Slap me around and call me an opinionated buffoon, but media from on high and way down the long tail need to snap out of their Safari-hatin’ and at least pretend that they understand that the product they are faulting for security issues, instability and various other bugs is in fact, a beta.
I don’t know how many basement-analysts I’ve read since monday, that are ignorantly treating it as a finalized product, despite the fact that it’s a beta. And the first beta at that. Hell, it is the first time this thing has set foot on Windows!
Oblivious to the fact that beta’s are released, because they need testing, these keyboard-breathers haphazardly throw together misinformed opinions and lackluster ‘tests’ (for shame Wired, for shame).
Now if Apple had the reputation of Microsoft when it came to neglecting their browsers, that’d be one thing, but despite the fact that I don’t even use Safari as my primary browser, I will fight Apple’s fight any day of the week on this, as they have managed to craft a damn good browser, which I wouldn’t think twice about letting my mother use.
And not only that, they don’t set it adrift down the river, they actually update it continually and Dave Hyatt has been open and welcoming Safari users on the Surfin’ Safari blog for years!
If you’re not responsible enough to add the ‘it’s still a beta, so there’s still a long way to go’ caveat to your ‘analysis’, you’re not old enough to publish on the internet.
Now go to your room and think about what you’ve done.
I blame Google for completely deconstructing the definition.
Any chance that the concept of “beta” has been so eroded by web sites/apps in beta for months and years that most people have broken notion of what to expect of a beta?
The fact that Apple actually knows the difference between alpha, beta and public beta is misaligned to public perception.
Then again, Microsoft ship gold masters at alpha grade, so the millions of Windows users should be used to it by now.
Completely agree.
At least on OS X, it is pretty stable for a beta. But on the Windows side, what do you expect for the 1st ever beta?
People need to chill.
I couldn’t agree more – well put.
Thank god i´m not alone, I think that Safari 3 for Windows totally suck, but as you say is BETA.
Dave Hyatt is still the man.
I agree that most analyst are just being hard-asses (problably because Steve disapointed them with lack of stupendous announcemnets at WWDC’07 and iPhone SDK): I’ve worked with more stable software in alpha stages than this Safari for windows in beta. In Vista I could only run Safari for a little more than 1 minute before it crashed… and right now it keeps crashing right after I open it… I’ve reinstalled it twice now.
Isn’t there some irony that this post comes just two after discussing confirmation bias? Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing here? I’m not sure how you can mock Wired for a poor standard of testing, when Apple’s own tests seemed every bit as flimsy.
Finally someone said it!
Welcome to our world …
As a microsoft languages programmer/developer I have listened for years to the OpenSource community make slights about the poor OS software production coming out of Redmond because after launch things require patches and updates.
But, I am neither a zealot or a fanatic. There is no “one true faith” when it comes to computing for me. I use both Apple and PC personally, for different things at different times. If you reduce the conversation surrounding this Safari release to a flame war, you are missing the bigger picture here and what most tech analysts are actually saying.
An operating system is nearly unfathomable in it’s complexity. A decent browser is nothing to shake a stick at either though. One of the main reason that the FireFox browser has been so rock solid, was it had an entire community giving feedback and essentially testing it throughout the development life cycle. You can’t download nightly-builds of FireFox or IE during development. Those teams have to do the best that they can with what they have. In the end a beta release is what lots of OpenSource projects enjoy through their dev lives.
So, yes, it is a BETA RELEASE. Relax, there will be fixes to come…
But. It’s a poor beta release. It was obviously hurried to coincide with the iPhone release. You have to ask yourself why now? Why even release it at all for windows? People are not exactly clamoring for a new browser. I have Opera 9.x, FF2, IE7, and some Netscape version installed on my dev boxes. I personally didn’t wake-up and go, “Hey, another browser icon in my tray would be super!” While, I do appreciate not having to have an Apple on at all times for usability tests, it really comes down to webkit and the iPhone.
Apple wants windows people to develop for their phone. They want to crash into the smart phone crowd. After that, and once a stable safari is re-released for public consumption it will come down to a matter of opinion in the browsing experience.
And in regards to poo-pooing Wired for bench testing a beta project, let’s not forget that Apple is the one who came out swinging with these outrageous claims. And while, yes, this is a marketing ploy more than anything else; it hurts more than helps to get people on board with your “new” product. Its the same reason why if you start romantically someone new, you do not start to verbally break down their previous love interests. There was a reason why they were with that person(s) at some point. You do yourself no favor by instead setting yourself apart, tearing someone else down.
[quote comment=“131021”]Isn’t there some irony that this post comes just two after discussing confirmation bias? Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing here?[/quote]
Heh, no. I think you need to go back up and read what I wrote.
[quote comment=“131021”]I’m not sure how you can mock Wired for a poor standard of testing, when Apple’s own tests seemed every bit as flimsy.[/quote]
Apple developed Safari, I expect them to be biased. But I expect more from Wired than a rather unscientific test run only on a couple of Google webapps, with nary an explanation of their method. That makes Wired feel like a basement-analyst…
I think it’s not very thoroughly thought to release public beta of a product that clearly has problems anyone can easily reproduce in just five minutes of surfing the web. Guess the guys at Apple have spent a bit too much time staring at glossy-white plastic if they can’t notice half the text on screen missing. Or perhaps Steve is giving them a hard time to make such a hasty release?
And oh, just so that you don’t get me wrong, I mainly enjoy working with my Macbook Pro and listening to music with my iPod nano.
I hate the fact that Apple products have bugs as well as any other products but people just seem to ignore them willingly. How about renaming it pre-alpha, or something?
Just my thoughts, hope no-one gets too excited. :)
Michael, just that you know, editing my comment above seemed to produce a database error (but it updated anyway). I would’ve mailed you a screencap but couldn’t find your email address.
(Feel free to delete this comment.)
Correct me if im wrong – but didnt Apple say that the Safari browser would be 100% safe from day one ? I interpret that as day one of its initial release, it being a beta or not. They really should tone down their announcements a bit.
I’d agree that the coverage of Safari has been disappointing, for all the reasons you’ve mentioned. I do wonder, however, how much of the “teardown” tendency was influenced by the outrageous claims of superiority made by Jobs during the announcement.
To some degree, I think it’s a case of every action (or, in this case, hype-filled announcement) having an equal and opposite reaction. OK, maybe it’s not equal, but I do suspect that not as many people would have sprung up in opposition (or at least not as strongly) if there wasn’t so much up front boasting to the other extreme.
I agree that it’s strange that people bother talking about the browsers security issues as if it’s a final product (though, I have not seen anyone talking like this myself).
But apart from the security issues, this browser fucking blows on windows.
When will Apple get it through their thick, stupid heads that people like their windows software to be windows software – not some hyper-slow, out of place, custom-widget crap like everything they put out on windows?
Every single piece of Windows software that Apple puts out is absolutely horrible.
Quicktime (standalone), iTunes and now Safari all suffer from the same “Hey, we thought we’d just include the entire mac operating system with your little app” feel.
Quicktime embedded in webpages is the closest thing to nice mac software on windows, since there is only the good streaming and the scrubber to look at.
I like all these apps on Mac OS, I really do, but I just freaking hate them on Windows.