[Steve_S]

Ilgaz said:

1% share or not, it doesn't matter. Do you see how Apple influences everything with iPhone? What is the global marketshare of it compared to Symbian? See, it isn't that simple.

Yeah, I sort of realized after I posted how the market share argument is a bit weak when discussing influence. With that said, as nice as Opera's Presto engine may be, I'd still suggest it's less relevant or influential than Webkit. While I agree it does deserve mention, my issue was more along the line that not only did McCracken give Opera more recognition than Webkit, but he have non-existent "Yahoo" browsers higher mention than Apple's webkit.

[Gee4orce]

1% browser share - if true - is great news for Safari, iPhone and Mac users in general, as it means +1% browser population using WebKit. This can only mean better WebKit support, which will benefit Apple users in a variety of ways.

(this is assuming that 1% moved from a non-WebKit browser in the first place. I'm guessing they are mostly tech-savvy Firefox users).

[robertRoss]

+I can always tell a
Windows-centric writer by the adjectives he uses when referring to
anything Apple-related. He says Safari for Windows is "quirky". Sounds
like he's never even opened the program and surfed the net with it, or
he'd have chosen any of various other adjectives, including elegant,
fast, aesthetic, solid and stable.+


Or it could be just his opinion, which differs from your own. Really, it could.

Safari on Windows is quirky in many ways. It almost completely ignores the OS standards to a degree that reminds me of old software like Scala. I use it to check for site compliance, and have to do some CSS dancing on occassion to get what displays in Firefox displaying in Safari (not nearly as much dancing as one has to do for Explorer), but I personally use Firefox on every platform, particularly Windows.

This, of course, has nothing to do with being Windows, Mac, or Linux centric (I run Firefox on Ubuntu too) but is just a preference. You have preferences, I have preferences, even when having used the same applications. Why can't the writer?

[natmusak]

robertRoss said:

Safari on Windows is quirky in many ways. It almost completely ignores the OS standards to a degree that reminds me of old software like Scala. I use it to check for site compliance, and have to do some CSS dancing on occassion to get what displays in Firefox displaying in Safari (not nearly as much dancing as one has to do for Explorer), but I personally use Firefox on every platform, particularly Windows.



This, of course, has nothing to do with being Windows, Mac, or Linux centric (I run Firefox on Ubuntu too) but is just a preference. You have preferences, I have preferences, even when having used the same applications. Why can't the writer?

That's all well and good, but just like the article's author, you bring up "quirkiness" and the notion that Windows applications are supposed to look a certain way, without any examples. Oh, Safari looks different. Well so does iTunes on Windows, but many people like Apple's slick UI choices better than Windows XP's Fisher Price look or Vista's flashy gloss and sheen. Apple doesn't just want Internet Explorer users to switch to Safari (or any of the other standards-compliant browsers like Firefox, Opera, and now Chrome), they want Windows users to switch to Macs and making the Windows versions of Safari and iTunes near identical to the OS X Cocoa versions will allow an easier transition. MobileMe's SproutCore-powered web apps likewise put a Cocoa-esque interface in front of Windows users.

All these OS X-like programs are also a godsend for us Mac users who have to deal with Windows on a daily basis at work and/or school. As Jobs once remarked, "it's like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell." :D

Firefox doesn't look like Internet Explorer, doesn't look like Safari, doesn't look like Opera, doesn't look at all like Chrome. Windows developers don't really have a frame of reference comparable to the one Mac devs do.

[robertRoss]

I didn't say it "looked different" (my Windows install is skinned to look like Aqua), I said it violates typical OS standards, particularly when it was released (you had to scale windows only from the corner) and the font system, though nice, might be quirky to some, depending on their opinion.

There are plenty of people who feel, or have the opinion that the non standard "quirky" interfaces like oh, I don't know, Windows Media Player on Windows as well as the examples you gave are not to their taste. There are plenty, as you say, that do. None of which means they're "Mac, Windows, or Linux" centric, whatever that's supposed to mean.

You like it, that's fine. I have no problem with that. I find it odd that you accuse the writer of being "Windows centric" in a dismissive way just becuase his opinion and preferences do not match your own. It's snotty. Do you have some Kleenex (or do you prefer another brand?)

Firefox doesn't look like IE? Well no shit it doesn't. Who said it does? I'm afraid there is indeed a frame of reference for Windows developers and Safari violated it in a large way (and small things annoy people) and so it may, it just may, be considered quirky by all manner of people, but apparently you can tell the writer is Windows centric because of this statement and yet he seems to like Chrome, which doesn't look like any other browser either, but then OS standards and how an application looks are not the same thing.

[batchtaster]

If Microsoft is "less concerned about Chrome’s potential impact on IE, a product it gives away for free, than on Windows", why should Apple be any more concerned about Chrome's impact on Safari?

[wmikko]

I am an apple fan since Nov 2007, got lots of apple stuff home.

Safari is a good browser, but it has one feature why I have been using Firefox;

Safari does not work with the e-banking platform which I am using. I am curiously waiting for Googles browser to see if it has the safe problem, but since I have already so many bookmarks (related to my work) in my Firefox I doubt that I would change the browser, unless importing the bookmarks and bookmarks toolbar is succesful.

Anyway, I think that competition is the only way for more intensive R/D.

[Steve_S]

robertRoss said:

Safari on Windows is quirky in many ways. It almost completely ignores the OS standards to a degree that reminds me of old software like Scala.

I'm guessing you haven't used Safari on Windows recently... I do agree that applications should look and feel native to their respective platform of operation. While I understand what Apple was trying to do, I think pushing the Mac look and feel on Windows users was the wrong move. Just as I don't care for the Windows GUI look, there is something to be said for consistency. However, at this point, outside of the color scheme and perhaps the size of the buttons, Safari now behaves as expected on Windows. The maximize button now works as expected, as does the resizing of windows, etc. It's unfortunate how many people seem to have made absolute opinions based on initial beta and early releases.

>I use it to check for site compliance, and have to do some CSS dancing on occassion to get what displays in Firefox displaying in Safari (not nearly as much dancing as one has to do for Explorer), but I personally use Firefox on every platform, particularly Windows.

Yes, every web developer has to dance around the CSS implementations of various browsers, especially IE. However, I've found Safari/Webkit to be quite good overall with regards to standards compliance, etc. If Chrome actually takes off, your Webkit compliance checking might just become more of a requirement than just the "right thing to do". Overall, this is probably good news for Apple.

Quote

This, of course, has nothing to do with being Windows, Mac, or Linux centric (I run Firefox on Ubuntu too) but is just a preference. You have preferences, I have preferences, even when having used the same applications. Why can't the writer?

That's all true. However, in this case, I don't think the writer's bias was limited to just one comment. Sure, we all have preferences and are free to share our opinions. But, when you're in a position to share those opinions by way of article published on various popular IDG based web sites, you're also open to criticism, right? ;-)