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The Real Reason Behind Safari on Windows
by , 12:40 PM EDT, June 22nd, 2007
Making Safari available for Windows was clearly an attempt to lay a foundation for the iPhone purchased by Windows users. However, the potential payoff and the underlying strategy is much deeper, according to Roughly Drafted on Friday.
Windows users have enjoyed the experience of using iTunes on Windows. So when Apple added Safari to the mix, it was easy to suppose that this was merely an extension of the success of iTunes, but also in support of the iPhone, which has the same version of Safari. According to Daniel Dilger, however, the Apple strategy is much deeper, more subtle, and more dramatic than previously thought.
"Safari on the Mac provides a Cocoa user interface on top of the WebKit display engine. On Windows however, Apple not only ported the Cocoa UI and WebKit, but also adapted Mac OS X’s Core Foundation and Core Graphics libraries to supply functionality missing on Windows," Mr. Dilger noted.
That opens the doors to all kinds of possibilities.
1. It means that Apple can showcase Apple technologies to Windows users who have embraced the iPod and will embrace the iPhone but are somehow stuck in Windows.
2. Developers can write cross platform apps that have the beauty and look of Mac OS X apps, run on Windows, and use Apple's Core Foundation/Graphics.
3. Internet audio and video standards that Apple adheres to and promotes filter their way into Windows, propelled by the popularity of new media technologies, and Microsoft can no longer slam the door shut.
To that end, Apple is laying a long term foundation that consolidates Cocoa on Mac and Windows, but deprecates Carbon.
This strategy has long term implications for Apple. Mr. Dilger surmised, "Never before have developers had less reason to stick with Microsoft or more reason to look at alternatives like Cocoa."
Observer Comments
QuoteGuest wrote:
I've heard from Windows users that Safari for Windows contains C++ mangled names in the binary. Not Objective-C. Thus, this would indicate Safari Windows to be built using QT from Trolltech. Not Cocoa.
I've often heard that Windows PC's are better than Macs from Windows users. Fortunately, I can make that decision for myself.
That's why I rely on people like Daniel Dilger, who was actually at WWDC last week, to tell me what Apple is doing with respect to Safari development on PC's. (Okay, I was there too, but I didn't attend those types of sessions.)
Do your research before posting "I heard..." statements. Daniel does.
Unless I missed something, your statment (if true) is not inconsistent with what is claimed in the article.
QuoteGuest wrote:
I've heard from Windows users that Safari for Windows contains C++ mangled names in the binary. Not Objective-C. Thus, this would indicate Safari Windows to be built using QT from Trolltech. Not Cocoa.
QuoteGuest wrote:
I've heard from Windows users that Safari for Windows contains C++ mangled names in the binary. Not Objective-C. Thus, this would indicate Safari Windows to be built using QT from Trolltech. Not Cocoa.
That's got be the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time. QT? Pah-lease!
Hello,
I wont start flaming windows-macos stupidity ... but reading your article I recognize that this is comment from a severe apple-point of view.
First: I really doubt that Apple Software products for Windows or the iPhone are really "made of the same" ... these are for sure (though beautiful) bloat-arguments out of apple's marketing.
The iPhone has its own hardware configuration and of course windows has its own software-architecture. and why oh why should something different be stated? In the IT-world its 'just natural' that you have to adapt different solutions, since this is the reason programmers and software srchitects are using 'compilers' nowadays and are not writing code on assembler-basis like 20 years before, tailored for a very specific processor. so there is no big thing about it at all.
Apple has proven that before, i.e. stating first time officially they are developing MacOS for x86 since ever.
Secondly: Why should a downloadable browser-package deliver codecs or other apple technologies to the windows platform, when its done by their very own software pendants, i.e. like Quicktime?
A browser is for browsing websites. Any other philosophy has proven to fail the last years, siply because the internet is for 'everybody' Just look at Microsofts stupid product politics with Internet Explorer. For all webdevelopers this is a cast. The very same misstake wont happen to Apple/Steve Jobs, I'm pretty shure of ...
Third: "Developers can write cross platform apps...".
Yeah thats right, but this is a benefit for only a small group of people using the iPhone and its connected web-services.
Other users, without an iPhone, will still just rely on the browser installed on the OS they have currently in use. And they wont even notice the iPhone-'parallel world'.
The decision to release Safari for Windows only will help the iPhone into the market, because its webapplications are necessarily dependent on the presence of Apple technology in the windows world.
I also think the deep necessary connection between iPhone (beatiful) functionallity and the need of Safari will limit the iPhone's progress in close future.
greetz
daeson
IÒ‘m not a mac or pc expert, but i was wondering if the real reason behind safari on windows may be ".mac". A ".mac" membership could be offered along with the iphone and maybe the long time due revision of ".mac" will bring even more features and interoperability to it. I think the two could make for a perfect pair.
And maybe it will be possible for pc-users to have an account and benefit from a lot of .mac functions through safari. Maybe there could be programs to run on an windows-machine through safari, like they allow programs for the iphone to be executed through safari.
And on behalf of all this, this would mean an ongoing Apple PR-tour on windows-machines from iphone-owners.
Thomas from Munich
QuoteGuest wrote:
And maybe it will be possible for pc-users to have an account and benefit from a lot of .mac functions through safari. Maybe there could be programs to run on an windows-machine through safari, like they allow programs for the iphone to be executed through safari.
Thomas from Munich
Nah, those apps would run on IE or any other browser. The announcement that Apple would "open-up" the iPhone to developers through Safari wasn't ushering a new type of developement. It was just saying that will not open up the iPhone to real development and that anyone wanting to write software will have to do so by writing web apps. If Apple was allowing programs to just execute through the browser, that would be considered a security flaw, and it is actually what Apple is trying to avoid doing. They don't want developers (at least at this point, with no clear answer if it will ever be possible) to write code that would actually execute on the iPhone. Apple really hasn't opened up the platform for development, in essence they have just said that they are going to support web applications like a desktop browser already supports them.
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