There’s certainly been a lot of coverage on Apple’s recent announcement of bringing Safari to Windows.
A lot of hype has been thrown around on both sides, but the most useful / interesting thing so far is the widespread discussion and analysis of the differences in font rendering between the Mac and Windows platforms.
I did just come across an interesting post from John Lilly of Mozilla, who (understandably) caught a particularly insidious detail that most people have overlooked so far in Steve’s presentation. Read the article in the link above, but here’s a short summary:
What’s wrong with the before / after pictures Steve presents?
If it was a simple mistake, it seems unlikely that it wouldn’t have been caught for such a high profile presentation, but obviously it’s even worse if that’s really how they’re hoping it goes.
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I saw the same thing and I cringed. Safari isn’t that great of a browser, it does do some great things but still. It’s almost like they don’t want to hurt MSes feelings anymore after the D conference.
I see a major problem with his analysis in that he ignores WebKit. I’m not sure how it fits in but when the browsers major component is open source and used by several competitors it’s hard to say they’re shooting to create an unhealthy duopoly.
I didn’t see the presentation, but I don’t know whether Jobs mentioned Webkit either. Perhaps it was an omission on both their parts.
I don’t think there’s any fear that a duopoly would actually happen, just that that particular slide gives the impression of an incorrect view of reality, even potential future reality.
I haven’t seen the presentation either nor will I. I just don’t think the Apple wanting to take away nearly all of Firefox and other’s market share is a bad thing in and of itself. I agree it almost certainly won’t happen and the fact that they don’t think they can or don’t want to cut into IE’s market does seem strange. Maybe the full presentation provides more info. In the end, that their rendering, CSS, javascript and whatever else capabilities are all in a LGPL licensed library means that healthy competition is almost guaranteed to continue even if Safari is a smashing success.
Job’s specifically referenced how many downloads firefox gets and then said that iTunes downloads supersedes them. He also said that’s how they are going to get into the market.
After watching it you could take that graph two ways:
One that Apple doesn’t care for Mozilla and wants to demolish them and get that 25% market share from them.
Or the second which is more reasonable, if it could match Mozilla in downloads than it could take that 25% market share. The graph then plays off his words rather than what your reading into the image alone. The problem is it’s still going to share.
I’m thinking it’s the later since it’s completely illogical to think that Safari or any browser would take firefox out of the equation.
Either way it’s marketing at it’s best.
Sidenote:
I’m thinking Apple is pushing the browser just becuase they have to release it as iPhone’s API. So they might as well just package it and distribute it.
Oh yeah, that graph looks awesome. Wonder if you can do that in powerpoint.
Your second option still wouldn’t jive with the graph on the slide then. The only way the slide makes sense (since it only shows the two options and does not show IE losing ground) is for that market share to be gained at the expense of Mozilla and the other options. If that isn’t what was meant to be communicated, then the slide is an error.
If that’s the case, and there’s a glaring error in that presentation (rather than a deliberate representation of their ambitions), then maybe Steve should get that someone to do his slides for him that makes sure they’re done right, then worries about how they look.
Like I said before, I don’t see how that error could have slipped into such a major presentation, but if it isn’t an error, I can’t understand what it indicates about their projections, unless they’re just plain crazy, which I wouldn’t dismiss entirely.
Of course it doesn’t make sense or jive to *you* since you didn’t watch the conference.
Doesn’t matter whether you watched it or not; that slide illustrates Safari with a certain percentage and IE with all the rest. If that isn’t what the slide was intending to communicate then there is an error in the slide, plain and simple.
I don’t get it, they weren’t showing a silent movie/slideshow it was a conference with actual words. What if he said, “this is never going to happen but here’s a slide anyways”.
…COO from mozilla
ha ha, I liked to the same post.
Not sure what those last two were, but if he said something to that effect it wouldn’t make much sense either, would it?
The slide is there and it speaks for itself. I can’t think of a context in which that slide isn’t an error, one way or another (either in logic or just a presentation flaw).
okay, i was avoiding adding this because it seems so obvious and i didn’t see the presentation either.
1. it’s a joke
2. it’s was accompanied by dialog explaining that this was not the marketplace they hoped to see in the future.
I meant to say “linked”, and the link was broken.
Nathan is right, good thing Jared didn’t see the next slide where a retarded kid finishes a race with the message “if you’re still using Windows you’re still a…”; because he might have taken it the wrong way.
OK, well maybe I’ll watch the presentation to find out for sure.
I thought Dan did watch it, so I assumed he would have explained it if it actually did somehow make sense.
Plus, John from Mozilla (the author of the article I originally linked to) DID watch it, and I’m pretty sure he would have noticed and mentioned it if it were something like that.
i think you’re ignoring the obvious truth of the whole thing: john from mozilla photoshoped the “evidence” to bring down the big safari competition.
Still doesn’t make sense. If they meant that Safari could eventually get to the same levels as Firefox currently has, that slide does not accurately reflect that, so it’s an error if that’s what was meant by it.