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Apple Picking a Fight it Can't Win With Safari
Ian Lamont writes "Mike Elgan has an analysis of Apple's successes and concludes that the release of the Safari browser for Windows not only goes against the Apple success formula, but is doomed to a vicious failure: 'The insular Apple universe is a relatively gentle place, an Athenian utopia where Apple's occasional missteps are forgiven, all partake of the many blessings of citizenship, and everyone feels like they're part of an Apple-created golden age of lofty ideas and superior design. But the Windows world isn't like that. It's a cold, unforgiving place where nothing is sacred, users turn like rabid wolves on any company that makes even the smallest error, and no prisoners are taken. Especially the Windows browser market. ... While security nerds were ripping Apple for a buggy beta, the UI enthusiasts started going after Apple for the look and feel. Here's a small sample. Apple can expect much more of this in the future. The problem? Safari for Windows just isn't Windows enough.' Elgan also expects that the Firefox faithful will fight the Safari influx — a theory that has been supported by comments from Mozilla executive John Lilly, who criticized Steve Jobs' 'blurry view of real world' just after Jobs announced Safari for Windows."
There may be another reason besides iPhone development that Safari has been brought to Windows. If you are a Mac user, you should know that Safari still doesn't work on a lot of websites, forcing you to use an alternative browser. Perhaps if Safari even got only 5% market share on Windows, the combined amount of safari installations out there would be enough for most commercial sites to make sure their pages are safari compatible. This would benefit Mac users as well, and drive more people to stick with Safari instead of installing Firefox, Camino, or Opera.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I don't know why this meme of "Safari, the iPhone SDK" has suddenly become so popular, but Jobs himself has said in his keynote that they really want Safari to get a much bigger market share. Interestingly, on his slides his projected market share gain came mainly at the expense of Firefox and others, rather than IE.
Take a look at the following and make sure to file defects...
Safari Beta 3.0.1 for Windows
Several of the issues appear to be in the foundational libraries which Apple ported from Mac OS X and not in Safari or WebKit themselves. The beta is testing more then just WebKit or Safari on Windows.
You really think web developers are going to give a shit if their sites work on IE 5&6, Netscape, and Firefox but break/look odd on Safari?
I think they're starting to. Part of the thing is that it seems like a lot of the people who write a lot of crap and have decent readership of their blogs also happen to be Mac users. So, they get to a site that doesn't work, they blog about it, it doesn't look good, etc. etc. There's really no excuse to not make your stuff work with Safari, as it's *very* standards compliant. I can't really think of the last page I went to that didn't work in Safari.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
you could also add, since the default home page of safari is to apple.com, and since this move got lots of free Apple advertising ...
/. this year.
6. To advertise Apple and increase awareness of Apple products and services in general.
Again, as you rightly state, not a fight that Apple cannot win -- in fact this task has already been achieved.
Has to be said, all in all this has to be one of the worst thought out articles on
This is going to happen. Apple killed WMA as a standard. Safari is going to kill IE as a standard.
How?
The iPhone and mobile browsing.
Mobile browsing has been the red headed step child of the internet. It sucks. The iPhone seems like it will remedy that, and no other company seems to be in a position to compete with it, or will be in a position to do so for some time. That means that Safari will likely become a standard for mobile browsing, as long as the iPhone emulates the iPod and becomes a massive hit. What we will then have is a market in which Microsoft cannot compete because the iPhone will not run IE, just as the iPod did not use WMA. The iPhone will do for mobile internet what the iPod did for digital music... or at least that is Apple's bet. The iPod didn't establish a closed standard for digital music (and won't once Steve realizes his dream of DRM free music). What the iPod did was killed Microsoft's attempt to force Microsoft software as the standard.
I predict that mobile browsing will become indispensable to ordinary people in a way that it isn't now (I never use the web on my Winmobile phone because it sucks). If it is indispensable, then site designers will have to code for it, and that means abandoning an IE only policy. Imagine the hate calls banks will get along the lines of "Hey mofos!!! I can't check my bank balance on my phone!!" THAT will be the effective end of IE as a standard.
Safari for Windows, is, as I said below, just an insurance policy to make sure that whatever works on the iPhone will also work on your desktop (in case Microsoft tries to make things difficult by making iPhone sites display funny).
Microsoft better hope for one of two things. Either (a) the iPhone is a flop; or (b) the iPhone is a success, but mobile browsing never really takes off. Would you want to bet against either one?
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
I think this is unlikely.
Many years ago I worked for a major European telecommunications company who were convinced that, as they were as yet the only people offering a 'user-friendly web browser/phone', they were therefore in control of their market niche and ought to do rather well. Theirs was the definitive browsing experience.
It didn't fit well with the de facto state of the art at that time, and didn't display all those pages too well at all. The company was aware of this; therefore they 'reached out' to those web publishers who were seen as particularly relevant for the user group of said web browser/phone, and offered what was in effect SDK documentation: 'this is how to optimise user experience'. For some reason, almost nobody ever bothered to read said documentation. The general attitude was very much 'who cares about the id10ts who wasted their hard earned on this embedded crap?'
From this experience I took several lessons. Never assume you're a major enough player in the market to force anybody to do anything, unless you own 80% or more of it, and even then, you would be lucky. Very few people code for specific platforms, even where money is waved in front of them. Nobody except the users cares about user experience, except where it impacts on the bottom line (and in the case of a phone, you've already signed a contract before you start to learn about the little bugs). If you are going to offer any sort of guaranteed user experience, you would be best advised to ensure that you do not guarantee it on third party data.
At last year's WWW conf., there was a panel between various mobile web representatives discussing why the mobile web had not yet taken off. One (the Orange guy, I think?) pointed out that extremely high expectations had built up around mobile browsing. It wasn't so much that the current experience as of today's Nokia smartphone is particularly bad - it's more that there was a huge mismatch between expectation and experience. I get the impression that Apple really ought to talk to guys like this before they publicise the iPhone platform much further. They are making commitments that reality may not reflect -- which is pretty much a classic way of setting yourself up for 'limited success' in this arena.
How much was the first high-end iPod? $499, right? Now, today the most expensive fifth-generation model is down to $349, while the cheapest models are $79 (shuffle) and $149 (nano).
Translation: don't assume that there's only going to be one model and one price point forever.
Secondarily, Apple may, like they do with Mac, be happy to simply dominate the high-end market. One set of numbers I've seen indicates that while Apple may only have 2-3% of the worldwide market for personal computers, they have %6 of the total US market and 26% of the high-end market.
Translation: define "dominate".
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I'm sorry but have you ever seen a Blackberry? They have no 3rd party apps or support yet they have huge market share and every manager on the planet wants one. I think you are basing your assumption outside reality.
I ate your fish.
Ummm... Just how many people around the world use Opera on their cell phones but have never seen it on a PC? A lot of people use Treos and most of those don't run IE. The W models do now but a lot of them don't.
If that is the reason Apple did it then it was a blunder of and epic level.
Safari on the PC is currently inferior to IE and FF!
It doesn't look like a native application.
It lacks a spell checker.
It lacks ad blocking.
Love it or hate it it doesn't use Windows font rendering.
It didn't import any of my bookmarks.
No Linux Version unless you count Konqure.
If you think I hate Safari on Windows you are wrong. It does seem to run javascript heavy sites very fast and I have not had any real compatibility issues with it. It looks like it has a very standards complaint rendering engine as well.
It may get people coding for standards instead of IE. Firefox has helped with that a lot but there are still idiots that code only for IE!
So why Safari? My guess is to offer a Windows environment for widget development but also to give Microsoft a poke in the eye for dropping IE for the Mac. Consider this a shot over the bow warning Microsoft that if they snub the Mac enough that Apple will start attacking Microsoft on their home turf. Maybe Apple is working on an Office killer? Microsoft is having enough trouble with OO.org. Imagine if Apple started improving OO?
Vista is a disappointment, I don't think the latest and greatest office is setting the world on fire, the Zune isn't making big headway with the iPod crowd, and the new IE while an improvement isn't a FF killer. The last thing Microsoft needs is Apple adding it's talent to OO.org!
I keep hoping that Apple will fix the problems so that we do have a lovely third browser choice for Windows.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.