Acts of Volition

Today, Apple introduced a new browser, called Safari. Also today, every web designer and developer in the world let out a big sigh and said a big collective: Crap!

As you can see from my last post, the differences between browser rendering engines give us indigestion. That said, my first impression of Safari was quite good. For those that care, it is not based on the gecko engine as some may have expected (and hoped). Rather it uses the KDE's KHTML library from the linux community. More web developer info on Safari is available at dive into mark.

An interesting note about Apple's release of Safari and a few other Apple apps this past year: they are blurring the line between beta and final versions of software. This is a beta release of Safari, but it is launched and promoted with as much fanfare as any final product would be. For better or for worse, the public is now a beta tester (not necessarily a bad thing - especially since only those who want it will bother downloading it).