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Safari 4

iaian7 » blog   John Einselen, 7.03.09    

I finally took the plunge and updated my laptop with the Safari 4 beta. There are a couple things to be aware of going into this; be it updating your extensions (Glims, SafariStand, AdBlock, 1Password, or others), or turning off Growl announcements in Mail (updates made to security protocols in the HTML rendering engine, WebKit, can crash mail when Growl tries to access message content). Yes, there are some pretty severe pauses in internet connectivity (presumably when features such history flow are updating), and crashes as well (it is, after all, a beta). Overall, however, it’s an enjoyable experience… and a good move forward for Safari.

Once you’re up and running, Safari 4 Buddy, mySafari, and other apps, can help customise the experience a bit. While many of Safari 4’s additions are pretty cool (top sites, history flow, javascript engine), other changes will take time to get use to, or just get in the way (sure, tabs at the top are confusing at first, but they can also make window management much more difficult). With these apps, you can mix and match some of the best new features, while reverting to some of the older UI standards.

While we’re discussing cool new features, MacRumors has posted links to a few technology demos (including some truly impressive 3D). But perhaps what I find most interesting is the Safari 4 intro animation. Like new OS X installations, there’s a quick little greeting when you first open Safari 4 (and yes, you have to be using Safari 4 to watch it). Some simple motion graphics and music; all pretty typical for Flash animation, I suppose. But check the page source, and you’ll find it’s done entirely in Javascript, CSS, and the latest rich-media HTML.

Even better, the iPhone already has support for 3D transforms via CSS, as part of WebKit (though for desktop implementations in Safari and Mail, it’s turned off by default). While Microsoft tries to vie for attention with Silverlight, posing as an Adobe Flash replacement and web development platform, Apple may very well be positioning WebKit as a new solution; web standards, and all based in HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

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