Safari is a novel download for now; I'm not prepared to make a call on its suitability as a Firefox or IE challenger on the Windows platform, nor its overall efficiency as a browser; I'm going to suck it and see for a while. It's certainly useful for Windows-based web developers, although it does somewhat remove the justification for having that shiny Mac under your desk...
It's also quite disappointing to say that Safari was the biggest announcement of the keynote. There was no new hardware reveal, and no genuinely exciting new facets of the iPhone or Leopard were uncovered. Leopard is pretty: but we assumed that it would be. The new desktop looks very nice, yet I get the feeling that none of the ten features discussed by Jobs are going to sell new Apple hardware - which is reflected by the drop in their stock price since the keynote.
Apple's reveal on the iPhone's "third party support" was a real damp squib. Compared with their competition - Windows Mobile, and the various flavours of Symbian - support for Javascript applications seems insubstantial. We've already been told that the iPhone runs a "full" version of Safari on the "real" Internet, so it goes without saying that it will support "web 2.0" applications Javascript, and by extension AJAX.
Is Apple's reality distortion field failing? We shall see. I think for now they've had to divert power away from the main engines; they're trying to get both Leopard and, more immediately, the iPhone shipped with success and that's holding up potential new big hardware launches, and those all important new iPod devices.
Once these two milestones are hit, things should really start to get interesting.
Article comments
1 - Ken Edwards
Safari for Windows is great news for Windows-based web developers. Now, where is IE 7 for Mac?
I have not really been impressed with the iPhone. With the "Mr. Obvious" announcement that it will run AJAX and Web 2.0 "applications," I am beginning to wonder.
Wouldn't the iPhone have major potential for mobile games? Not if it is as closed door as the current iPod. Look at that *huge* library of third party games out for the iPod. Isn't that just great.
So Apple is not going to allow you to install any third party applications on your iPhone, which means running anything via the "real" internet will incur data charges.
The Leopard showing was nice. I really like the new Finder.
One thing to keep in mind though, this was a WWDC keynote, not a Macworld keynote.
2 - Phillip Winn
No data charges on the Wi-Fi connection, Ken.
I used Safari/Win for a day, but I'm using Firefox again now. For me, Safari was so fast I couldn't believe it was actually done already. Lightning-fast. Strangely fast. But the memory usage was mind-boggling, and I use Firefox bookmark syncing and a few other extensions, so I've got to think about whether or not it's worth switching just for the raw speed.
Sure looked pretty, though.
3 - Ken Edwards
That fast huh? Well good for them. I will have to install it on my Dell. I have heard from a few Mac friends how it borks things on the Mac, like Widgets, as it replaces the WebKit framework with a new one.