Long time no tech tips post. This is a true reflection of amount of current project work I have at the moment. Anyway lets explore my latest Internet discoveries..
There is now a forth major contender in the browser market for Windows users. Most of us have heard of "Internet Explorer", "FireFox" (My personal favorite), "Opera" but now there is one from Apple "Safari". So after installing and having a play with it I quiet enjoyed the browsing experience. It is quick, has all the features the other browsers have, and has quiet a nice look and feel. I even set it as my default browser for a couple of days, however as a developer could not trade all of my FireFox extensions, for the new browser, so switched back not too long after.
I'm not going to lie, the browser does render pages and launch quicker than all of the other browsers and features all the modern features, such as "tabbed browsing", "pop-up blocker", "auto-fill forms" and built in "RSS Reader" and does come with the classic Apple look and feel (just like i-Tunes really) but it is really a browser for a basic Internet user. Another cool feature is the find feature which actually highlights the word searched upon in a pretty cool animated way.
One thing I don't like is that I couldn't use my de.icio.us bookmarks with the browser and I'm not sure Apple are going to open up the browser for developers to build in extra functionality. We will see I guess as it still is in beta.
I think that the main reason that Apple launched this browser is because the i-phone has just been released and the browser on this phone is Safari. It is definitely a strategic move to attempt to get Windows website developers to build support for the browser into their websites so that the i-phone can handle web based applications. I mean if they had not released the browser then I'm sure that the majority of us web developers would not bother supporting the browser unless it is a major contender on Windows machines. Another interesting point to make is there are millions of i-Pod users who download i-Tunes to manage their music, in the near future I can for see a move from Apple to include the browser with the download of the i-Tunes application. This will put them in a good position to take a good share of the browser market for Windows PCs.
I suggest you give it a go, check its features on the Apple site and start supporting it as a developer, as I imagine with the i-Phone and i-Tunes download amounts will make this browser quiet available to the public. On top of that why not reach the i-Phone mobile application market by making sure your website works in the browser correctly. Download the browser from the link below;
http://www.apple.com/safari/download/
