Apple Picking a Fight it Can't Win With Safari

[Dominus Atheos]

Slashdot

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.

[Soontir C'boath]

Well, what exactly does Apple lose in this endeavor? Implementation and advertising costs? Unless they're stacking a good amount of cash for this, I don't see how trying to expand to windows-base users is a failure even if it doesn't hit too well. Opera is still going and it only has ~3% of the browser share.

[phongn]

Safari for Windows seems more like an development tool for those who mostly work on Windows and need to test their websites and web applications.

[Praxis]

I don't really see how Apple can fail. They haven't put a whole lot of money into it, they're providing a free development tool to allow developers to test for compatability with Mac users, and if they expand Safari's marketshare even in the slightest they raise awareness and thus dev support.

Actually, I'm really more interested in the return of the Yellow Box theory.
From the article:

Windows can only be resized from the bottom-right corner. Safari uses Mac OS X font anti-aliasing instead of Windows' built-in ClearType, and fonts look blurry and all bold, all the time. Menus are hard to read. Safari uses its own, unalterable, nonstandard key combinations for things like flipping through tabs. The list goes on and on.

Take a look at this image:


There's been a rumor for a couple of years about Apple working on porting Cocoa (OS X's APIs) to Windows, which means that someone can develop a Mac application and compile it for Windows as well without having to change much if any code. While it is easy to dismiss, there were also rumors for a couple of years about Apple having internal builds of Mac OS X for Intel, and those similarly turned out to be true. And there were rumors for years about an iPhone in development.

The fact that Safari uses Mac OS X's font services and CoreImage effects (try doing Ctrl-F in Safari Beta for Windows. You can see the CoreImage effects there- I wish FireFox would steal that search function, it is much clearer) really makes me wonder if the Yellow Box rumor of Cocoa for Windows is true. It looks like Apple has ported a lot of OS X stuff (CoreImage, their font smoothing, graphics) to Windows when they could have just used the standard Windows stuff...either Apple intends to make more Windows apps, or they've got Cocoa for Windows in the works, or they just like doing things the hard way.

[Praxis]

Yup. Some people have already written iPhone apps.
http://onetrip.org/

Try it out. It only works in Safari; no other browser.

There's also a browser AIM client, again written for Safari. Both apps are designed specifically for the iPhone, and it matches the iPhone interface perfectly.

I'm actually pretty impressed with Safari for Windows' speed. It renders pages MUCH faster than FireFox and feels pretty snappy. Unfortunately, the inconsistent GUI and more importantly the extreme buginess keep me from using it regularly. And the fact that I can't autoscroll.

If Apple added autoscrolling with the middle mouse button and made it stable, then I might consider using it regularly. But FireFox's extensions are the true advantage. But I really, REALLY like Safari's search function. I do my school work online and constantly search through large blocks of text and it's often hard to see things on a large monitor with FireFox, as the highlighting is sometimes not dark enough to spot in the page.


I really like the Cocoa for Windows idea though. If you could write an app using Cocoa, and compile it for Windows and Mac OS X by checking a box in XCode, it would attract a LOT of developers.

[phongn]

It'd certainly be neat, but there needs to be a way to address the very real problem of UI inconsistency. What works for Mac does not necessarily work for Windows.

[Mobius]

The good things is that the safari beta doesn't seem to work on non-english windows ( crash when you want to open any menu).
French forums are literally flooded with people cursing safari.

[Durandal]

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.

If that was how the Windows world worked, Microsoft would be out of business by now. If the Windows browser market was at cut-throat as this clown seems to think, why the hell is Internet Explorer still the dominant browser? Windows users don't forgive "even the smallest error"? What alternate universe is this idiot living in?

[Pu-239]

Yup. Some people have already written iPhone apps.
http://onetrip.org/

Try it out. It only works in Safari; no other browser.

Works on Firefox 2.0.0.4/Linux here...

[Stark]

I get a warning in 2.0.0.4/XP, but it appears to work fine anyway?

Wait, no the menus screw up after a while (not showing you the menu elements it should, etc).

[Xisiqomelir]

Robert Enderle redux?

[Glocksman]

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.

If that was how the Windows world worked, Microsoft would be out of business by now. If the Windows browser market was at cut-throat as this clown seems to think, why the hell is Internet Explorer still the dominant browser? Windows users don't forgive "even the smallest error"? What alternate universe is this idiot living in?

The same one that Art Bell's callers live in?
As an aside, is Slashdot using those Vista-like black title bars on their Apple page as a backhanded slap at Apple?
When I first loaded the page, 'Vista' was the first thing to pop to mind.

[Xisiqomelir]

I found a better article for you guys:

The Seduction of AT&T: Why did Apple write Safari for Windows? Because their big customer wants it.

This week was Apple's World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), the biggest news from which seemed to be the beta version of Safari (Apple's web browser) for Windows. Why the heck would Apple even produce such a product? Readers and pundits alike have been wondering ad nauseam.

I know why.

There are two theories being widely floated: 1) this is a challenge to Microsoft, and; 2) this is a strategic platform for Apple to offer its own web-based application suite. To a certain extent both may be correct, but I think there is a lot more to this story, which is sorely missing context in those many explanations.

Let's start with that context, which is Apple's WWDC, an event sorely lacking in both substance and controversy if we ignore this Safari story. Mac OS X 10.5 still isn't ready to ship. The iPhone is coming in a couple weeks but Apple is so far only hinting at opening the product to third-party developers. In other words, Steve Jobs had bupkus when it comes to creating press this week UNLESS he throws Safari for Windows into the mix.

Apple had to come up with something and this version of Safari, which reviewers have found to be buggy and definitely not ready for primetime, was it. Maybe Apple intended to do a Safari for Windows or not, but I'm guessing they had a version running in the lab as an exercise in Intel compatibility. When Steve realized that he had so little to hype, this alpha code suddenly became a beta "product."

This isn't to say that Safari for Windows wasn't always intended to be a product, but its current state of development strongly suggests that it wouldn't have been in Steve's presentation if he had much else to show.

Microsoft is not threatened by the announcement of Safari for Windows. Bill Gates isn't pissed off that Apple has challenged him. Gates is worried about Firefox, not Safari, and even Firefox is just a minor annoyance or else Microsoft would be doing a better job of competing with it.

Beyond garnering some press, Safari for Windows is about AT&T. Steve Jobs is the best salesperson in the entire universe, but he doesn't like to waste his time. That means that, having seduced AT&T (nee Cingular), Steve will try to sell them more and more stuff until they have bought everything he has. He will invent stuff specifically to sell to AT&T as long as it acts as a bridge to yet more stuff he wants to sell them.

Steve wants AT&T to see him not just as the answer to their prayers, but as the answer to their EVERY prayer.

What could AT&T be praying for? Plenty of things, but the most obvious theme I see is how to compete with Verizon, Comcast, and all the national cell phone providers. With Verizon, AT&T has to defend its decision to stick with a copper broadband infrastructure instead of the more expensive optical fiber Verizon has picked. With Comcast, AT&T has to defend its copper plant against Comcast's copper plant, which is about to gain a LOT more bandwidth thanks to new modems using more advanced modulation techniques. And against the other mobile operators, AT&T has to defend its decision not to go full 3G with the iPhone.

Are you noticing a trend here? AT&T is facing a potential bandwidth crisis when it comes to customer perception and it is logical to assume that Apple helped create that crisis. After all, the iPhone could easily have been made to work with 3G. Since AT&T HAS a 3G network, the decision not to use it was probably complicated and some of that complication may have come from Steve Jobs saying, "We don't need it. The iPhone will be insanely great with G2.5, thanks."

Here is the complex package of goods Apple is trying to sell to AT&T: There's the iPhone, of course, but there is also the Apple TV as a potential set-top box. Three hundred dollars for a set-top box? You have to be crazy! Not so crazy. Compared to not spending the kind of money Verizon is spending on fiber, Apple TVs are cheap even if AT&T gives them away. Remember that $400 rebate you used to be able to get on a new PC by signing up for two years of MSN? That didn't appear to make sense, either, yet it ran for years.

For Apple TV to be successful as an IPTV set-top box, Apple has to convince us that we really want to download our video, NOT stream it. Not incidentally, this is also the key to iTunes' long-term success. Downloading makes much more efficient use of network resources, works fine on a copper wiring plant, and fits our emerging TiVoesque world view. Steve will tell us that we are busy dynamic people who really ought to plan our viewing. And enough of us will believe him to make AT&T's copper video service a credible success.

Beyond downloading video and audio, Apple's other technique for limiting AT&T's bandwidth hit, while simultaneously locking in the company as a customer for years and years, is building clever software services. The more processing that can be done in the data center the less data that will have to be carried between that center and the device. So AT&T will need a broad array of web services to offer its customers, most of whom will be using Windows computers, not Macs, which brings us back again to Safari for Windows -- a product Apple had no choice but to build.

This move isn't about taking down Microsoft, it isn't about making Macintosh computers the dominant computing platform, it IS about performing a massive cashectomy on AT&T. But to Apple's credit the company doesn't want anyone to see this as theft, but rather as a technical triumph, simply because when AT&T's exclusive is over in five years, Apple will want to do similar deals with all of AT&T's competitors.

Next week we'll have more on the iPhone, what it is and isn't and why. But before then, last week's column on the Whistlebox video-response application generated a lot of reader comments, many of them negative and some even nasty. Just to save you the trouble of reading them all, here is the gist: "Bob, you are lazy and/or stupid. Whistlebox is nothing new. There are plenty of products available right now that can do all Whistlebox claims and more. And even if there weren't, it would take at most a few days to build one, NOT two man-years. We are disappointed in you, Bob."

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Of course there are Whistlebox competitors. User-generated video has been around since the days of CU-SeeMe. What the folks at Whistlebox have done isn't invent a technology so much as DEVELOP it. The distinction is clear: it is easy to cobble together a demo or prototype but altogether something else to build a tested production system that is easy to use and scales well. It would be close to impossible to ship in a few days or weeks a tested, refined application that DOES NOTHING (has a functioning interface but no underlying application engine), much less a tested, refined application like Whistlebox that actually does something. Anyone who claims otherwise has never shipped a product.

Whistlebox was designed and built for the business and advertising markets to be integrated by non-computer scientists and used by non-nerds. But it isn't just the usability that matters, it is the reporting and management tools that give the application value for business customers. Whistlebox isn't the first such application and won't be the last, but it is the first I have seen that is offered in a form that can be easily used by organizations of all sizes and levels of technical sophistication. That's what makes it unique so far. None of the other applications offered up by readers as examples of prior art can do this. None of them are turnkey. This lack of turnkey capability in those other products may be seen as an advantage, not a disadvantage, by my geekier readers. Yes, YOU can customize the heck out of them. But can your Mom?

Still, I was appalled by the nasty tone of many comments. Anonymity makes it so easy to criticize. At some point this column will probably have a video version. Then it is a short jump to video responses using a service like Whistlebox. When that happens, I wonder how many readers will be as critical on video as they are today in text?

I can't wait.

[Resinence]

It may be buggy, but it came with that lovely Lucida Grande font for me to use in windows and linux. Thankyou apple for saving us from terrible fonts!

[Durandal]

I think Cringley is on drugs.

[Darth Wong]

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.

If that was how the Windows world worked, Microsoft would be out of business by now. If the Windows browser market was at cut-throat as this clown seems to think, why the hell is Internet Explorer still the dominant browser? Windows users don't forgive "even the smallest error"? What alternate universe is this idiot living in?

You have to cut the guy some slack. It's hard to see things like Internet forums full of complaints about buggy Microsoftware when your head is lodged a foot deep in Bill Gates' ass.

[Praxis]

I think Cringley is on drugs.

Cringley has always been on drugs.

[Durandal]

I think Cringley is on drugs.

Cringley has always been on drugs.

Indeed. Some theorize that he is Fake Steve.

[Master of Ossus]

Agreed. That Cringley article is bullshit from top to bottom. I especially love the Apple TV as a set-top box, even though AT&T's U-Verse offers better functionality and the fact that AT&T is, essentially, betting the company on the infrastructure that it's put together in the last few years (ironically using Microsoft for several functions of its own box, including Whole Home).