Leopards and iPhones on Safari
The Apple WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) keynote by Steve Jobs this morning revealed more about Leopard’s upcoming capabilities. In short, it appears that Leopard will be anything but an incremental release. If this were a Microsoft OS, they’d be calling it Windows Panorama, rather than Windows Vista SP 1.
Leopard won’t arrive until October, but in the mean time, here are some of the newly-revealed features that look most appealing to me:
- A completely rewritten Finder. Many Mac users have been clamoring for a faster, better Finder for some time. This looks like it could deliver. The powered-up Spotlight search capabilities will be welcome, too.
- The iTunes-ification of OS X. Quick Look lets you look at files in the Finder, without opening them, the way you currently can look at album covers in iTunes. I could see this being particularly useful in situations where you’ve saved several versions of an OmniGraffle diagram, for example.
- Integrated Boot Camp. This was a no-brainer, but it will be nice to have. Some people will be disappointed that Apple hasn’t announced built-in virtualization, but as Jobs pointed out in the keynote, Parallels and vmware already are doing a great job with virtualization.
The biggest and most intriguing surprise for me is where Apple is taking Safari. When Apple’s Open Source-based browser was first released, it was seen as a way of making up for Microsoft’s withdrawal from the Mac browser market. But now Safari is available for Windows, and seems to have become a fundamental part of an integrated Web/widgets/iPhone capability.
In the new version of Safari:
Now you can turn any website into a Dashboard widget. Click the Web Clip2 button next to the address field in Safari and select exactly what you want your new widget to display. Safari sends your web clip to Dashboard, where you can view it alongside your other widgets.
Widgets are also a preferred means for third-party development of iPhone applications, which means that these easy-to-create Dashboard widgets should also run on the iPhone with little or no modification. If the iPhone’s Internet capabilities are as good as advertised, this would mean that the iPhone will very rapidly have access to a huge range of widgets.
Clever indeed. Now if I only had an AT&T mobile account and a few hundred extra bucks… .
Erik Schmidt wrote,
I just downloaded Safari 3.0 beta. Wow, does it render fast. It is noticeably faster at rendering than any browser I’ve seen. On my cable modem connection, it literally just shows pages all at once, with no visible delay in rendering elements on screen.
Link | June 11th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
AJ wrote,
I downloaded the beta too but am having trouble keeping it running. It’ll work fine for a few minutes and then start crashing and once that starts, it never stops. I’m sure SafariStand is playing a part in the crashes but I rather uninstall the Safari 3 beta than uninstall SafariStand.
I also downloaded the Windows version to run when I’m using Parallels and it looks nicer - it resembles the new look of Apple’s site.
Link | June 11th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Erik Schmidt wrote,
Interesting report, AJ. A friend of mine sent me a humorous screen shot of the Safari 3 installer telling him that his hard drive didn’t have enough room for Safari, even though it had half a gigabyte of free space.
It looks like they’re calling this beta for a reason. Still, I’m amazed at the speed, and so far I haven’t had any crashes.
Link | June 11th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Joshua Holt wrote,
It’s strange, but Safari 3 seems to load pages slower than Firefox on my Intel Macbook. I never have been a big fan of Safari and so far this beta isnt going to be enough to get me to leave Firefox.
I agree with your suggestion Erik that the reason behind this move is to make the iPhone more integrated with Windows computers. I don’t think Apple really wants a huge piece of the browser market. I certainly feel that they could put their resources to better use elsewhere.
Link | June 12th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Megan wrote,
Hey—-
I am a 0L, and I am a long time mac user, and I am in dire need of a new laptop for the start of classes in August. I plan on getting a new MacBookPro. I heard that Apple will likely provide vouchers for the Leopard upgrade after its release date is announced. Do you know if that is true?!
Thanks!
Link | June 12th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Erik Schmidt wrote,
Hi Megan,
My guess is that the voucher rumors are just wishful thinking. Apple has made no announcement about vouchers, and to my knowledge they’ve never provided them in the past, save when they gave vouchers for 10.1 users when 10.2 came out. That seemed to be a one-time “thanks for your support” gesture to early adopters.
I just checked the Apple Education Store, and Tiger is priced at $69. Since Leopard will cost $129 (the same price as Tiger), I expect (and hope) Leopard will also cost $69 for students.
Link | June 13th, 2007 at 3:16 am