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Is Safari the New Internet Explorer?
An anonymous reader writes: Software developer Nolan Lawson says Apple's Safari has taken the place of Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the major browser that lags behind all the others. This comes shortly after the Edge Conference, where major players in web technologies got together to discuss the state of the industry and what's ahead. Lawson says Mozilla, Google, Opera, and Microsoft were all in attendance and willing to talk — but not Apple.
"It's hard to get insight into why Apple is behaving this way. They never send anyone to web conferences, their Surfin' Safari blog is a shadow of its former self, and nobody knows what the next version of Safari will contain until that year's WWDC. In a sense, Apple is like Santa Claus, descending yearly to give us some much-anticipated presents, with no forewarning about which of our wishes he'll grant this year. And frankly, the presents have been getting smaller and smaller lately."
He argues, "At this point, we in the web community need to come to terms with the fact that Safari has become the new IE. Microsoft is repentant these days, Google is pushing the web as far as it can go, and Mozilla is still being Mozilla. Apple is really the one singer in that barbershop quartet hitting all the sour notes, and it's time we start talking about it openly instead of tiptoeing around it like we're going to hurt somebody's feelings."
"It's hard to get insight into why Apple is behaving this way. They never send anyone to web conferences, their Surfin' Safari blog is a shadow of its former self, and nobody knows what the next version of Safari will contain until that year's WWDC. In a sense, Apple is like Santa Claus, descending yearly to give us some much-anticipated presents, with no forewarning about which of our wishes he'll grant this year. And frankly, the presents have been getting smaller and smaller lately."
He argues, "At this point, we in the web community need to come to terms with the fact that Safari has become the new IE. Microsoft is repentant these days, Google is pushing the web as far as it can go, and Mozilla is still being Mozilla. Apple is really the one singer in that barbershop quartet hitting all the sour notes, and it's time we start talking about it openly instead of tiptoeing around it like we're going to hurt somebody's feelings."
"Apple is like Santa Claus, descending yearly to give us some much-anticipated presents, with no forewarning about which of our wishes he'll grant this year."
Here's a lump of coal. You'll like it. We'll send you the bill later.
(Apple has always been like that - they Think Different)
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
As a 20yr IT guy,.. who started using Macs (in depth) about 5 to 7 years ago.. I pretty much use Safari for everything. Why?... It gives me the best Stability, Performance and Battery-life. Call it whatever names you want... but it works for me. (and I work in IT.. and push it pretty hard.. so No, I'm not "just surfing Facebook" with it).
Well I think the why is pretty clear with the feature set they have been releasing. On OSX Safari is a default choice whose major advantage is ties with iOS devices. They are fine with people using other browsers and might even welcome a more diverse OSX broswer ecosystem. On iOS they want to move away from the web and towards applications. They need the iOS Safari engine to be fast, but they don't need it to support the full range of web experiences since increasingly they want those experiences delivered via. applications.
The analogy with I.E. is really quite on point. Apple is acting like Microsoft did in the late 1990s / 2000s for the same reason Microsoft was disinterested in I.E. They were focusing on platform specific advantages that come from client / server rather than purely web server design.
I use Safari on an OSX box from time to time, when I need to deal with work e-mail and I don't want to log-out of personal e-mail on the main browser. Seems to work fine that way.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.