Monday, June 11, 2007

Safari 3.0 Beta

One of the more interesting announcements from today's Apple WWDC was the introduction of Safari 3.0 Beta.  Normally, a new version of a Mac browser wouldn't be all that interesting for most folks, but this is different.  Safari 3.0b is also available for Windows XP and Vista!  There will no doubt be a lot of speculation as to why Apple decided to jump into the Windows browser market, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's at least partially related to the upcoming iPhone release, which will use Safari as its browser.

I installed 3.0b on my MacBook Pro.  So far, so good.  It's very fast and now appears to work with Blogger (finally!).  It's still beta so I'm expecting bugs, but my first impression is favorable.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Apple Safari 3.0b installer won't install on G4 17" laptop- any idea why not?

Dave Markowitz said...

Are you running OS 10.4.9? If not, run Software Update to bring your system up to date, then try again.

Unknown said...

Thank you for the reply, running 10.4.9. Installer states, "You cannot install Safari 3 Beta on this volume. This volume does not meet the requirements for this update"??

Dave Markowitz said...

In that case I'm stumped.

Anonymous said...

Dave,

Have you given any thought to the idea that Apple might be slowly moving away from computer hardware? Apple moved their OS from the G4/G5 CPU/hardware platform to the Intel platform and now XP runs on a Mac. Could it be that eventually Apple will abandon computer hardware all together? They could then sell the Mac OS X allowing people to buy/build Intel systems to run it on. Also whether we like it or not MS has the greatest market share/penetration thus more more could be realized from having Apple's software run under Windows. The iPod might be the most popular mp3 player but the Mac OS is not as popular as Linux. I am not knocking Apple's OS but we have to face reality. Sorry for the long post.

Steve Swickard
(In Colorado)

Dave Markowitz said...

I don't think Apple is going to get out of the hardware business. They Intel Macs have been selling well, and Apple has second place in the laptop market after Dell, IIRC.

IMO the reason for the release of Safari for Windows is tied to the forthcoming iPhone.

As for Linux being more popular than Mac OS, I can believe that for servers but I'd be surprised if that's true for desktops/laptops.

Anonymous said...

Dave,

You are probably correct. I made the post prior to watching Steve Job's keynote at the WWDC Monday and that explains a lot.

Thanks

Steve Swickard