Safari web browser is now also offered for Windows
Just an hour or so ago, Roger and I were talking over e-mail about a completely different topic, when he gave me a tip that a beta of Safari is now available, and it also offers a Windows version!
Naturally, I had to download it right away and give it a test drive. Unlike Roger’s experience, it worked fine for me (and he calls himself a web professional… 
), and I have to say that I like the look of it.
My take
Since everyone is cheering and being all positive, so I feel the urge to be the realistic (cynical) one. First, let me sincerely wish that it is a great product and gets the market share it deserves. Personally, I’m not even a big fan of Safari on Mac, so excuse me if I don’t throw my hat in the air and fire off some rounds. 
One of the typical Apple annoyances, though, is that it automatically installs QuickTime (without asking), and you end up with a QuickTime icon on your desktop and in your system tray. Did I ask for that? No.
Anyway, there a couple of more important factors that worry me:
- Apple’s history of software for Windows isn’t really that good. QuickTime is pretty poor, and while iTunes is decent, it’s no walk in the park.
- Will it work/render exactly the same as Safari on Mac? Otherwise, it’s kind of back to one IE version for Windows and one for Mac.
- The web developer perspective: I’m sure many will download it and test it, so unless it’s a spotless clone of the Mac version, we have yet another web browser to cater for. Yay.
But ok, let me positive for a while. A lot of web developers don’t use nor have access to a Mac (although I personally believe that anyone developing public web sites should have one at least for testing purposes), so for them it’s great with a Windows version which they can test in and install in their natural environment.
Safari is, after all, very fast and good at rendering CSS (remember the fairy tale?), and I guess that people used to the lukewarm designs of Internet Explorer and Firefox will appreciate something stylish and pretty.
Apple’s incentive
To me, though, there’s not any doubt on why Apple are doing this. It’s certainly not to make the world a better place, but rather the iPod strategy. You know, give Windows users a tease of how easy and pretty it is in the Mac world, so why don’t you Get a Mac?
Which is fine, it’s just business. So, if you’re a Windows user, by all means, give the Safari beta a ride, kick the tires, and form an opinion (because opinions are golden :-)).
PS. I just love that certain computer magazines write reports that Safari on Windows is TOTALLY CRAZY when rendering their own web sites, as well as some evening press magazine web sites. Well, if their interface code wouldn’t suck so hard, maybe they wouldn’t have to constantly live with the forgiving error handling rendering in every web browser. Test a web site with real code, why dontcha? DS.
).
