Apple Releases First Update to Safari Technology Preview Browser

When this was implemented in the Firefox Nightly I initially thought it was a joke, not that I'm complaining.

Would be nice if Preview and Stable were represented in the Webkit (or separate) Platform status, although release notes are nice.

 

Cue the complaints!

 

"Safari Technology Preview 2" --- why 2 in the name? Why not just have a separate version number? Are we going to have "Safari Technology Preview 641" one day? I do not understand Apple devs these days. They ignore obvious things in OS X and focus on new features only to release them in a confusing, poorly-planned way.

 

I thought these were going to be nightly updates?

In any event, they're going to be super common... do we really need a little article for each and every one of them?

 

Because it's a versioning number? Like beta 1, beta 2, etc.

--- Post Merged, Apr 13, 2016 ---

I guess it might depend on how common these will actually be.

 

I could't be happier with the Technology Preview. It's so much faster than the regular Safari, and it's nice to actually receive updates on a frequent basis. Apple should move all the build-in apps to the App Store and update them more frequently than the rest of the OS.

 

This software is a Preview version. It's like a release candidate. As soon as it's steady enough they will probably give it a better name tag.

 

Fired it up and it immediately grabbed 60% of the CPU. Closed and reopened...same deal. We'll see if it continues.

 

Must you really complain about the version number? It's listed as version 2 in the App Store to distinguish it from the first release, that doesn't mean they'll keep advancing the number forever...

 

Do you have a slow CPU that this would matter much? I'm sure after extended use the cycle will lower

 

Either these out of band previews and releases are a sign OS 10.12 and iOS 10 might either come earlier than the fall or a little later. Obviously, a new iPhone has to be accompanied by a new release of iOS. OS X itself seems to be ending the scheduled fall release cycle.

 

I just downloaded it and the speed seems to be the same as normal Safari.

Shame it can't load history from normal Safari too, I have plenty of open tabs + each and every tab in my normal safari also has history built into it, if I open the Technology preview it should be possible to load that content, sadly it can't.

 

Downloaded and use it now. But can it find a difference between normal safari and this one. Can someone summarize the most important benefits of the new safari technology ?

 

Same, I'm finding no speed differences. That said both safari and the preview versions are so fast compared to both Firefox and Chrome, I have nothing to complain about.

I'm glad that two versions have separate history as I prefer that. After all, Chrome Canary and Firefox work the same way, being a development browser.

What I don't like, is if I clear history on the Preview version, it also clears history on all other devices which doesn't make sense if the histories are separate.

 

If you want nightlies download WebKit, this is more of a 'as close to bleeding edge while still being stable' kinda deal.

 

Webkit doesn't work with iCloud though so you don't get stuff like iCloud Keychain or iCloud tabs.

 

Mine is sharing history, since I have Safari sync turned on in iCloud settings. Also shows iCloud tabs from my iPhone, as well as the shipping version of Safari on my MacBook.

They probably don't want the two versions of Safari sharing the same data files in the Library folder, kind of like Chrome and Chrome Canary. In case some bug in the preview messes up the regular installation.

 

The most important part of this browser is that it implements the latest spec of JavaScript, ES6, and upcoming web technologies such as ES7 (not yet released version of JavaScript coming this year). It goes without saying this version of Safari will become the standard version of Safari once the next macOS is released so think of this browser as Apple's way of saying: "Hey devs, take Safari seriously again because we're about to bring it up to date with even more features than what Chrome has at the moment."

Why do they need to do this? Well the features of ES6/7 are not completely native to current browsers (namely Chrome, Firefox and Safari)... Well, I say that... actually the big browsers at the moment do have support for the new ES features but not to the extent where developers can feel free to run native ES6/7. At the moment, developers have to transpile code written in the newest, fastest, latest spec of JavaScript to an older version that has a much better coverage on all browsers. Safari (along with many other browsers) didn't have any of the new JS features so developers couldn't use any of said features unless they were prepared to transpile their code. Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge are all slowly updating but Safari hasn't. The Technology Preview finally both evidence that Apple will definitely include ES6 in the next version of Safari and it's also a way for developers to start testing out their code on an official development branch of Safari.

So just like Chrome has stable Chrome, beta Chrome and Chrome Canary, Safari now has stable Safari, Safari Technology Preview and WebKit.

Excuse me if my explanation was off but that's the way I see it. I'm not Apple so I don't have the official story.

 

Will this auto update?

 

Yes, mine (auto) updated a couple of hours ago.

 

I've been using this the last couple of days and have found that it's definitely zippier, no crashes, no hangs. Regular Safari got meet the point where I was ready to go 100% chrome. My faith in Safari has been renewed with this release!

 

I don't get it, Safari is by far the best browser and has been since Mavericks, no crashes, fast and reliable.

I have about >20 open tabs and have no problems.

 

You want to use nightlies for your primary browser?!

 

I'm a developer. I always use a nightly browser.