Apples Safari browser is now available on Windows.
I’m under whelmed so far.
Yes it’s quick, but it doesn’t support Aero in Vista. And then there is the font rendering. WTF? Chris Pirillo tells me on Flickr that it’s something to do with settings so I’ll have to play with it some more but the first impression Windows users are going to get is terrible: fuzzy, hard to read fonts.
The real question is what is Apple trying to achieve with this? Steve Jobs did announce that Safari was the key to 3rd party support on the Jesus Phone so maybe that’s why, but if it’s a tool for people to see what running a Mac is like…well, suffice to say it may well be a hindrance than a help.
On the Mac front I’m about 50/50 moving towards 60% for on switching. Price is still my sticking point, but with tax time coming up at the end of the month the company might need to spend so money and given my monitors and other bits and pieces will work with a Mac it’s just a question of making the dive and buying a box. Time will tell I guess, it’s a lot of money and she who must be obeyed isn’t in favour if, and that’s the biggest hurdle of them all 🙂
Money could be the reason for releasing Safari on Windows. Just like Mozilla, Apple also receive money from google when people use the integrated search bar. iTunes is a succcesful Windows application, it is installed on more PC than Macs. Imagine if Apple starts to distribute Safari along with iTunes and Quicktime.
There are many issues reported about this release from italian user. What’s about the situation worldwide?
Duncan, you have a multi-monitor setup on Vista right? Can you try placing Safari on your non-primary monitor (the one without the start menu) and click the maximize button?
On my XP multi-monitor setup, Safari simply disappears. Looks like Apple doesn’t spend as much on their Windows engineers as their Mac engineers…
The only ‘good’ thing I can see from this move is that I no longer need a Mac to test websites against Safari, but then again, there are still heaps of Macs out there on Safari 1.x and 2.x.
If this is an example of the QA for an application to encourage people to use Safari then Apple has a long way to go. They for starters have not allowed for people with lots of fonts still on WinXP, which causes the Safari chrome to display no fonts or the sites rendered fontless. There is the Bug button problem, the min/max controls problem, its just a mess. A lot of this product just doesn’t work.
On the Mac its fine. You can tell where the R&D testing went. Very bad call Mr Jobs.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html?hi=joel
That explains it. 😉
Of course, it also explains why I’m likely going to be switching to the Mac at some point after Leopard is released – if I can find enough sponsors first.