Apple releases Safari browser

Apple's MacOSX's default web browser is now availabe for download for Microsoft Windows OS. Click here to download it. This is a very exciting news for all web developers and web graphics designer out there. As it stands now there are 4 major web browsers in the market today, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Opera browser. This means that if you are creating your web application in Windows, you can simultaneously view your created web app using the 4 major browsers without the need to buy a Mac. You may ask why? Why do I need to view my webapp using Safari? Well as it stands now, any web customers that you deny access to your site is a loss revenue. With 5% usage share, that is still a lot of potential customers, approximately 18.5 million of them. 

Safari is based on WebKit with KHTML as default HTML renderer. This is also a good news for web developers who wants consistency in all the web browsers. WebKit is open source and so does the Gecko engine of Firefox. 

Performance Testing

HTML Performance on Windows XP for Apple Safari is 2.2 seconds, Firefox comes in second with 3.7 and Internet Explorer comes in with 4.6. That's twice the speed to render HTML on Safari than on Firefox. I'm using Safari right now and it is indeed much faster in terms of HTML rendering. But I'm hoping they throw Opera in there.

Javascript Performance on Windows XP for Internet Explorer is 2.4 seconds, Firefox with 1.6 and Safari with .9 of a second. 

Conclusion

As I said earlier it is important to note that Safari and Firefox are based on open source technology and will implement open standards on the internet. This will ensure that no more special HTML, javascript, etc. hacks between different browsers. And so much more time devoted for developing and designing wonderful sites rather than debugging. 

I also found out that everything in Safari appears crispy, down to the graphics and texts. But as for now I will still be rooting for Mozilla Firefox because of its enormous library of plugins.

Apple iPhone TV Ads - anything special?

Well, THE Apple iPhone will be available in the USA in June 29, 2007. I cannot wait for the technical and unbiased review of possibly the most hyped thing for the past years. Will they exceed our expectations or will be crushed under its hyped weight? Two things are clear, many people are anticipating this product and many people wants to have this product. But before anything else let us watch and dissect without overanalyzing the iPhone TV Ads.

Never Been an iPod

It basically tells us that the iPhone is an iPod, a widescreen iPod video, an iPod photoviewer and on top of it a phone. Well from the looks of it Apple pretty much demonstrated what the iPhone is all about but it didn't feature exactly how many space it will hold, but hell yeah, the common masa doesn't want to get that intricate about hard disk spaces or if it's a hard disk or a flash drive as long as it can store movies and music. And from their point of view, well if it's an iPod then it must have large capacity!

How To

Basically it demonstrates the other functionalities of the iPhone and ending it up that iPhone is really a phone. Which is what the iPhone is all about.

Calamari

Now this commercial shows us the beautiful integration of iPhone's features. Just amazing. From watching movies, to locating places with the Google map, to THE touch typing, and to calling the desired restaurant mapped by Google. And can we expect that cohesiveness here in our country? I think not, Google map can't yet provide much in-depth view of places here in the Philippines how much more locating food establishments, it's a long shot but Google can partner with a local firm to provide those functionalities.

Watered Down

Now this is what I am excited about. Have you tried surfing the net using a PDA? It sucks! With this it will bring the PC web experience on the palm of our hands. Very nice implementation.

Well, I hope iPhone will be successful and will be priced competitively here in our country. Asia-Pacific will have its iPhone by next year, so start saving your precious money. Here's hoping that Apple will reignite people's interest in smartphone, because even though I don't own one it will be the future of mobile devices.

Is Palm fooling us?

Palm just announced their new product, the Palm Foleo, a mobile companion. Looking by the specs of this thing, well it's a bit underpowered compared with the other subnotebooks out there in the market. Many tech sites already dissed Foleo, saying that Palm is out of ideas, that this will be the death nail of Palm's coffin, others are saying that everyone now has a laptop and with that what will Foleo significantly offer that a notebook cannot? Well, to be honest all of these criticism are true to some degree. It maybe true to Americans and possibly to Europeans but will the same apply to us Filipinos? In a way yes.

Now, you can shop for a PHP 20K - 30K 2nd hand desktop replacement laptop around TipidPC.com which is the same price of Palm Foleo - $500. And also this is marketed as a mobile companion, but don't be fooled this machine packs a lot of functionality like access to emails, office files, and browse the web and only around 10" display. If you're an office worker or a student that doesn't need a high-end notebook then maybe you should take a look at this machine. Additionally it runs Linux which means that this thing will be hacked to death and possibly offers more and more added functionality in the future and at its current size this is really an ultraportable. 10" displays, 2nd hand or not, are priced around PHP 40K - 50K. Also there is an active Palm group in the country, the Mapalad.org which promotes Palm usage.

We will have to wait what will happen to Palm Foleo but even though I was a bit surprised that a mobile firm will release a notebook it is a welcome addition. I'm a Palm customer, having owned a Palm TX, I was relieved when they announced that they are going with Linux with this one. Hoping for the best with that company.