Maybe Mac OS on a pc? Introduce parts of it first then the whole thing ?That would be pretty funny though i'd probably look in to it. Just for a change of pace

I don't know any website developers that are wasting their time testing and fixing their code to run on Safari. It's just not economical when 90+% of the world is using FF/IE4,6,7/and even Opera. Unless it's a site specifically for Apple.

Personally I hate iTunes, i'm often stumped trying to figure out the logic of it and how to do even the most simple things.

Reading over all the posts on the subject, it's obvious that most of the people here are missing the big picture with this move. By releasing Safari for Windows, this increases not only Apple's mind-share among Windows users, but it launches a multi-pronged attack that might erode Microsoft's foothold as well.

1) By introducing Safari for Windows, it gives Windows users another taste of the Mac desktop. Many people here mention that they dislike iTunes and Safari under Windows due to not adhering to Windows UI standards.

This is exactly what Apple should do, and why iTunes is so popular with most average Windows users. It's simple to use and has a clean interface, which is rare with most Windows software. By showing how simple Apple's apps are to use in a sea of inconsistent Windows UIs, it warms the user up to Apple's software and OS. As for Windows UI standards, I have to ask what Windows UI standards are there exactly? Vista and Office 2007 don't even use the same UI guidelines and they were released at the same time.

2) The iPhone's devkit is web based. All apps that will be written for the iPhone will be run through the Safari browser. By porting Safari to Windows, this opens up development of application testing to everyone as well as extending features and portability between the iPhone and a Windows based host OS.

3) Introducing Safari to Windows brings the KHTML rendering engine into the mix for Windows desktops. KHTML, albeit not my favorite rendering engine due to it's very unforgiving nature of non-standards compliant code, is the most standards compliant rendering engine on the market today and was the first to pass the Acid2 test if memory recalls.

3a) Porting Safari and KHTML to Windows also simplifies testing websites for web developers as it allows developers access to Safari without having to invest in a Mac, which means more professionals exposed to their product. This is a good thing in general for both Apple and web users as it makes it easier to make sites Safari friendly and helps tighten up standards compliance amongst the content creators. This is especially good news for all non-Windows users in light of how much web-baseed apps are being pushed forward now.

Basically, by putting a KHTML based browser on the Windows desktop, that further undermines IE's marketshare and people's tolerance of Microsoft's unwillingness to be standards compliant when they see sites that work under IE, but are broken under Firefox and Safari, and then see pages that work under Firefox and Safari but not IE... they're gonna start catching on to what web developers have known for years. You can argue that they already can see that with Firefox and Opera under Windows, but between Opera and Safari, which of the "fringe" browsers is more likely to wind up installed by Mom and Pop and used as well?

4) Bonjour/Zeroconf is installed by default when you install Safari under XP. This means that XP machines can access a Mac's documents with no SMB hoop-jumping. We all know that XP isn't going anywhere and it's likely safe to say that most Windows users that are likely within Apple's target market aren't going to be adopting Vista any time soon. People will notice that file sharing between machines on a network is easier with Zeroconf, Mac or XP, and they'll likely associate this ease with Apple.

All these things individually don't mean too much, but when weighed together, is quite possibly one of the smarter moves Steve Jobs and Company have done in years. Put this on top of moving to x86-64 hardware, the coming release of the iPhone which will expose users to OSX without buying a Mac, and the impending release of Leopard which is genuinely looking like a true next generation OS and has some killer enterprise level features, this has the potential of making a lot of Mac converts. It's definitely one of the craftier plans I've seen, and I wish them luck with it. It'll be nice to see some *real* competition in the desktop and enterprise market again.

I just tried Safari on my Windows XP Pro machine, and opening a tab causes it's to crash.

I don't like the font rendering, and what's worse, my own website (www.musicjunky.be) is completely unreadable (no text?!?).

Everyone needs another browser. Just as much as they need eye cancer.

I have tried it now and I can tell you this is one of the worst browser I ever used

First: You can't read Arabic website with this browser.
Second: Ctrl + scroll doesn't work with this browser.
Third: It is not as fast as they claim
Forth: The interface suck compared to firefox and even IE7

So, no Apple need to fix many things in safari if they want to compete with firefox or even IE7

I tried for 30secs and then remembered why I won't use anything but Firefox: Flashblock.

I can't stand lame crap dancing all over my screen uninvited. No flashblock, no browser.

Didn't anyone tell Steve that the browser wars are over? What possible benefits are there to porting Mac apps to Windows? Won't that just de-value the Mac brand if they start porting apps to Windows? As I see it Apple is a software company, the only reason they are getting away with overcharging for hardware is the fact you NEED it to run their software. But then again, Safari is just a browser.

so is it faster than opera ?

It's all nice and pretty, but it keeps crashing!!!

edit:

honestly, at this stage I think it's a buggy piece of sh*t.
I try to import Firefox bookmarks from an html file - it crashes.

I try to open a new bookmark folder - it crashes.

More random crashes abound.

Note: I'm a Mac AND XP+Vista user, so I'm no Mac hater.

I think it's relevant to consider for a moment the proposition that nobody who uses Windows is locked into a single browser, regardless of what their browser of choice happens to be. Since that's true, it gives us great incentive to properly dispose of the heretical idea that has been with us since Jim Barksdale decided to give up on Netscape product development and lobby Congress, instead: that is, that it's impossible to run Windows with IE and another browser of your choice at the same time, or to use more than a single browser every day. That notion is not only wrong-headed, it is clearly and absolutely false. It always has been.

Most everybody today realizes that Windows supports, and always has supported, multiple browsers simultaneously installed. So to hear Jobs talk about "4.9%" market share for Safari tells me that he thinks that everyone who owns a Mac uses Safari and doesn't touch Firefox--or does it? Maybe he's wised up and realizes that theoretically it is possible for both FireFox and Safari to own "4.9%" of the Mac market, which probably equates to about 200% of the world-wide Mac hardware market share--or was Jobs just referring to current estimated US Mac hardware market share? You tell me, because I sure don't know.

But hopefully, in the post-DoJ persecution/propaganda era, the world will come to understand that an installed copy of IE does not necessarily displace an installed copy of FireFox, or that an installed copy of Firefox does not displace an installed copy of IE, and that an installed copy of Safari will not necessarily displace either installed copies of FireFox or IE or Opera, or whatever. Surprise, surprise--multiple browsers can be installed and run on the same Windows machine--without any difficulty--which means of course that it's theoretically possible for all the browsers currently available to have exactly the same market share, because--duh--they can all share the same machine.

Wow--who'd a thunk it? What an amazing revelation [not.] Therefore, you can take every dram, drizzle, comma and question mark you've ever read almost anywhere that pontificates on the subject of "browser market share" and crumple it up, toss it into the toilet, and flush. Every one of these estimates is worth exactly that much, imo.

I use two browsers each and every day--FireFox and IE7, as I used to do years ago with Communicator and IE3.x--and that is why I write with such confidence on the subject of browser market share. I could just as easily--and might--install both Safari and Opera, too, without so much as a single shred of a conflict of interest between the four of them on my single machine at home. In short, so-called "browser market share" estimates that we read so often couldn't be more wrong.

I've been switching (slowly) from Firefox to IE7 . FF and vista just don't play nicely, I'm sick of restarting my browser three times a day as its memory leaked or decided to chew 100% of one core of the CPU.

This is slick, but I'm not seeing anything compelling to make me consider it over IE7.

I can say that, at 120DPI, this browser doesn't scale well. Wait, I take that back. It doesn't scale... AT ALL. Nice, Apple. Nice. I'm also somewhat taken aback by the speed allegations -- it took forever to load the Apple start page, which is busy and stupid -- even worse than Internet Explorer defaulting to Live.com.

I find that resizing the browser is quite choppy, akin to Trillian 3 in Vista. Tabs don't close with a middle-click, and I'm unable to do a CTRL+MouseWheel to dynamically resize web text -- which is necessary because my DPI settings make everything small (yet Safari doesn't seem to scale with it... at all).

Also, when I tried to install a new search engine (one which I have on Firefox 2 and IE 7, it allows me to search Newegg from... any page... not a new feature Apple...), Safari gives me a pretty error window which specifically says: "You need to be using IE7 or Firefox2 to add a search engine. You can also install search plugins by using the drop down menu to the right of the search box." Unfortunately, there isn't a drop down to the right of the search box, nor does there seem to be a way to install new search plugins at all.

I note that the settings dialog isn't in Tools --> Options, where Windows applications should have their settings dialog located. Nope, it's definitely in Edit --> Preferences. Thanks, guys, thanks a bunch. :)

"The World's Best Browser." Amazing, Apple, simply amazing.

Steve Jobs: "Well, 4% of the world's computer users really like our browser. I guess it must be the World's Best Browser, or that's what we're going to call it, because we're Apple!"

It's like looking down a hall of mirrors!

http://erratasec.blogspot.com/2007/06/niiiice.html

I just find it kind of...interesting that Apple would be keen on entering more and more of the PC market like this given the commercials they air regularly on TV. Even if the iPhone is a factor.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/12/4/6166

November 2006 figures put Firefox at 13.5% and Safari at 4.03%. Jobs said Firefox has 15%, and Safari 5%. I think this is either a bit of rounded up figure or the more recent figures have the two browsers taking even more share from IE.

Hopefully, Safari won't eat up Firefox's marketshare as it comes to the Windows territory, while Firefox continues to make new grounds. Then we'll eventually see something like 20% for FF and 10% for Safari. With other browsers taken into account, this would get IE to hover into something around 65%...

Well so far on my Vista notebook......

Its not faster than IE,

the fonts look like crap compared to IE7,

my companies Exchange\OWA switched to basic mode (active X)

I cant even log into the the SSL Sharepoint site and work....it just sits there.

Lastly I cant resize the windows save for the lower left corner.

Ummm NO THANKS.

I don't see any speed boost over Firefox. I'm pretty sure it's a couple seconds slower actually. I do like Safari though, but it's definitely better fit for Apple's own OS.

The purpose of this release has more to do with the iPhone than anything else. The iPhone will have a Safari Lite interface. Folks that want to move bookmarks back and forth will be able to do it much easier than if they were trying to move them from IE or Firefox.

I'd really rather see iChat ported over. iChat is probably the most innovative IM client available, but it's only able to play with other Macs. The Mac audience is growing, but my family is still PC only.

Hi this is Pete on Safari. The text is crappy looking, the render speed I can't agree with (emptied the cache on ie 6, 7, ff2, and opera, all of them load fast than this), I do not like it so far. I will give it time though!

Once they fix it up I would be quite willing to give it a shot. I use firefox only because it sucks the least.

I'll still be browsing with a minority of folks with Opera as my browser.

Two reasons why Safari was reelased on the PC. one, as mentioned already, the upcoming iPhone.

Second, and more importantly, is the long term view. Remember the Netscape browser wars 10 years ago and the viscious reponse from Microsoft. Microsoft saw that more and more apps were moving to web, and they wanted to make sure the Microsoft software was in the middle of it.

Well, that past is here today and becoming a reality. Look at Flickr, Myspace, Google Calender/Docs/Spreadsheets, or Salesforce.com on the business side. The importance of the OS on the desktop is becoming less and less important. And this is one reason for Vista's lethargic adoption rate (that and the absurd marketing mix w.r.t. to thier offering matric).

If you paid attention to what Jobs previewed for Leopard today, Dot-mac will be playing an important role in th very near future. Everything from sharing photos to accessing work documents and files, its moving to the web. Google and Apple are collaborating closely on this, and they see the importance of the browser.

If you also look at the rumblings coming out of the Mozilla group, Firefox is moving in the same direction w.r.t. web integration and applications, just from the opposite end.

The immediate impetus is iphone of course, but this will be a very interesting battle to watch long term. Microsoft on one side, and all the open-source browsers on the other end. And if there is enough marketshare by the opensource browsers, may be finally Microsoft will finally start following web standards, and web developers will actually start implementing them, rather than only checking for IE compatibility.

It's not a bad try for a web browser considering it's still a beta. I'll definitely install it as a web development test browser and as an alternative if FF happens to crash on a certain site like it happens rarely.

Adi

I seriously doubt this can do what Firefox can.

K THX BYE

I honestly think it makes sense.

"Let's get those Windows users used to our UI and style of doing things. Let's get those Windows users to realize that using an Apple is simple and doesn't need to be complicated and have problems. Once we have them convinced, perhaps we can also convince them to buy a Mac the next time around."

I might not agree with those sentiments, but it's just another way for users to possibly move over to that tree that has recently blossomed so well.

Another browser? Yay...

Unless it can find a very unique niche to fill, I fail to see the point.

Safari is based on Konqueror's KHTML engine from KDE.