Early today Apple released a beta of version 3 of their Safari browser, free to download. Much to everyone’s surprise, the new Safari site boasted a version for both OS X and Windows. I, of course, jumped in eager to get a new taste of Apple’s polished software on Windows. I have spent a fair amount of time using iTunes in Windows, and while impressive, I eventually found WMP 11 to be more to my tastes. I’m always willing to give something new a try, especially when it comes to software, so 7.97 MB later I was installing Safari.
The interface in OS X is very consistent among apps designed for Aqua themeing, and here Apple has delivered a very consistent interface to the Windows version of iTunes. There are several reports of opening day vulnerabilities, but I’d say that’s understandable. Even from Apple, I don’t expect perfection on day one.
As for usability, it is quite excellent. It is very similar to Firefox in many ways, but different in enough ways to make it easy to pick up, refreshingly different, and slightly frustrating all at the same time. The first thing that I noticed is that the font smoothing is about 5x better than Firefox’s. It also renders webpages slightly differently because of its support for CSS 3 which Firefox has none of.
Example: http://www.webstandards.org/
Compare the About | Learn | Action | Buzz | Press | bar to how Firefox renders it.These bits of text are supposed to have a black text-shadow CSS 3 element that turns white on hover, but Firefox doesn’t even render it.
Also see http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/text-shadow.html
Double clicking the tab bar doesn’t open a new tab. Neither does middle clicking a bookmark in the toolbar or in the menu. In fact, I still haven’t found out how to open a bookmark in a new tab except for opening a blank tab with “Ctrl + T” and then just clicking the bookmark.
In the settings there’s some mentions of automatically checking RSS feeds for new items and highlighting them, and such but I have yet to figure out how to get anything RSS related working outside of viewing the feed from a site in the browser window the same way Firefox would preview it. Any attempts to bookmark it just resulted in a regular bookmark leading back to the feed preview page (which I must admit is AJAXed up a little from the standard feed preview to make it pretty nice in its own right).
Another annoyance: no mouse rocker gestures (and a lot of other things from my extensions). Many of these things I can get over though.
I tried it in WINE just for kicks, but that’s a no-go. Something about C++ libraries or something. Maybe someone more inclined will figure something out, but not for me.
Overall impressions leave it as another excellent alternative to IE (though 7 isn’t that shabby anymore). I definitely like it better than Opera, and it’s a close second to Firefox. I’ll keep using it in tandom to Firefox and see if it grows on me. It does have a very slick interface, after all.
I’ve been using it at work, and I generally like it. It does run faster than Firefox, but its lack of extensions really kills it. (I don’t understand why developers don’t support something as deal-breaking as extensions.
The lack of spell checker might mater to some poeple, but I don’t realy miss it.
Overall, I like the “ooh” factor, but I’ll be surprised if I don’t go back in a month. I’ve gotten used to Firefox’s shortcuts and interface, and if it ain’t broke…
(Also, I’ve been having weird copy/paste problems. Is it just me?)
Given my medical history and the extent of my problem, they could.
(In reference to your comment on my xanga)
I was finally able to get the vol.1 artbox of “When they Cry” online and thats how I did my review on the dub job part. I think I might just have a showing at the party on July 3rd (so far that’s the planned date anyway, I’ll call around again to make sure) cause I have a feeling even Mark may like it.
Oh, and one other thing,
is this a good price?