Andrew Watson

Safari Browser for Windows Review

Posted on 24. Jun, 2007 by Andrew Watson in Software

Well there was a somewhat interesting announcement yesterday – Safari is coming to the PC !?! Why oh why – do we really need another browser and why do Apple want to start another browser war?

The Safari Beta release seemed to take everyone by surprise. Was it a surprise of ‘wow – this really brings something different to the market’ ? Not really – more a ‘what is the point’ surprise. I’ll confess at this point to not being a big Apple fan, sure they are cool and many of Apples products have been really inovative, they just don’t float my boat. When the iPod was released – even I uttered a wow… and then the multitude of variation – nano etc – once again – wow… but Safari ?!?!

It is so meaningless and pointless… the recent IE v Firefox fight has made two great browsers… Opera persists in some great inovation – Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii and mobile devices… what extra does Safari offer ? Hmmm…. well nothing new, nothing particularly clever and many sites that I visited, using Safari required IE to download plug-ins etc. I suspect that IE is not actually required, but as a developer, alternate instructions / options are given for IE and Firefox – why add another complication.

Unless Apple are just trying to make PC’s more complicated – or maybe the iTunes store will, like the link between it and the iPod, only be available to users who are using the Safari browser… both could be interesting tacks for Apple – but hopefully they will go back to being a company known for innovation, not making poor copies of products and making users lives more difficult – something they have accussed windows and Microsoft of for years – maybe that is what comes of becoming more mainstream and corporate ?

If you are considering Safari for Windows – don’t – it is pointless and uneccessary !!!

Tags: apple, browsers, Software