform work, btw. the kernel is Unix but the filesystem layout is nonstandard (not to mention the case insensitive filesystem). I also doesn't run X by default so GUI work is out.

(was Interesteing Problems)

[shking]

Have you tried spoofing the webserver? (i.e. your browser tells the bank's webserver that it is IE, when it is in fact Safari, Firefox, Opera or whatever). The default .net website sends out custom pages for each type of browser. This is a great temporary workaround and has worked for me many times:

1. from the Terminal command line: defaults write com.apple.safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
2. start Safari
3. select Debug > User Agent and choose a browser

Opera has this capability built in

Firefox and Camino are left as a (trivial) exercise for the reader (a couple minutes searching Google should do it)

Re:(was Interesteing Problems)

[leenoble_uk]

Additionally, my bank specifically stated that Safari was not supported. I chose to ignore this warning and indeed the initial setup process failed because I needed to download a secure certificate which involved some IE/Moz specific capability apparently. So I used Firefox to get the certificate and then exported it to the desktop and imported it into Keychain Access. Now my bank's website works perfectly well with Safari.

Re:(was Interesteing Problems)

[Sithgunner]

You really don't want to go the unsupported way in the risk of messing around with your own bank account...

If you're despearete use Remote Desktop to Windows and be done with it, I hate to have malfunctioning JavaScript make errors and not even show if there was an error because of unsupported function or different behaviour with the spoofed browser of your choice.

It's not like you want to send money twice because the last JS didn't show you the 'transfer completed' screen...

Re:Microsoft admit defeat?

[Total_Wimp]

But the less I.E. the better.

I'm hoping this will provide all sorts of benefits for not only Mac users, but also the web community as a whole.

The IE on the Mac was so significantly different than the current version of Windows IE that it gave a false sense of security to the Mac using community. They thought that since they had IE, their web experience would be the same as their Windows-using friends. They were wrong.

Now that they're being forced to use one of the other browsers, it will become very apparent that a)the other browsers have some nice features and b) the other browsers are ignored by a certain subset of the web community.

Once the Mac Faithful have a better understanding of just how much they've been marginalized over the last few years, hopefully they'll use their vocalness to aid the fight for web content providers to provide standards-compliant, works-on-any-browser web sites. They'll crow about Safari passing the Acid Test and they'll point out that all browsers should pass this test.

Since the Safari-using community will grow overnight and its percentage of users will be added to the likes of Firefox as a large alternate web browsing community, the content providers will (hopefully) increasingly start writing standars-compliant web sites so all of their customers will be able to use their content. After all, it's a lot harder to ignore 20% than 10% of your potential audience.

One more great thing. Mac users love Apple products so they'll use Safari way more than Firefox. This will help keep web browser usage diversified. If we could get as much as 20% web usage as one of these two and 10% of web usage as non-IE mobile browsing then content providers will increasingly find it silly to support IE only, while also finding it silly to support only one of the other browsers. Diversity is a very good thing for everyone.

TW

Re:I see IE all the time on Macs

[agentkhaki]

As of 10.4 (Tiger), IE is no longer included with the OS. However, if you do an upgrade (rather than a clean install), you'll still have IE. For me, this is the final nail in the coffin. No more trying to fudge around with CSS-based sites in hopes of appeasing Mac/IE's "great for its time" (and, in many ways, still better than that of Win/IE 6) rendering engine, which is simply no longer that great. Sure, it's usually not hard to do said fudging, but eventually, we have to draw the line (there are bigger fish to fry). The products has been EOLed, HOPEFULLY, Microsoft will pull the download from their site (if they haven't already), and one user at a time, we'll get rid of the now-pesky thing.

Stange thing is...

[Hamster Lover]

if you use Safari Enhancer to alter the user agent setting to "Firefox" or something similar the page displays fine.

Not that it matters as I have moved to Firefox as my default browser. I like Safari but I want the Flashblock and AdBlock plugins for Firefox.

Re:Stange thing is...

[cheesy9999]

You can also enable the debug menu in Safari which easily lets you change the user agent. But use sparingly.

Re:Stange thing is...

[pomo monster]

Similar plugins exist for Safari. I use SafariStand to give me "click to play Flash" and SafariBlock for general adblocking.

Re:Who is really suprised?

[Flyboy Connor]

Well, I don't think they gave IE away for free to make money off it, at least not directly. They did it to become a controlling force on the Internet. They wanted to kill off every other browser (at the time, Netscape most notably), and after that turn the Internet (at least the WWW part) into the Microsoftnet.

They did not succeed fully in their goal, although you can't deny they became a huge force on the Internet. But that is exactly what makes this move so strange. It seems they have given up on their ultimate goal. I mean, if you want to control the Internet, you should not tell 5% of your users that they should go to the competitor. That means you won't get that 5% of the Internet, and thus you won't control the complete Internet.

Perhaps they rightfully gave up their goal, seeing that Firefox is growing, that most Apple users use Safari, and that they do not have IE for Linux. So the browser might not be the key to the Internet.

But still, if they could turn IE into a really good browser, people might actually switch (back) to it. I mean a fast, safe, fully configurable browser. But perhaps that is not within powers.

Re:MS gets wise

[scrod]

...noting that Microsoft does not have the access to the Macintosh operating system that it would need to compete

LOL! Not only is the WebKit framework available to any developer who can drag and drop in Interface Builder, but WebCore is available under an open source license! Microsoft has access to the freaking source code. Public relations departments are funny.

Re:Demonstrates IE's market dominance

[gnuLNX]

"'all' developers coding on Unix platforms? WTF? The majority have never even used it."

Ok let me refraphse that: Most independant developers...and any developer who has never developed on a Unix platform is bound to be at least a little incompetent.. I have never met a single developer who has NEVER user Unix. I know some that get paid to work in windows shops and they don't tinker much at home. By they all at least have done development in Unix. Most people who truly love to code will argue that Unix is the superior platform. I am arguing that once they are given the chance to work on a platform as polished as OSX with the same tools they love from Linux many will switch..I am one of them.

"OSX just isn't standard enough for cross platform work, btw. the kernel is Unix but the filesystem layout is nonstandard (not to mention the case insensitive filesystem). I also doesn't run X by default so GUI work is out."

Not standard to Linux. Very similar to Irix. I like th eLInux layout better myself, but then I have used Linux almost exclusivly for about 6 years now.

Right and Windows is? Come one. You can set your development environment on OSX however you like...I have a friend who runs his company with all development on OSX and ports to Windows, Linux, Irix, and Sun. Most users are windows users and he would flat out say you have never given it a chance...in fact I argued for quite awhile myself until he walked me throught some of his setups. OSX blows away other Unices for out-of-the-box configuration. A file system hierarchy is irrelvevant. In production code you do your best to get static compiles and filesystem dependancies out anyway. I mean the difference between Windows and Linux is night and Day yet we still manage to do it. OSX moving to Intel platform will open up a lot of doors to developers who need to code very close to the hardward. Me and the guy I mentioned are both scientific coders. It is important to be able to optimize to one instruction set. With all major platforms moving to Intel many of us will start inlining SSE/SSE2 code to gain maximum performance. Yeah most application won't. by scientific code will. Games will. Graphics intesive application will.

So yeah OSX isn't standard. But it works. It has all my developer tools and many that I wish I had. I will pay for that. Porting back to Linux is as easy as setting the PATH, LIBRARY, and a few other application specific environment variables. Windows will alway's be the biggest pain in the ass.

And just to clarify I am not really a Mac fanboy...yet. I don't own one and never have. But I will.

Oh and as far as the cool aid...nah. It is christmas time and the local pub as about 150 new Christmas beers in stock. So yeah I am on the "sauce" but it isn't cool aid!!!

Cheers.

Could be a big mistake...

[doormat]

Mainly because I expect to see Apple's market share grow as soon as the intel macs get out the door and people start to adopt them. If you figure if their share increases to 5%, plus the ~10% of firefox+opera users, 15% should be enough of an audience for most websites to realize that IE-only designs are the past and that they need to modernize.

Re:Could be a big mistake...

[AlXtreme]

5% for any major website should be enough to convince any PHB worth his salt.

I had a conversation about this with my boss some time ago, and stated that our e-commerce websites (very non-tech oriented) had gone over the 5%-boundry when it came to firefox users.

His face went pale. 5% of all users means 5% of ad and sale income. Multiplied by the numbers we get, this is a serious enough difference for him to consider: the difference was more than both our salaries combined. He ordered thorough testing on IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari, and full adherence to web standards some time later.

Gotta love capitalism.

Re: This highlights the actual problem, which is..

[Zontar The Mindless]

If the server does all the work and uses nothing but standard CGI, then the web site will work for everyone. Everyone.

Wells Fargo being a case in point. Gets the job done. Works in pretty much everything. (I've not actually tried it in Lynx.) I make a point of thanking them for this every time I talk to them on the phone or in email.

At the other end of the spectrum: ANZ. A bunch of horrid and highly unnecessary and extremely proprietary JavaScript is required even to log in. I like clientside JS for a lot of things - well enough that I've even written a couple of books about it - but this is a prime example when and how NOT to use it.

Re:but how many mac users will complain?

[Nutria]

How many of these users will complain instead of getting a work around?

Politely complaining is actually a very effective tactic, since "they" know that for every complainer, there's a hundred who stay silent and move to a different business. It has worked for me in on-line banking.

"Hi,
Your web banking app doesn't load properly with Mozilla 1.blah. I really like this bank, but for security reasons refuse to use IE. So, please configure your site to not be dependent on security disaster IE.
Sincerely,
blah blah

That's a good start!

[rkaa]

Now if they would only end IE on PCs as well..

IE For Linux Does Exist!

[Tiberius_Fel]

I used the guide here: http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/ and I did get IE working under Fedora Core 4 with WINE installed. A user agent check reported it to be the Windows 98 version of IE6...

No

[Sycraft-fu]

It just means they don't care anymore. If Apple isn't going to ship their browser as the default, there's not really a point in releasing it.

It's pretty much assured that the majority of people will always use the default included browser on a platform. They all work pretty good and the non-tech people just aren't going to put the effort in to get a new one for the most part.

Well, you take a marketshare that's small already (by many accounts smaller than FF on Windows usage) and take away the default status, it's just too small to justify the development time.

Mac users should be pissed to see IE go. Seriously

[Aqua OS X]

Mac users should be pissed to see IE go. At the very least, it's a valuable web development tool. Although it is not identical to Win IE, it has similar idiosyncrasies. Microsoft commonly favors lame proprietary implementations of would-be standards. Heck, look at their support for ECMAScript.... "JScript," not to be confused with "JavaScript." Mac developers need access to this stuff.

The loss of IE on the Mac simply increases a Mac web develope'rs need for a secondary Windows box or VPC for testing. Although that need has always existed to some extent, now it REALLY exists.

fantastic news

[ZhuLien]

that's fantastic news. with any luck then it will encourage more companies to support other mac browsers instead of making their sites ie only.

Re:MS gets wise

[farrellj]

I don't think so...It is just the first shot in the battle between Apple OS-X and MS Windows Apple is not going to release OS-X or it's successor until it has debugged it totally on the x86 platform, that is what the Intel/OS-X platfor is really about...Once it has been around and is well debugged in a couple of years, Apple will release OS-X (maybe OS-XI?) for all x86 platforms. And it will eat Microsoft's Lunch.

But first, Microsoft has some cards to play...withdraw the most widely used browser for Mac OS-X, then MS-Office, and all other Mac products. Next the rhetoric will start, and they will FUD OS-X on Intel...And it will fail.

ttyl
          Farrlel

Re:Confused

[cb8100]

From the horse's mouth (or is it ass?):

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=293907

Re:MS gets wise

[kfg]

"Irony: "We can't compete because someone else makes the OS and we don't have full access to it." - Microsoft"

It makes one wonder, doesn't it? Do they actually have a clue what they look like when they say shit like this? If I were the flak given the task of making this statement I'd either look like I was about to die of embaressment, because I would be, or I wouldnt' be able to stop giggling.

Since I don't know whether to laugh or cry, I guess I'll just do both at once.

KFG

Not a surpirse

[plazman30]

People seem to think that IE for Mac in some way used the same rendering engine that the Windows verison uses. This is far from the truth. The Mac version of IE is much more standards compliant and has none of the quirks that IE for Windows has, which pretty much means that it helps no one on the Mac side view IE specific web pages.

However, the corporate perception of the death of IE is another matter entirely. Though I would hope that the new popularity of FireFox will show IT mamagers that IE is not the only show in town and letting their Mac user use Safari, Shiira, Opera, Camino (my personal favorite) or Firefox is not that bad an option.

I think the Mac platform has far better browser choices than Windows has now. I was really liking K-Meleon there for a while, but I find the UI needs more work.

Re: This highlights the actual problem, which is..

[ipfwadm]

While that's all very standards compliant, it doesn't always generate the best usability result. Stop for a minute and realise that it's not possible to implement the nice user interface of Google maps without Javascript, for example. Sure, Google maps works without Javascript, but the interface isn't nearly as slick.

Let's see, between my bank, credit cards, 401(k), and IRA, all of which I access through the web, I can't think of a single time where I wished their interface was "more slick". All I want is the numbers, organized in a fashion that is easy to understand. As the GP said, it's one thing when you're trying to do something new and show off, a la Google maps. But for a financial site, which was the root of this discussion? I don't see a need, and in fact, I think that trying to make the UI more slick actually decreases the usability.

Re:Mac users should be pissed to see IE go. Seriou

[j235]

When the intel macs come out, you'll probably be able to run iexplore in wine.

Mac pricing myth

[tepples]

I seem to remember reading a story on Slashdot about a year ago that concluded that a Macintosh computer is not significantly more expensive than a comparable Wintel PC. There's no Mac in the $300 class because Apple doesn't want to associate itself with the bargain-basement $300 Wintel PCs that skimp on parts (no burner, 128 MB RAM, etc) and then nickel-and-dime the buyer for upgrades.

Err, I hate to burst your bubble, but

[Phil Urich]

Your comments sound too optimistic to be taken seriously. Really, really wishing something to be true doesn't make it so.

Perhaps more importantly, I notice certain trends in Apple that, though not that bad now, could be pretty terrible if they end up in a winning position (their tendency to lock out any DAPs other than their own iPods, for instance). Honestly, if they end up beating out Microsoft, that will not usher in a brand new utopian Heaven-on-Earth. It will not be Kingdom Come. If they replace Microsoft, all that will mean is that they'll become the new Microsoft. Even accepting the terribly optimistic view that this prophesied "OS-X for all x86" will simply sweep Windows away, well, you can mark me down on the list of enemies right now in advance if you're so sure, 'cause I'll be a part of the resistance.

Fuckit, I'm tempted to make that my sig, as much as I (a) don't want a sig, and (b) know that it's liable to get every single post of mine from now on modded "flamebait"!

I was on the MacIE 6 team when it got canned...

[jbx]

MacIE had one of the strangest and saddest histories I've seen, of any product.

MacIE 5 was an awesome release, critically aclaimed and everything, with a good development team and a strong testing team, that included daily performance measurement.

And yet, almost immediately after 5.0 was released, the MacIE team was redeployed to work on a set-top DVR box. The notion at the time was that the team would continue to do MacIE work in their spare time, since IE 5 was the leader among Mac browsers and no longer needed a full-time team.

The problem with that notion was that WebTV, the team's new bosses, had no reason to actually schedule any time for real IE work. So later, when that particular set-top box got cancelled, the IE team got redployed for other WebTV work, and since this was now out of MacBU's control, nothing could really be done.

3 or 4 years went by before enough people in the Mac division wanted to resume work on IE, and when it looked like we might actually need the technology, as a base for MSN-for-Mac, the IE 6 team was formed. It got a firm OS X-only foundation, a new even more complient browser base, and then suddenly it became apparent that Apple was doing their own browser, because, well, there were lots of small clues, but the big clues was that Apple had started calling the old Mac IE team offering them jobs.

By that time the Mac division had formally committed to MSN-for-Mac-OSX, so it's not like we were completely going to stop work. But a meeting was held internally, the outcome of which was that it didn't make sense to build our own browser if Apple was going to bundle one, because the marketshare and mindshare of the distant-second-place browser, on the distant-second-place platform, wasn't worth pursuing. A week later we had a meeting with high-up people at Apple, where they told us they were doing a browser. And the week after that, after confirming it with Bill Gates, who was reportedly sad but understanding of the decision, MacIE was officially shut down.

MSN-for-MacOSX went ahead, and was also critically acclaimed, but once released, indications were that the number of users was about the same as the number of developers. After that, MacBU concentrated once again on the next Office release, and MacIE has been well and truly and permanently dead ever since.

Over the whole sad journey, the single most surprising thing I ever discovered was from a small conversation that went:

Me: "Look, if it makes sense to devote dozens of people to WinIE, then surely it makes sense to devote half a dozen to MacIE!"

Higher-up: <confused look> "There aren't dozens of people on WinIE. WinIE had some great people on it! We need those great people on products that make money!"

Me: "Then why on earth did we pursue IE in the first place? Just so that the DOJ would sue us?"

Higher-up: <confused look>

Some day I hope to get a proper answer on our motivation to do WinIE and MacIE in the first place. It seems to be that we were scared of not having control of the HTML standard. And indeed, now that Firefox is gaining traction, Microsoft has added more people to WinIE again.

Epilogue: All of this made it a lot more easy for me to quit and go work at Google
Reminder: I may or may not be leaving some parts out for NDA reasons.

Re:I was on the MacIE 6 team when it got canned...

[jbx]

Jimmy Grewal posted a follow-up to this on his blog, which covers some extra points:

http://www.jimmygrewal.com/?p=187

A lot of what he says is true; but the story is more complex than this and there were many other factors that came into play. Issues which he doesn't cover...primarily because he wasn't working on the product much until the last few months of development:

        * - Mac IE was the first real browser running on Mac OS X. We had it running on Developer Preview 2 and it shipped on the Public Beta CD-ROM. That was a great engineering achievement but it came at a very high price. Developing for OS X in those early days was a nightmare and we spent so much time struggling with OS bugs and changing APIs that precious time that could have been used to improve the product was wasted just trying to maintain compatibility with each new beta release of OS X.
        * - Apple was a pain in the ass sometimes. For a company with such great PR, they really were very unprofessional and treated developers poorly. I know that the OS X transition was tough, but there are so many stories I could tell of stupidity at Apple and policies which made no sense...but I won't. I'll just say that Apple had a lot more involvement in the development of Mac IE and it's eventual end than Jorg ["jbx"] gives them credit for. There were times during the last two years of working at Microsoft that I really hated Apple's management...which was very difficult for me being such a loyal fan of their products and having so many friends who worked there.
        * - No clear direction from our management was the last major factor which Jorg touched upon but is important to mention again. Towards the end, we had some major changes in management at the MacBU and the new team was inexperienced both with the products they were managing and how to deal with Apple. They were further handicapped by lack of clear direction by our execs who were too busy worrying about AOL, the DOJ, and our stock price.

Anyway, enough about the history. Mac IE is dead, and it's up to Apple and the Mozilla team to continue to innovate for us Mac users. Sadly, there are still many very useful features in Mac IE that neither company has replicated in their browsers and there are still too many sites which don't look right in Safari. I remember calling up CNN and ESPN and getting them to fix problems in their websites...it worked and I hope Apple has a group of people doing the same thing.

Since Microsoft will no longer be offering Mac IE 5 for download on their website, I'm going to provide a community service by linking to it here. It has not been totally replaced and at least I need a place to be able to download it from for my own personal use...but you'll have to know what to click on to download it. ;-)

If you ever want to know who the people behind Mac IE 5 were, just type "about:tasman" in the address bar of Mac IE and you'll get a list of the people who put their heart and soul into making it such a remarkable and successful product.

I have to laugh (and cry) a bit at Jimmy's comment concerning Apple's management. Apple has screwed over developers time and time again, even while at the same time giving them lots of lip service and spending lots of time and money on developer programs. The tip of the iceberg: no Mac program written prior to 1999 will run - at all - on the new Intel-based Macs. In fact, most 2001 programs won't either. (By contrast, many 1984 apps *do* run on today's machines) More to the point: A Mac developer from 1998 who was 100% up-to-date on Apple's technologies will find today that those technologies have all been either deprecated (in favor of Cocoa or Intel) or outright eliminated (intelligent memory management through Handles, trap-patching, MixedMode expertise). It's all part of Steve Jobs' "they have no respect for the status quo" - a nice quote until you discover yourself at the receiving end of it.

Javascript vs. Jscript

[bwoodring]

Both are implementations of an ECMA standard, and Microsoft's is perfectly good. They can't call it Javascript because that (was/is) a Netscape trademark, but it doesn't really matter, because Javascript is a TERRIBLE name for that language. It really has nothing to do at all with Java except for some similar, C style, syntax. Now, perhaps Firefox has added some functionality to Javascript and Microsoft needs to catch up a little, but fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with their implementation.

Re: This highlights the actual problem, which is..

[Antique Geekmeister]

I agree. Moreover, sites that stick to basics and use straightforward HTML and CGI load faster, work on far more configurations of even the approved browser, are easier to fix, and don't get created by vaporware consultants who promise the stars and the moon to their clients but then charge New York taxi rates for the trip there.

I've actually told a consultant that I wouldn't pay them if they kept insisting on JavaScript pop-ups instead of a plain old clickable link, which they insisted on doing even after I introduced them to the vision impaired company lawyer who hates these things because they screw up the text->speech software that lawyer uses.

Good, but...

[dghcasp]

Unfortunately, there's still a lot of Mac/OS 9.x computers out there, and IE is about the only browser available for them. Safari needs OSX. Camino needs OSX.

Someone else made an (admittidly funny) remark about "just email those two users." In reality, for the place I work, our server logs show 6% of all accesses come from IE 5.x on MacOS 9.x systems.

I'll be very happy when IE 5 finally goes away, but on the other hand, I still see the occasional hit by Netscape 4.x in the logs...

We need an online db of IE-only corp. websites!

[totro2]

Hi all,

I keep hearing "my bank doesn't support firefox", or "The Gap doesn't support firefox". Which bank? Which banks in particular? What other retailers in particular? I want an online list I can refer to!

Where is a webpage I can go to see the list of all the major corporations who develop IE-only websites? This way I can avoid patronizing them with my business altogether. It would save me the time of switching to other competitors (who do "get it") later. It would be nice if each entry in this online db also had a link beside it to where I (and others like me who "get it") can file my complaint about non-conformance to W3C strandards.

If such a page existed and became common knowledge, no corporation in their right mind would want to be on such a list. This public badge of shame would prompt them to hire some real web developers, not loser IE-monopoly-developers who are impersonating real web developers.

Re:IE only is not always due to incompetence

[gerardrj]

The problem is that HTML is not supposed to dictate exactly what the browser shows. Browsers are supposed to let the end user decide what elements to render, in what order and in what fashion. I am supposed to be able to choose my own CSS definitions that should override those provided by the web site.

HTML is not PDF or PostScript, it's a markup language that contains suggestions of how things should be handled. If you need a web site that must align things pixel perfect then you should not be using HTML/CSS for the layout, but some other technology instead (image maps, Flash, clients/server app, etc).

Re:Mac users should be pissed to see IE go. Seriou

[jasonditz]

Since they weren't really keeping up with current versions of IE this isn't a huge deal... it's not like your copy of IE5 is going to stop working.

I'm a web developer, and by and large I just try to do things in a reasonable way and avoid confusing tricks that might get wonky on poor implementations. I've only ever run into one issue with IE doing this, and that was specific to the Mac 9.x verison.

Re:Mac users should be pissed to see IE go. Seriou

[indiechild]

You're kidding right? I'm glad to see IE5/Mac go, it had idiosyncracies that were completely different and far more maddening than IE/Win. The browser that always needed the most hacks and workarounds was always IE5/Mac.

As a Mac and Windows user and a webdesigner who creates standards-compliant cross-browser compatible websites, I'm glad to see the demise of IE5/Mac. It was great in its day in 2001, but since then it has been a great big thorn in the side of web developers.

Re:MS gets wise

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, right. They do have access to the source code of WebKit, but what they need is access to the whole OS,
because, as everyone knows, a browser has to be integrated tightly into the whole OS..
You know, for all those features like ActiveDesktop, remotely invoked installation of dancing monkeys and weather widgets and so on.
I mean, how could anybody use a browser without these?

Is MS killing their own business?

[GhodMode]

When I observe what's happening in the computer world, I see a many companies working really hard to make life easier for people who want an alternative. Some of them are even large, relatively stable companies such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell, etc...

I try not to sound anti-Microsoft most of the time. Some people actually consider my advice valuable enough to help them make their purchasing decisions with regard to technology. So, I try to remain unbiased.

What really makes me smile, though, is when the largest and, supposedly, most stable of technology companies helps to make it easier to switch to an alternative.

In this case, Microsoft has effictively told all Apple computer users "We don't consider you valuable and we don't want your business."

It is not insignificant just because IE is free software. Consider the companies who do the majority of their business through the Internet. They also find it easier to choose an alternative. Now, if they want to keep their Apple customers and utilize the latest technology in their Web sites, they only need to design their Web sites according to a specification (W3C) which is supported by browsers on every platform. Reduce cost and development time with just a single site, without cross-browser tricks, and it works everywhere... Ok, that's ideal, not real, but it's an ideal that Microsoft has been effectively working against while every other browser development team works towards it.

I do not wish to digress too far, but consider this: Safari is based on a KHTML code base, which is derived from the KDE project, which is primarily used on the Linux platform, which is seen as a threat to Microsoft's business.

Every day there are new problems where legitimate businesses, who purchased all of their software legally are told that they need to pay a license fee to continue using it.

Even home users have problems. Given the nature of the latest version of the most common operating system, it's necessary to format the hard drive and re-install occasionally. But if you do it more than three times, you have to call Microsoft and convince them that you actually purchased your software so that you can have a new activation code. This one has personally affected me. Even though I have legally purchased more copies of Windows XP than I am using, I use a cracked "Corporate Edition" of the software because I don't want to deal with the hassle of Activation.

The company with the largest market share keeps irritating their paying customers. Businesses are already choosing alternatives in droves. Soon, even average users won't even want to bother with them.

Well... Apple users... Where do you want to go today?

--
-- Ghodmode

Re:MS gets wise

[PHPfanboy]

I don't agree with your post much, although it is clear that the reason MSFT put 100 million into Apple a few years back was to prevent them becoming a total monopoly.

I think classing Apple as a desktop OS company is ignoring developments of the past 3-4 years.

I also think that people wanting to use Linux on the desktop won't use Apple. Most Apple users are individuals/small work groups and home users (like me), so you're not going to get the hundreds of corporate desktops you need to challenge Microsoft by replacing them (hint: start with the system integrators who have the 000's of outsourced desktop maintenance contracts with large corporates).

I also don't believe that if Apple did not exist there would be hordes of developers lining up for a desktop Linux product. Most open source projects are understaffed anyway, to expect loads of people to fall out of the woodwork and start working on improving a desktop (as well really understanding user interfaces and *shudder* marketing) is IM-Not-So-HO fanciful.

I think that you receiving 5 insightful for your post is damn impressive, but that's just my opinion.

Re:Mac users should be pissed to see IE go. Seriou

[Mouse42]

Microsoft is only ending support for IE Mac... not making it magically delete off everyone's machines.

If it is working for your wife now, it can continue to work for her needs. She'll only need to switch to a newer version of IE (and thusly, the windows box) if her work place's webmaster stops supporting IE Mac and makes and incompatable upgrade.

Yeah, No Kidding

[Greyfox]

I recently discovered that CSS handling in IE is functionally retarded. Apparently a lot of people (particularly web developers) are aware of the problem. Microsoft for the most part insists that the worst bits of it are "features." No web 2.0 for you, IE users. If Microsoft would just discontinue the browser, we could move forward without wasting endless hours trying to come up with workaround's for the one thing Microsoft's always been good at putting out -- bugs!