Come on a Safari, PC
Last week Apple released the Safari 3 Public Beta—and for the first time it’s not just designed for the Mac faithful, but for Windows users, too.
So now the big question is:Â Why would PC users have any interest in running it, when they already have IE, Firefox, and Opera?
Well, Apple’s choosing to answer that question by claiming Safari’s faster than all three of those browsers. Whereas, non-Apple reviewers I’ve been reading since the Beta release seem to be mixed as to whether the browser is living up to that speed claim.
But I see another huge advantage to PC users that seems more important than speed—at least, more important for those of us who design web-based interfaces for a living—or even who simply have corporate or personal websites we want to get maximum traffic flow to. And that advantage is that finally, we have a quick and easy way to test how that website is going to look and run on Safari.
That’s right, no more having to call up a Mac-using friend or associate and ask for screenshots. And even better—though I’m sure Apple won’t be happy at this suggestion—no need to run out and buy a Mac to do testing. This can add up to significant time and expense saved to a PC-based business. (I don’t want to get all technical on you here, but if you want a more in-depth techie explanation, check out Christopher Heng’s article over on thesitewizard.com.)
Of course, in the past many saved that time and expense by simply NOT testing on Safari at all, and letting the Mac users fend for themselves. But that’s not really the optimal solution if we want to draw in every customer and every learner out there. With this new release, our options just got a lot better and easier.
So, what say you? Safari for Windows—big advantage or totally unnecessary? Will you be adding it to your programs list?
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Wes Alwan said,
on June 21st, 2007 at 9:25 am
Windows Safari is much faster but I’m finding it crashes pretty frequently.
Heng’s article is interesting — I didn’t realize the rendering engine would be basically the same between Windows and Mac Safari (including the fact that Windows Safari does not use Windows’ built in font-rendering, but ports it’s own Mac renderer).
Heng does provide this caveat: “Of course, if your site looks fine in Safari for Windows, there is no guarantee that it will look fine in the Mac since the implementation of the browsers may differ in some small but crucial details. Indeed, if you code your site using a font that is only available in Windows and not the Mac, the appearance of your site will definitely differ on the Mac since Safari for Mac would have to use a substitute font.”
Deborah Ackerman said,
on June 21st, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Indeed, if you code your site using a font that is only available in Windows and not the Mac, the appearance of your site will definitely differ on the Mac since Safari for Mac would have to use a substitute font.â€
Definitely true–but that statement’s true for Windows-to-Windows designing, as well, if the designer doesn’t chose a standard default font.
So while the point is valid, I don’t see this as a major issue because there are known “safe fonts” that work across all browsers. So long as those are used, testing should still be fairly reliable.
And yeah, while it’s not a perfect guarantee, you’ve at least got a much higher chance of cross-platform design success than not testing for Safari at all.
Deborah Ackerman said,
on June 21st, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Oh also, though I use Safari on my Mac, I haven’t downloaded the beta yet for Windows. Given they’ve already had to release a second update to the beta, and I’ve been hearing lots of crash rumors, I figured I’d wait for the stable release. But once that’s out, I’ll download it.