Apple's new Safari snubs older Macs, drops Windows version

Apple has shipped Safari 6 to coincide with the release of Mountain Lion, but to take full advantage of the fruity firm's newest web browser, you'll need to be running its latest OS. Although Lion users can download Safari 6, not all of the browser's features will work on the older OS, and users of earlier versions of Mac OS X …

[Anonymous Coward]

Surprising ?

"Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the change"

They are still not talking to El Reg - so this isn't anything unusual is it ?

Dropping support for Windows is surprising, that said, I don't know of anyone who used it on a PC (but many people downloaded it because it claimed to be fast - Chrome seemed a bit faster).

[LarsG]

Am

Am I the only one in the world that likes a separate search bar?

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Am

No, I quite like it and, as Opera hasn't lost it, I don't miss it.

[BristolBachelor]

@LarsG

No you are not. And it pisses me off royally when I try to go to a machine on the local net by just typing it's local name, and the browser then automagically decides that actually I want to search for information about "prometheus" instead of connect to prometheus, or that when I type "oracle", that I wanted oracle.com

[tomjol]

Re: @LarsG

On the connect instead of search thing, in Chrome at least, stick a forward slash on the end.

[Neil 38]

@BristolBachelor

http://prometheus

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Surprising ?

Not really suprising at all.

Apple have been fooling idiots for years on iOS in the same way. Call something iOS6 on older devices, but it's not really iOS6, it's just the old OS with some of the new bits and a bit of spit a polish. A PR stunt to save face, and make it appear like they are supporting old handsets.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Surprising ?

Which is better?

Apple's support of older handsets:

Release cut down version of OS that provides some new features.

Microsoft's support of older WP7 handsets:

Tweak the UI and release that for old phones to make them look almost like the new OS.

Old handset users have to buy new phone to get the new OS and features.

[Steven Raith]

Universal search field

"Frequent Googlers will appreciate the new Unified Search Field, which combines the URL and search boxes into one, much like how it is done in Chrome."

'bout damned time - every time I use safari, I fail to remember it doesn't do this.

Just finished installing on my late 2k8 alu Macbook - lets see what doesn't work, eh?

Steven R

[Fibbles]

Re: Universal search field

"which combines the URL and search boxes into one, much like how it is done in Chrome"

*cough*

www.reghardware.com/2012/07/25/galaxy_s_3_update_disables_universal_search/

*cough*

Google retaliation lawsuit in 3... 2... 1...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Universal search field

That is a joke Fibbles :-) Google would be the one with more to lose with that move.

Unified search box means more search, which - unless the user changed the default search engine - means more ads for Google to show.

[Eddy Ito]

Re: Universal search field

I expect Google Search will be following closely behind Google Maps as it seems likely Apple will be switching their default search as soon as any contract they might have expires.

Hmm, I wonder if working a deal with the ex-GooGirl over at Bing powered Yahoo! Search wouldn't be a nice stick with which Apple's can poke the boys over at Mountain View. Why I can almost hear Merissa now; "I am Mountain Lion, hear me ROAR! MEW! [mumbles to self] Damn, why did they have to pick a Felinae?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Universal search field

I doubt that Apple will move to Bing search very soon, they know the sort of games Microsoft likes to play.

[Ilgaz]

Funny really

Yahoo is lovely for them. General public doesn't really know/ care it is Bing powered so you can still switch to them without absurdity of switching to Microsoft on ios.

[Fibbles]

Re: Universal search field

4 downvotes for a naff joke? The fanboys must be tetchy today...

[Steven Raith]

Re: Universal search field

Four downvotes for pointing out that Safari seems to be the last major browser to not have search in the address bar?

They must really be tetchy.

It's worked alright, by the way - not noticably zippier, but the new notification system is nice (almost as good as must Linux distros/UIs have had for a while!) and nothing seems broken, I'd call that a reasonable deal.

Steven R

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Universal search field

Address bar search in Firefox has been a feature for years.

I seem to recall it was even a feature in later versions of the Netscape browser although I could be wrong about that.

[Don]

Windows Users

"Windows users, on the other hand, might start looking around for alternatives. ®"

Both of them? Chrome roundly spanked Safari.

[Rob Carriere]

Re: Windows Users

Actually, I know quite a few people with Windows Safari. All of them build or test websites. All of them now have a choice between getting budget for a Mac or taking the (pretty good) bet that if it works in Firefox and Chrome, it'll probably work in Safari.

[JDX]

Re: Windows Users

Were the Win/Mac versions of Safari identical in all cases anyway?

[RICHTO]

Re: Windows Users

And IE9 spanked Safari, Chrome and Firefox - fastest of all of them when it was launched and has better security with fewer vulnerabilities.

[dogged]

Windows version dropped

Good thing you mentioned that or it'd be YEARS before anyone noticed.

[Craig Foster]

"Frequent Googlers will appreciate the new Unified Search Field, which combines the URL and search boxes into one, much like how it is done in Chrome."

So stealing a method of searching from Chrome and IE is just OK, but when stealing a method of searching on a phone it's an obvious patent violation?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a (Google) patent for that

Google has a patent application for that kind of search box but why would they ever threaten to ban something that encourages the use of their services?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There's a (Google) patent for that

See my earlier post. Mozilla have been doing address bar search for years. This could be fun.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There's a (Google) patent for that

Well as Mozilla received most of it's funding from Google anyway, I doubt they have much to fear.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: There's a (Google) patent for that

They don't need to threaten but it might be admissible in the kind of court that accepts these ridiculous patents. Can you see where this going? Car manufacturers are going to be suing each other for including speedometers in dashboards or petrol gauges; people will start suing each other for driving the same route to work...

Oh, this is about a new version of Safari. I'm always surprised by how many Mac users actually use Safari. I think they are impressed by the lack of controls.

[Adrian Taylor]

the poor orphaned mac pros

come and share your grief if you have an orphaned MacPro

https://www.facebook.com/AppleBringMountainLionSupportToEarlyMacPros

Apple have happily maintained a 32/64bit split kernel for the last two versions of OS X, they simply could have continued this model... in fact the early developers preview of Mountain Lion included a 32bit kernel, capable of running on unsupported macpros.

So in effect they developed the solution and then decided not to employ it.

If i want the upgrades to iCloud which are essentially the biggest changes in ML I need to purchase a new machine, so they are effectively saying that my Mac Pro which has 8 x 3.0ghz cores 16gb ram etc etc is not capable of using the icloud services.

[Steen Hive]

Re: the poor orphaned mac pros

You can usually boot an unsupported mac pro in 64-bit using an ... er .... "alternative" bootloader. You might have success depending on which graphics card is in it, and I'm unsure about sound support. If you have spare harddisk to mess with, it's an educational way to while away a weekend.

http://netkas.org/?p=978

[Edward Groenendaal]

Re: the poor orphaned mac pros

Dropping support for the stock 7300 GT graphics on the mac pro is the real killer for a hackintosh mac pro. I am a bit sad about this. My 2007 mac pro is still going strong and doesn't like being marginalised. My next mac pro will be a true hackintosh.

[Ilgaz]

Re: the poor orphaned mac pros

Buy lots of RAM and win server edition. That is what I would do if they abandoned my workstation.

[Preacher]

Re: the poor orphaned mac pros

That's the price you have to pay for being loyal to the fruit company

[Ilgaz]

As a quad g5 user

I laughed when they called "Mac pro" as it was clear Apple was heading to be a toy company.

[mike2R]

Re: the poor orphaned mac pros

And hopefully your poor orphaned Mac is not still on 10.6 or earlier, since it seems 10.7 has disappeared and can no longer be purchased from the App Store.

Planned obsolescence, this is Apple's install base. Apple's install base, say hello to planned obsolescence. Or have you already met?

[Armando 123]

Re: the poor orphaned mac pros

I dunno, I can sympathize, but think about it: would you rather deal with a company looking out of the windshield or the rearview mirror? I'll take the former, thank you, because the cost there is a little more obvious. (And I say this as someone who's still on a G5 tower at home ... still runs find, still does what I need, though at 7 years it *is* starting to get long in the tooth.)

[Furbian]

Wot? Not for Windows...

.. come on, I thought a bit of development effort would be worth when hoards of Windows 8, rather Metro, users look for a desktop experience that works with a mouse?

Admittedly not me, yet, unless I upgrade my PC and find that Window 7 drivers are missing or kludges, in which case it will be a toss up between Linux and a Mac.

[david 12]

Apple agrees with Microsoft

...that Windows is a legacy platform.

[csumpi]

Foxconn-rebrander

What happened to Foxconn-rebrander? Fruity firm sounds so pretty.

[Jean-Paul]

Loving the iCloud tabs

I've been using the iCloud tabs now for just over a week and got to say I like it a lot. It may depend on ones habits, but mine are to constantly hop between devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone) and being able to continue where I left of on another device is brilliant...

[Fuzz]

Re: Loving the iCloud tabs

I agree, sync is my favourite feature on firefox. Nice to see Apple have caught up with the other browser makers. Just need Microsoft to do something now and this functionality will be available for everyone.

[Anonymous Coward]

RIP RSS reader

Sadly they've nuked the RSS functionality in Safari :(

[Norphy]

Re: RIP RSS reader

And in Mail... I lost all of my RSS feeds, I'm quite annoyed about that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: RIP RSS reader

Yes, as an Apple beta tester for ML I filed this dropping of RSS very early-on as a BUG Report. I had hoped in the GM that some magic App deep in the OS would take over this role, but so far I haven't found it!

There is a paid App floating around somewhere in App Store but as I'm from Yorkshire I don't do paid Apps if there's any free alternative...even if it takes a month to find

[Dan 55]

Re: RIP RSS reader

Those would be Firefox and Thunderbird...

[Anonymous Coward]

They've dropped the Windows version?

Wow that going to piss a few people off. Maybe, what 3 or 4, perhaps even as many as 10.

[GrumpyJoe]

Re: They've dropped the Windows version?

How are developers supposed to cross check browser compatibility now - especially if they don't have the budget for Macs? They'll just test Firefox/Chrome/IE. Bugger Safari.

Good move Apple.

[Greg J Preece]

Re: They've dropped the Windows version?

And that cross-browser testing is definitely necessary. Part of our system requires a pop-up to appear (it's meant to go on projector screens and the like, while the controls are on a separate screen.) During testing we tried this in Safari 5, only to find that not only did it block the popup, it also failed to inform users that the popup had been blocked. So from the end user's point of view, they clicked the button and nothing happened. Thanks, Apple!

[Dan 55]

Nice one Apple

Tying the browser to the OS. Worked for IE 9.

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't some company get sued for having a browser in their OS and being "uncompetetive"?

Isn't withdrawing your product from another OS also uncompetetive? WIll Apple get hit with a massive fine for this?

[Tom 38]

No, Apple does not have a monopoly on browsers, anything they choose to do with their browser is entirely fine. MS got fined because they abused their dominant OS monopoly to force their browser on everyone in order to deliberately destroy Netscape (the company).

Apple withdrawing a browser which has a tiny market share from one of its platforms is in no way equivalent.

[Anonymous Coward]

And there was nothing at all behind Nutscrape being a pain in the backside?

Looking at it from a basic level:

Windows comes with IE. The horror. The HORROR!

Mac OX comes with Safari: Full out of box experience! Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

{sigh}

Microsoft did not get into trouble for having an monopoly in the desktop OS market. Monopolies are allowed.

They got into trouble for (ab)using that monopoly to gain another monopoly in internet browsers.

Monopolies are allowed. But you can't use one monopoly to create another. That's illegal.

None of the above currently applies in any way whatsoever to the situation on Apple Macs.

[Anonymous Coward]

One rule for Apple, another for Microsoft

Apple's strategy is simple. Maintain a smaller market share but charge a premium for their products to make huge profits and (on paper) rising market cap. That way they don't look so dominant and can get away with anti-competitive activities.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is punished for being simply being successful at business and enabling 80% of the world's businesses to simply get on with life.

[greenwoodma]

Scraping the Windows version is odd

While I never used Safari on Windows as my main browser, I did find it useful to be able to test out web apps I was developing. While I know it uses the same rendering engine as Chrome it seemed to be closer to the Mac experiance than testing in Chrome. Surely I can't have been the only one using it to ensure Mac users got a good browsing experiance. Seems daft for Apple to scrap it if only for this reason.

[ZweiBlumen]

Re: Scraping the Windows version is odd

Apple expect you buy a Mac for your testing...

[Lockwood]

Re: Scraping the Windows version is odd

I did a web app, rendered just about ok on Safari for Windows.

Reported to render like crap on iPad.

Went to an Apple store to see what it looked like on one.

Spent 5 minutes stood in doorway of store, in front of staff going "Why won't you overpriced piece of crap do what I want you to do?!" and only got approached by staff when I went to them to ask for help (I figured that 5 minutes of ranting was enough)

Ended up being given a lecture on making stuff that works on IE only - ignoring the fact that I set foot in an Apple Store to _test compatibility_, got put in contact with their business support team.

They wanted to sell me an iPad and not answer any questions. Useful.

[Tom 38]

Re: Scraping the Windows version is odd

I'm with you here mate, I couldn't get this thing to work in IE 6, so popped round PC World and gave them a right earful! That'll learn the cock munchers.

[Jess--]

Re: Scraping the Windows version is odd

agreed, they assume that if you are building something that "must work on a mac" you have to buy a mac.

I can see a lot of developers saying (probably quite rightly) "We will build this to the current accepted standards, if browser X on operating system Y fails to support those standards or degrade gracefully, tough"

another option is to say "our testing systems consist of browsers 1,2,3,4 & 5 on operating systems A,B,C & D, if you want it tested on anything different you supply the required hardware"

[Lockwood]

Re: Scraping the Windows version is odd

@Jess

That's our new take on it.

"You want us to make you a version of our stuff that's designed to your on your iPad?"

"Yes"

"Buy us an iPad"

*click*

[chr0m4t1c]

Re: Scraping the Windows version is odd

Maybe I'm mis-reading this, but are you saying that your response to customers asking for your software on a new platform is to ask the customer to supply the platform for development?

I'm sure the customers are perfectly happy with that. How do your competitors feel?

[Lockwood]

Re: Scraping the Windows version is odd

Niche market.

Most of the stuff we do with devices has a requirement that if you want us to develop something to use on Device X, and we do not already have a Device X, you need to get us a Device X to test it on.

Maybe you are of the school of thought where you knock something up and hope it works without testing it in the correct environment.

Do you work for RBS?

[Dan 55]

Re: Scraping the Windows version is odd

They probably don't want to commit resources to the Win 8 x86 Desktop/Metro car-crash and have associated support problems from people wanting a Win RT Metro version which is impossible to supply and have decided that the iOS developer ecosystem is big enough to force people to buy a Mac now anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact: Chrome killed off Safari for Windows

Good to see that even Apple is not arrogant enough to think they could compete with Chrome on Windows. Or even IE9 for that matter. Or any browser that still supports Flash.

[durbster]

Re: Fact: Chrome killed off Safari for Windows

I'd say Safari killed off Safari. It was never outstanding at anything. Opera always had innovation, Chrome had speed, Firefox had versatility and IE had compatibility.

Safari was always behind one or more of the other browsrs in ALL the above, so it never made a strong case for itself.

[RICHTO]

It's by Apple - Therefore it's the worst thing for Security

Apple - the only company useless enough to make an OS and apps that are nearly as insecure as Linux.

You really want to run this crap with a list of highly critical and unpatched vulnerabilities as long as your arm??! You might as well put your credit card data on a Linux server and give it to Sony.....

http://secunia.com/advisories/50058

[Ilgaz]

Time to remove win version

As win version didn't release, it still has the security issues mentioned, publicized in rather gigantic security changelog.

You don't have luxury to keep a vulnerable app on win. Time to remove.

Administrators: it is msi installed. Should be centrally removable.

[FordPrefect]

Ah so its fine to copy a chrome "innovation" but the other way around is evil? I hope google sue apple for copying unified search/URL bar, unlikely though as google appears to favour INNOVATION rather than litigation unlike apple patent trolls.

As for dropping the windows version well I am sure all 3 worldwide users will be gutted by the change ;)

[chr0m4t1c]

I dunno, why don't you ask Opera about tabbed browsing?

[durbster]

Opera invented pretty much ALL the good features modern browsers have, several years before. I've never figured out why it's market share remained so tiny. It deserved so much more.

[Al Jones]

There was a browser called InternetWorks (later Global Network Navigator and eventually AOL navigator) that had tabbed browsing back in '94 or '95 - long before Opera was available.

[Steve Sims]

Windows version

I can't tell you whether or not there will be an official Windows version of Safari, but it doesn't really matter.

I can tell you that you can go to webkit.org and download a Windows build of the latest WebKit Nightly.

WebKit Nightly builds are basically Safari under another name. They tend to be very stable indeed and, being nightly builds from the WebKit source, they're even more up to date than Safari is.

[Shell]

Re: Windows version

They're also basically Chrome under a different name. Safari and Chrome are branches of the same WebKit engine I believe (and Apple, Google and others contribute to WebKit itself)

[Anonymous Coward]

Web developers use windows

While they could be way more comfortable using Linux, these guys use win. They won't test the safari (it was main purpose of release) so people using Mac computers (you know, they do it) will suffer.

[Greg J Preece]

Re: Web developers use windows

"While they could be way more comfortable using Linux, these guys use win."

We do? I use Linux, and only boot the other two when required.

[Richard Wharram]

Nooooooooooooooo

I've used Safari as my main browser at home on Windows for a while now. I like the font-rendering. Fonts in Chrome just look thin and jagged.

:(

(I do use other browsers in situations where Safari doesn't work very well. I'm not a total tool.)

[Alan Denman]

Only Apple can get blood out of stone.

Apple's accelerated process means your purchase soon becomes obsolete unless you pay up.

And even then you need to throw away and start again sooner than you expect.