Apple Picking a Fight it Can't Win With Safari 589
Ian Lamont writes "Mike Elgan has an analysis of Apple's successes and concludes that the release of the Safari browser for Windows not only goes against the Apple success formula, but is doomed to a vicious failure: 'The insular Apple universe is a relatively gentle place, an Athenian utopia where Apple's occasional missteps are forgiven, all partake of the many blessings of citizenship, and everyone feels like they're part of an Apple-created golden age of lofty ideas and superior design. But the Windows world isn't like that. It's a cold, unforgiving place where nothing is sacred, users turn like rabid wolves on any company that makes even the smallest error, and no prisoners are taken. Especially the Windows browser market. ... While security nerds were ripping Apple for a buggy beta, the UI enthusiasts started going after Apple for the look and feel. Here's a small sample. Apple can expect much more of this in the future. The problem? Safari for Windows just isn't Windows enough.' Elgan also expects that the Firefox faithful will fight the Safari influx — a theory that has been supported by comments from Mozilla executive John Lilly, who criticized Steve Jobs' 'blurry view of real world' just after Jobs announced Safari for Windows."
And the problem is? (Score:1, Interesting)
Perhaps it's still about the Mac (Score:4, Interesting)
LS
Re:They're Not There to Win (Score:3, Interesting)
The number of places I felt some respect for their ability have really bummed me out recently. Leo Laporte's rant on the latest Macbreak Weekly about how it's some new lock in for non-open standards was very disappointing. This article is just a Dvorak style 'bash apple and draw attention to me from the fanboy's' type article, not worth the bandwidth.
It's always amazing when Apple announces something new with little/no detail behind the motivation and everyone assumes their either going to Die, or try and take over the world.
Maybe they just wanted 95% of the computers out there to be able to develop an application for their new phone?
Re:They're Not There to Win (Score:5, Interesting)
could be something else (Score:2, Interesting)
The most amusing aspect of romanticizing the cold cruelty of the windows world is how none of it seems to be directed it Microsoft itself. Or, at least effectively directed at microsoft.
That aside, I think it's premature to pretend that we know the strategy of the Safari/Windows release at this point. True, Bill gates is afraid [blogspot.com] that Apple is trying to "fix the web" and neutralize IE as his lock-in tool, but couldn't there be more to Apple's strategy than that? Might this be a shakedown cycle for the core libraries on Windows for some other purpose? After all, Vista finally has the plumbing. A revival of the YellowBox? Or the introduction of some CoreAnimation-based web technology that would simultaneously allow for 1) a more dynamic iPhone SDK (look at the pins drop in the google maps demo) and 2) something to compete with flash. I guess these thoughts are inspired by the All Things Digital interview with Jobs and Gates. Steve seemed to be very interested in conquering rich clients that leveraged services from the cloud.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Safari Beta 3.0.1 for Windows [webkit.org]
Several of the issues appear to be in the foundational libraries which Apple ported from Mac OS X and not in Safari or WebKit themselves. The beta is testing more then just WebKit or Safari on Windows.
Re:They're Not There to Win (Score:4, Interesting)
I think they're starting to. Part of the thing is that it seems like a lot of the people who write a lot of crap and have decent readership of their blogs also happen to be Mac users. So, they get to a site that doesn't work, they blog about it, it doesn't look good, etc. etc. There's really no excuse to not make your stuff work with Safari, as it's *very* standards compliant. I can't really think of the last page I went to that didn't work in Safari.
Re:Umm, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
6. To advertise Apple and increase awareness of Apple products and services in general.
Again, as you rightly state, not a fight that Apple cannot win -- in fact this task has already been achieved.
Has to be said, all in all this has to be one of the worst thought out articles on
Re:They're Not There to Win (Score:5, Interesting)
How?
The iPhone and mobile browsing.
Mobile browsing has been the red headed step child of the internet. It sucks. The iPhone seems like it will remedy that, and no other company seems to be in a position to compete with it, or will be in a position to do so for some time. That means that Safari will likely become a standard for mobile browsing, as long as the iPhone emulates the iPod and becomes a massive hit. What we will then have is a market in which Microsoft cannot compete because the iPhone will not run IE, just as the iPod did not use WMA. The iPhone will do for mobile internet what the iPod did for digital music... or at least that is Apple's bet. The iPod didn't establish a closed standard for digital music (and won't once Steve realizes his dream of DRM free music). What the iPod did was killed Microsoft's attempt to force Microsoft software as the standard.
I predict that mobile browsing will become indispensable to ordinary people in a way that it isn't now (I never use the web on my Winmobile phone because it sucks). If it is indispensable, then site designers will have to code for it, and that means abandoning an IE only policy. Imagine the hate calls banks will get along the lines of "Hey mofos!!! I can't check my bank balance on my phone!!" THAT will be the effective end of IE as a standard.
Safari for Windows, is, as I said below, just an insurance policy to make sure that whatever works on the iPhone will also work on your desktop (in case Microsoft tries to make things difficult by making iPhone sites display funny).
Microsoft better hope for one of two things. Either (a) the iPhone is a flop; or (b) the iPhone is a success, but mobile browsing never really takes off. Would you want to bet against either one?
Re:They're Not There to Win (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:They're Not There to Win (Score:1, Interesting)
This is going to happen. Apple killed WMA as a standard. Safari is going to kill IE as a standard.
Bullshit. Pirates killed WMA as a standard and Microsoft didn't help in this little adventure. First, most people have been transmitting illegal MP3s since the ages of the original Napster and not illegal WMAs or AACs. It became a de facto standard based on this and the fact that pretty much every player supported it. Also, look at most non-PC systems that support data music CDs, they are almost all MP3/WMA, not AAC, which is Apple's standard of choice, which otherwise has not been as largely adopted. Safari killing IE as a standard is a joke. First, a web browser being a standard is a bit redundant, since the internet is built around various standards all of which are supposedly implemented by browsers. The simple fact is, not all browsers support them well. Also, unlike the iPod, not everyone is seeing your sexy Safari browser running on your desktop at home or laptop.
There is another problem. If standards support was the issue, then people would be using Opera, which has the best support for standards available. The fact is that people are not that concerned about the issue, because they never see the problem. Web pages are being built broken so they will work with IE and other browsers be damned. Personally, I miss the days where the internet was largely a text based adventure that didn't take ages to load and have all the annoyances that we find today. The browsers have become bloated largely because of the web pages that people are making.
Mobile browsing has been the red headed step child of the internet. It sucks. The iPhone seems like it will remedy that, and no other company seems to be in a position to compete with it, or will be in a position to do so for some time.
Again, think before you speak. Opera has been the leader in mobile browsing for some time. Many of the great features available in the iPhone's Safari browser are already supported in some way using Opera. If you have a Windows Mobile device you can always purchase it, and it is really worth it. IE on mobile always has, and probably always will, suck.
That means that Safari will likely become a standard for mobile browsing, as long as the iPhone emulates the iPod and becomes a massive hit.
This is a big if, and it could be a big problem. First, the majority of high end PDA phones are purchased by business users. A big thing these people want is integration with their systems, which are largely going to be corporate systems using Exchange servers and Microsoft Outlook. Those using POP probably won't have as many issues, unless this proves to be relatively impossible to sync with Windows applications. A third party app is not going to cut it, because that good old Palm Desktop worked "oh so well".
The iPhone might also have issues finding traction without 3G. It probably would be less of an issue if they'd gone with a company without a 3G network (T-Mobile), but then, I guess they'd have lost out on the huge existing base that is Cingular (or AT&T, whatever they call themselves these days).
I predict that mobile browsing will become indispensable to ordinary people in a way that it isn't now (I never use the web on my Winmobile phone because it sucks). If it is indispensable, then site designers will have to code for it, and that means abandoning an IE only policy. Imagine the hate calls banks will get along the lines of "Hey mofos!!! I can't check my bank balance on my phone!!" THAT will be the effective end of IE as a standard.
*shoots your crystal ball* Go buy a new one of those. The mobile web will become indispensable? I find that a great many people like being able to get the hell away from their technology, especially those who work around it all damn day. Others will love their gadgets, but the answer to mobile browsing is not to bring the web in its current bloated form to the phone. The r
Re:They're Not There to Win (Score:5, Interesting)
Many years ago I worked for a major European telecommunications company who were convinced that, as they were as yet the only people offering a 'user-friendly web browser/phone', they were therefore in control of their market niche and ought to do rather well. Theirs was the definitive browsing experience.
It didn't fit well with the de facto state of the art at that time, and didn't display all those pages too well at all. The company was aware of this; therefore they 'reached out' to those web publishers who were seen as particularly relevant for the user group of said web browser/phone, and offered what was in effect SDK documentation: 'this is how to optimise user experience'. For some reason, almost nobody ever bothered to read said documentation. The general attitude was very much 'who cares about the id10ts who wasted their hard earned on this embedded crap?'
From this experience I took several lessons. Never assume you're a major enough player in the market to force anybody to do anything, unless you own 80% or more of it, and even then, you would be lucky. Very few people code for specific platforms, even where money is waved in front of them. Nobody except the users cares about user experience, except where it impacts on the bottom line (and in the case of a phone, you've already signed a contract before you start to learn about the little bugs). If you are going to offer any sort of guaranteed user experience, you would be best advised to ensure that you do not guarantee it on third party data.
At last year's WWW conf., there was a panel between various mobile web representatives discussing why the mobile web had not yet taken off. One (the Orange guy, I think?) pointed out that extremely high expectations had built up around mobile browsing. It wasn't so much that the current experience as of today's Nokia smartphone is particularly bad - it's more that there was a huge mismatch between expectation and experience. I get the impression that Apple really ought to talk to guys like this before they publicise the iPhone platform much further. They are making commitments that reality may not reflect -- which is pretty much a classic way of setting yourself up for 'limited success' in this arena.
Re:They're Not There to Win (Score:5, Interesting)
Translation: don't assume that there's only going to be one model and one price point forever.
Secondarily, Apple may, like they do with Mac, be happy to simply dominate the high-end market. One set of numbers I've seen indicates that while Apple may only have 2-3% of the worldwide market for personal computers, they have %6 of the total US market and 26% of the high-end market.
Translation: define "dominate".
Nope, AACs beat both MP3s and WMAs (Score:2, Interesting)
Next to die, Internet Explorer!
Man Apple is sneaky.
Re:They're Not There to Win (Score:3, Interesting)
No, it won't. Apple makes its money from hardware sales. Steve Jobs knows this and knows he is in no position to cannibalize Apple's primary source of income with such a maneuver.
In effect, he'd be saying "This Mac experience that we sell people for a couple thousand dollars? Now we're selling it to you for a couple hundred." Does that sound smart to you?
Re:They're Not There to Win (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows Based Phones? 5.6%, not "most people" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why Apple really released Safari on Windows (Score:4, Interesting)
If that is the reason Apple did it then it was a blunder of and epic level.
Safari on the PC is currently inferior to IE and FF!
It doesn't look like a native application.
It lacks a spell checker.
It lacks ad blocking.
Love it or hate it it doesn't use Windows font rendering.
It didn't import any of my bookmarks.
No Linux Version unless you count Konqure.
If you think I hate Safari on Windows you are wrong. It does seem to run javascript heavy sites very fast and I have not had any real compatibility issues with it. It looks like it has a very standards complaint rendering engine as well.
It may get people coding for standards instead of IE. Firefox has helped with that a lot but there are still idiots that code only for IE!
So why Safari? My guess is to offer a Windows environment for widget development but also to give Microsoft a poke in the eye for dropping IE for the Mac. Consider this a shot over the bow warning Microsoft that if they snub the Mac enough that Apple will start attacking Microsoft on their home turf. Maybe Apple is working on an Office killer? Microsoft is having enough trouble with OO.org. Imagine if Apple started improving OO?
Vista is a disappointment, I don't think the latest and greatest office is setting the world on fire, the Zune isn't making big headway with the iPod crowd, and the new IE while an improvement isn't a FF killer. The last thing Microsoft needs is Apple adding it's talent to OO.org!
I keep hoping that Apple will fix the problems so that we do have a lovely third browser choice for Windows.
Re:The blogger has no idea. (Score:3, Interesting)
One could say the same for linux users and their operating systems, particularly on slashdot. ;)
I acknowledge that I am quite the Apple Fanboy, but there's a good reason for it. I've used Windows (3.1 to XP Pro), Linux (from Gentoo to Ubuntu), Open & FreeBSD, and a few other operating systems that I presently can't recall. I haven't looked back since purchasing my MacBook. While I won't contend that only Apple can give me this experience, I do contend they're the most successful thus far.
Furthermore, I support their Safari on Windows initiative, but not because Safari is awesome (albeit, I prefer it to FF). No, it's because using Safari furthers the KHTML engine and enhances standard compliance among browsers. It puts more pressure on the browser market, which benefits the industry as a whole.