First look: Safari for Windows
So I'm starting to mess with Safari for Windows this morning. I'm particularly interested, since the engine running the program is the very same upon which Adobe Apollo RIA apps and the iPhone's browser are based, to things like DOM manipulation, rendering speed, and AJAX compatibility (Gmail for some reason acts funny on some OS X boxes I've messed with in Safari). Some initial feedback:
- The 8 MB download and 27.5 MB footprint are both surprising. I was expecting much larger diskspace requirements, given that it's an Apple app.
- My mousewheel is detected and works for scrolling, but my middle mouse button isn't. This is a letdown.
- Apple's typical sexy UI design gives the windowed app more of a natural full-screen appeal, without a ton of menus and scrollbars.
- The DOM support and CSS handling seems to be more reminiscent of Firefox than IE.
- The View Source option is pretty Plain Jane. No code colorization and/or formatting? Bummer.
- Embedded media seems to be handling well...even when launching remote players for WMVs.
- Safari apparently imported my browsing history from Firefox and/or IE, which was cool. The AutoComplete kicked-in when I first tried browsing to KUAM.com, with all other sites I'd visited in other platforms.
- Like most Apple freeware (e.g., iTunes, QuickTime), it's pretty resource intensive on a Windows box, and not at all available for GNU/Linux. At startup, it's a memory hog, and on my laptop, doesn't exactly fly, even with 2GB.
- I've always like Safari's inline displaying of RSS data. That's always been a cool selling point for me.
- The network detection through Bonjour is pretty slick.
posted by Jason Salas @ 9:08 AM
4 Comments:
At June 18, 2007 3:21 PM,
John Walker said…
Jason,
What do you think of the font-rendering. There's been some considerable debate about the fact that Apple chose to use their font-rendering technology instead of Clear-Type. I find it a bit blurry for my liking, but being a Windows guy, that makes sense. Any thoughts?
At June 18, 2007 4:15 PM,
concrete-and-water said…
I've yet to try out Safari for Windows. I doubt it's worth the space on my PC. I'm getting a Macbook in a couple months, I'll try it out on that. Even then I'll probably use Firefox on it.
I doubt you have time to watch TV, but did CNN on Guam switch from the international edition to the American edition? If so, it's a shame. I totally respect Christianne Amanpour and we rarely get to see her on the American edition of CNN. I used to like Larry King but he dedicated two days to Paris Hilton! Which really bothered me. I think the only good program airing on CNN is Anderson Cooper 360.
At June 20, 2007 12:04 PM,
Jason Salas said…
Hi John,
I've never been crazy about the Mac-ish nature to overwrite what have become web-friendly fonts like Verdana for header content and Tahoma for text with standard types. I was hoping it wouldn't be the case, but it's a minor nuisance.
At least major layout, CSS, scripting and other formatting concerns are left intact.
At June 20, 2007 12:08 PM,
Jason Salas said…
Hi Erica,
Ironically, I don't use Safari on any of the Macs I have access to. I rock Firefox and my friend Josie's a big Camino advocate.
I think we still get at least 2 CNN channels on basic cable and some of the more niche-oriented areas with digital packages.
The Hilton coverage, not just by CNN but by everybody, was just like Anna Nicole-Smith...not all the players wanted to give it that much air time, but everyone else was, and everyone and their dog was watching. That's live in show biz. :-)
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