Earlier this month Apple released Safari for Windows. Why this sudden generosity from Apple? Why did Apple suddenly jump into the browser market.. I mean sure Apple had its browser on the market for a long time but it was more of a passive player. Even the most ardent apple fanboys used firefox on Macs. The great Stevo himself confessed that he used firefox, so why put all the time and effort porting the browser to a different platform??
At the WWDC Steve Jobs mentioned that they would like to have a sizable market share in the browser market. In fact he predicts that IE7 and Safari would be the only two browsers left in the market. Call me a conspiracy theorist.. but I think thats a load of crap. Knowing Mr Jobs, I don't think he had the browser market on his mind. If you have a Windows installation, give safari a shot and you'll know what am talking about.
Safari on Windows is definitely faster than Firefox and IE. I am a huge Firefox fan but the superkewl interface of Safari makes me wanna boot into Windows. Although the font rendering is not crisp, just the speed and Apple's zen like interface designing approach makes browsing a totally different experience. To top it all, apple went through all the trouble of retaining the tiny special effects like rollover in their browser. I have a big appetite for effects and beryl on Ubuntu takes care of that pretty well but you gotta give Apple the credit for putting those effects where its least intrusive and least expected.
90%(maybe more) of the Windows crowd do not have access to a Mac and have never heard of Linux. By providing a windows app, Apple is using Microsoft to advertise its technology. These simple effects are enough to blow the socks off any casual Windows user. Most computer users just want an eye candy pc for browsing or word processing... Apple computers do that and look good too. An app as simple as a browser showcases Apple's technology and their capability. Its a perfect setup to woo Windows users. In my opinion Apple's not eying the browser market.. but the OS market. The timing couldn't be better.. MS is trying to change its product line and challenge Google. We are witnessing a clash of titans, Google, MS and Apple. The evil geniuses of Bill Gates and Jobs, and the combined minds of thousands of geniuses employed by Google makes the outcome totally unpredictable.
I guess we can grab our bag of popcorns and watch the show.
At the WWDC Steve Jobs mentioned that they would like to have a sizable market share in the browser market. In fact he predicts that IE7 and Safari would be the only two browsers left in the market. Call me a conspiracy theorist.. but I think thats a load of crap. Knowing Mr Jobs, I don't think he had the browser market on his mind. If you have a Windows installation, give safari a shot and you'll know what am talking about.
Safari on Windows is definitely faster than Firefox and IE. I am a huge Firefox fan but the superkewl interface of Safari makes me wanna boot into Windows. Although the font rendering is not crisp, just the speed and Apple's zen like interface designing approach makes browsing a totally different experience. To top it all, apple went through all the trouble of retaining the tiny special effects like rollover in their browser. I have a big appetite for effects and beryl on Ubuntu takes care of that pretty well but you gotta give Apple the credit for putting those effects where its least intrusive and least expected.
90%(maybe more) of the Windows crowd do not have access to a Mac and have never heard of Linux. By providing a windows app, Apple is using Microsoft to advertise its technology. These simple effects are enough to blow the socks off any casual Windows user. Most computer users just want an eye candy pc for browsing or word processing... Apple computers do that and look good too. An app as simple as a browser showcases Apple's technology and their capability. Its a perfect setup to woo Windows users. In my opinion Apple's not eying the browser market.. but the OS market. The timing couldn't be better.. MS is trying to change its product line and challenge Google. We are witnessing a clash of titans, Google, MS and Apple. The evil geniuses of Bill Gates and Jobs, and the combined minds of thousands of geniuses employed by Google makes the outcome totally unpredictable.