Microsoft Ends IE for Mac 728
RandomMacUser writes "A while ago, Microsoft stopped updating IE for Mac, freezing it at version 5. But according to this Microsoft webpage, all support will cease December 31, 2005, and any official distribution with cease January 31, 2006. Also, the webpage suggests 'that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.'"
Who is really suprised? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Interesteing Problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Confused (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you not have it installed on your machines? By default IE is installed with Windows and I haven't managed to remove it.
Re:Interesteing Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
You wouldn't buy a lawnmower that only worked on 'Black & Decker' grass, you wouldn't buy a knife that only cut 'Chicago Cutlery' brand onions, so why the hell would you do business with a bank that forces you to use tools that you don't want to, namely, Windows and IE?
Re:Interesteing Problems (Score:1, Insightful)
A casualty of the Intel transition (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesteing Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
And switching banks because of browser compatibility isn't an option for most people.
Re:MS gets wise (Score:5, Insightful)
There was no way Microsoft was going to let it's main "competitor" die off. If Apple disappeared, it would allow enough space in the desktop market for a new, real competitor to enter (like Linux - at the moment Linux has to compete with both Windows *and* OS X, making it much harder to be accepted as a mainstream consumer desktop OS).
A long as Apple is in the picture taking up the number 2 position, Microsoft has a safety against real competition on the desktop, simply because of how certain brand markets tend to operate (Coke vs. Pepsi, Intel vs. AMD, etc). Now that Apple is doing well, there is no reason for Microsoft to pay extra money to keep Apple in the game. They can just sit back and watch Apple act as an albatros in the plans of Linux and any other potential desktop competitor, safe in the knowledge that Apple itself will never actually grow beyond a certain percentage of the market.
Re: This highlights the actual problem, which is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, really. If the server does all the work and uses nothing but standard CGI, then the web site will work for everyone. Everyone. If you really stick to basics, sites that deal with numbers can work for such crufty old things as text browsers without a glitch. If you must have images (say, for graphing your banking activities) then sticking to JPEG and GIF will again gather in by far the widest array of users.
Every time some developer chooses client-side processing of any kind, they are locking out users. Which is form over function, and as such, I think is a very poor decision.
It's one thing to be bleeding edge when you're showing off and nothing depends on it; it's entirely another to get the blood from your legitimate clients because you want to use new stuff.
Re:A casualty of the Intel transition (Score:3, Insightful)
Office, not IE, would be the killer (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no idea why Apple let themselves get into this situation where Microsoft can do very serious damage any time they want. What Apple should do is a second Safari -- admit they can't support a complete office suite by themselves and start pushing a version based on NeoOffice/J or OpenOffice. Sooner or later, Bill Gates is going to pull the plug.
Re:MS gets wise (Score:5, Insightful)
Although Microsoft may continue to provide security and performance updates, no major new releases are planned, Microsoft Product Manager Jessica Sommer told CNET News.com. Sommer said that, with the emergence of Apple's Safari browser, Microsoft felt that customers were better served by using Apple's browser, noting that Microsoft does not have the access to the Macintosh operating system that it would need to compete.
http://news.com.com/2100-1045_3-1017126.html [com.com]
I call complete and utter whiny bullshit on this. It's not that they CAN'T compete, it's that they don't WANT to compete. OmniWeb dropped their proprietary rendering engine for WebCore/Kit and began focusing even harder on their wonderful UI. Why couldn't Microsoft have done this? Lots of applications have integrated Kit/Core, from third-party Web browser to instant messaging clients. I guess Microsoft doesn't have the resources that some 18-year-old kid with an ADC account does, right?
Irony: "We can't compete because someone else makes the OS and we don't have full access to it." - Microsoft
Call me a fucking waaaaaaaaaaaaaahmbulance, Redmond. You lost on this platform because you couldn't make a good Web browser if you tried, and all you did was blame someone else.
Re:Interesteing Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Demonstrates IE's market dominance (Score:4, Insightful)
'all' developers coding on Unix platforms? WTF? The majority have never even used it.
OSX just isn't standard enough for cross platform work, btw. the kernel is Unix but the filesystem layout is nonstandard (not to mention the case insensitive filesystem). I also doesn't run X by default so GUI work is out.
Re:Interesteing Problems (Score:4, Insightful)
What everybody else said, let them know. But do it with a letter. A real one. That still makes a big difference.
Re:Who is really suprised? (Score:3, Insightful)
They did not succeed fully in their goal, although you can't deny they became a huge force on the Internet. But that is exactly what makes this move so strange. It seems they have given up on their ultimate goal. I mean, if you want to control the Internet, you should not tell 5% of your users that they should go to the competitor. That means you won't get that 5% of the Internet, and thus you won't control the complete Internet.
Perhaps they rightfully gave up their goal, seeing that Firefox is growing, that most Apple users use Safari, and that they do not have IE for Linux. So the browser might not be the key to the Internet.
But still, if they could turn IE into a really good browser, people might actually switch (back) to it. I mean a fast, safe, fully configurable browser. But perhaps that is not within powers.
Re:MS gets wise (Score:5, Insightful)
LOL! Not only is the WebKit framework available to any developer who can drag and drop in Interface Builder [cocoadevcentral.com], but WebCore is available under an open source license! [apple.com] Microsoft has access to the freaking source code. Public relations departments are funny.
Re:Interesteing Problems (Score:2, Insightful)
Translation: (Score:1, Insightful)
Could be a big mistake... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:but how many mac users will complain? (Score:5, Insightful)
Politely complaining is actually a very effective tactic, since "they" know that for every complainer, there's a hundred who stay silent and move to a different business. It has worked for me in on-line banking.
Re:Office, not IE, would be the killer (Score:1, Insightful)
Office for the Mac is not going to go anywhere any time soon.
No (Score:4, Insightful)
It's pretty much assured that the majority of people will always use the default included browser on a platform. They all work pretty good and the non-tech people just aren't going to put the effort in to get a new one for the most part.
Well, you take a marketshare that's small already (by many accounts smaller than FF on Windows usage) and take away the default status, it's just too small to justify the development time.
fantastic news (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Interesteing Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides this story is more about microsoft giving up markets, giving up growth and focusing on reductions of expenditure to sustain profits. In this case combining the retrenchment of all the people working in this area togethor with a significant increase in offshoring trying to sustain an appearance of profit growth so that a few senior executives can dump as many shares of microsoft as possible prior to the inevitable.
You will most likely find that this is a sign of the future direction of microsoft as they start give up more and more market segments, it is a sign of malaise and stagnation in managment, they basically don't know what else to do.
Re: This highlights the actual problem, which is.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see, between my bank, credit cards, 401(k), and IRA, all of which I access through the web, I can't think of a single time where I wished their interface was "more slick". All I want is the numbers, organized in a fashion that is easy to understand. As the GP said, it's one thing when you're trying to do something new and show off, a la Google maps. But for a financial site, which was the root of this discussion? I don't see a need, and in fact, I think that trying to make the UI more slick actually decreases the usability.
Re:Mac users should be pissed to see IE go. Seriou (Score:2, Insightful)
Err, I hate to burst your bubble, but (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps more importantly, I notice certain trends in Apple that, though not that bad now, could be pretty terrible if they end up in a winning position (their tendency to lock out any DAPs other than their own iPods, for instance). Honestly, if they end up beating out Microsoft, that will not usher in a brand new utopian Heaven-on-Earth. It will not be Kingdom Come. If they replace Microsoft, all that will mean is that they'll become the new Microsoft. Even accepting the terribly optimistic view that this prophesied "OS-X for all x86" will simply sweep Windows away, well, you can mark me down on the list of enemies right now in advance if you're so sure, 'cause I'll be a part of the resistance.
Fuckit, I'm tempted to make that my sig, as much as I (a) don't want a sig, and (b) know that it's liable to get every single post of mine from now on modded "flamebait"!
Re:I'm bummed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesteing Problems (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Speaking of Safari (Gap.com) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm bummed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Standards are often silent on lots of details, and it's really up to the browser devs on how to do an implementation. For example, is padding included in the width of an element, or not? It depends on whether you're using IE or Mozilla. Go to the microsoft.com home page in IE and Firefox and see how the left nav behaves differently when you hover over an element. Which browser complies with the standards, or do they both? Well, that's anybody's guess.
I hate web sites telling me I can't use the UA of my choice.
And I hate the two guys that use Billy-Bobs-Web-Browser-That-He-Wrote-In-A-Weekend telling me that I should support his browser. Of course it's in our best interest to support the widest possible audience, but you have to weigh that off against the richness of the experience. I don't want to give 100% of the people a crappy UI because 0.001% of my potential market doesn't support a feature.
That being said, we would like to support another browser in the Linux/Mac space if possible. It will keep the Mozilla folks on their toes and get them to fix some really nasty problems like memory leaks.
Re:Mac users should be pissed to see IE go. Seriou (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a web developer, and by and large I just try to do things in a reasonable way and avoid confusing tricks that might get wonky on poor implementations. I've only ever run into one issue with IE doing this, and that was specific to the Mac 9.x verison.
Re:I was on the MacIE 6 team when it got canned... (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, I think the CodeWarrior history may give IE a run for its money in the strageness/saddness department.
Re:I'm bummed. (Score:1, Insightful)
I have mod points and if that *is* what you're saying perhaps i should have hit you with -1 bloody spacecadet.
Now i will hit submit and enjoy looking at that freakin' little spinning coloured wheel as this OS locks up while Safari thinks about doing as it's told.
Re:Mac users should be pissed to see IE go. Seriou (Score:3, Insightful)
As a Mac and Windows user and a webdesigner who creates standards-compliant cross-browser compatible websites, I'm glad to see the demise of IE5/Mac. It was great in its day in 2001, but since then it has been a great big thorn in the side of web developers.
Re:I'm bummed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ever hear of "links"? They let you take action by clicking on them. I wrote a scheduling application that is 100% valid XHTML and CSS and works perfectly in every browser, including ones like lynx and w3m. When you want to schedule something, you click the link and the reservation is committed to the database. Using AJAX / javascript / java / flash is pointless when you can get done what needs to be done with traditional web standards.
Re:I'm bummed. (Score:2, Insightful)
For starters; its not a hack its a BUNCH of hacks all dangled together that only works if you put it all in just the right order and test it with just the right browsers, while praying in a cemetary with a dead cat. Throw something else at it, something new at it and who knows what will happen, or even what should happen.
I'm sick of reading CSS that says the same thing 5 different ways, each mangling the syntax and semantics 'just-so' to get something read by one browser then ignored by another, and then fixed back up again for a 3rd that manages to parse the previous 'wrong' directive but actually handles the feature correctly
Thank god there are only only a few mainstream browsing engines... we'd spend years doing the combinatorial regression testing for each time we modify a line of css if we had many more.
And god forbid one of the browser engines gets patched, fixing a bug or adding a feature that causes them to parse the 'wrong' CSS directives.
For myself, I simply don't mix width and padding on the same element. I usually double box when I need that feature. Its a little heavier in terms of code, but it doesn't rely on a dogs breakfast of browser parsing errors and voodoo magic to look right. And unlike you I can rest assured that if it doesn't look right in the "next browser engine" its not a batch of conflicting mangled CSS directives causing it.
Even dynamically loading separate CSS sheets for different browsers is better than your hackfest, a default w3c standard one, and one(s) to work around specific bugs in specific browsers that you want to support. Then later, you can easily drop support for these hopefully then-obsolete browsers.
PS -- If you want ***strict***, why wouldn't you specify a strict doctype instead of a transitional one??
Is MS killing their own business? (Score:2, Insightful)
When I observe what's happening in the computer world, I see a many companies working really hard to make life easier for people who want an alternative. Some of them are even large, relatively stable companies such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell, etc...
I try not to sound anti-Microsoft most of the time. Some people actually consider my advice valuable enough to help them make their purchasing decisions with regard to technology. So, I try to remain unbiased.
What really makes me smile, though, is when the largest and, supposedly, most stable of technology companies helps to make it easier to switch to an alternative.
In this case, Microsoft has effictively told all Apple computer users "We don't consider you valuable and we don't want your business."
It is not insignificant just because IE is free software. Consider the companies who do the majority of their business through the Internet. They also find it easier to choose an alternative. Now, if they want to keep their Apple customers and utilize the latest technology in their Web sites, they only need to design their Web sites according to a specification (W3C [w3.org]) which is supported by browsers on every platform. Reduce cost and development time with just a single site, without cross-browser tricks, and it works everywhere... Ok, that's ideal, not real, but it's an ideal that Microsoft has been effectively working against while every other browser development team works towards it.
I do not wish to digress too far, but consider this: Safari is based on a KHTML [apple.com] code base, which is derived from the KDE [kde.org] project, which is primarily used on the Linux platform, which is seen as a threat to Microsoft's business.
Every day there are new problems where legitimate businesses, who purchased all of their software legally are told that they need to pay a license fee to continue using it.
Even home users have problems. Given the nature of the latest version of the most common operating system, it's necessary to format the hard drive and re-install occasionally. But if you do it more than three times, you have to call Microsoft and convince them that you actually purchased your software so that you can have a new activation code. This one has personally affected me. Even though I have legally purchased more copies of Windows XP than I am using, I use a cracked "Corporate Edition" of the software because I don't want to deal with the hassle of Activation.
The company with the largest market share keeps irritating their paying customers. Businesses are already choosing alternatives in droves. Soon, even average users won't even want to bother with them.
Well... Apple users... Where do you want to go today?
--
-- Ghodmode
Re:Mac users should be pissed to see IE go. Seriou (Score:2, Insightful)
If it is working for your wife now, it can continue to work for her needs. She'll only need to switch to a newer version of IE (and thusly, the windows box) if her work place's webmaster stops supporting IE Mac and makes and incompatable upgrade.