Ahh, it's all coming together. I'm now 100% convinced that Apple is making an iBrowser and an iTablet computer 🙂
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David Hyatt at Apple
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madamimadam
macrumors 65816
No one NEEDS Office.... I am an Office user and, have to admit, LOVE it minus its speed under OS X but I really could not say I would be all that upset to move to Apple works and I would still be able to read all those Office docs.
i use appleworks full time now...except for entorage...as soon as the addy book gets synced with my palm (iSync baby!!!) and mail has the bulk mail option i'll be done with office....oh, and iCal
Think monoprogramistic.
Many of you have pointed out why iBrowser (or, considering the borderline-corny Jobsianism that has overtaken application names, iBrow) is a good idea:
1. It combats Microsofts arguably sedated work on Intenet Explorer.
2. It could help to bring about a browser (multi-platform, some have suggested) that would follow standards and encourage openess, i.e Mozilla without the billion different modules.
3. Apple's just got what it takes.
But, the problem you face with any Apple browser is whether Apple should be doing it. I would assume that most of us generally agree that Apple has, is, and will move in right direction. And that Apple makes the best computers on planet Earth. But, that bias may lead us into a trap.
As we encourage Apple to do this and do that, we push it to monopolize our systems. While it is still easy to opt-out of apps like Mail, iTunes, and so on, we must ask ourselves, will it always be?
While the great "i" apps have wiggled their way into our Dock, can they be trusted? iTunes' development cost us SoundJam, what will these other applications cost us? If Apple keeps adding and adding to its lineup of first-party OS-integrated software, does it effectivly threaten its own stability as a computer (as opposed to a proprietary console), its versitility and viability?
We see that iPhoto is going to work like a glove with Abode's Photoshop Elements, but how will it work, especially farther down the road, with Lemke Soft's Graphic Converter, or even smaller applications. Maybe it won't. Perhaps Apple is thinking so big and Apple-oriented that they threaten their very base.
Microsoft has done this, monopolized aspects of its system, but still third-parties horde to it with tons of applications. But they do this not because Microsoft does things right with Windows as an OS, but because Microsoft is doing so well on store selves. The work of third-party MS developers seems to be in spite of the Windows software, not because of it.
Apple does not have the luxury of 92% of the world-wide computer users, so if Apple keeps rolling out these first-party, all-encompassing programs, what will happen? How will an iBrowser effect iCab, Opera, Omniweb, Mozilla, or even Netscape and IE? Instead of giving us a great piece of software, it might eliminate 10 other great pieces of software and leave us with nothing but a monoprogramistic Aqua version of Windows.
Many of you have pointed out why iBrowser (or, considering the borderline-corny Jobsianism that has overtaken application names, iBrow) is a good idea:
1. It combats Microsofts arguably sedated work on Intenet Explorer.
2. It could help to bring about a browser (multi-platform, some have suggested) that would follow standards and encourage openess, i.e Mozilla without the billion different modules.
3. Apple's just got what it takes.
But, the problem you face with any Apple browser is whether Apple should be doing it. I would assume that most of us generally agree that Apple has, is, and will move in right direction. And that Apple makes the best computers on planet Earth. But, that bias may lead us into a trap.
As we encourage Apple to do this and do that, we push it to monopolize our systems. While it is still easy to opt-out of apps like Mail, iTunes, and so on, we must ask ourselves, will it always be?
While the great "i" apps have wiggled their way into our Dock, can they be trusted? iTunes' development cost us SoundJam, what will these other applications cost us? If Apple keeps adding and adding to its lineup of first-party OS-integrated software, does it effectivly threaten its own stability as a computer (as opposed to a proprietary console), its versitility and viability?
We see that iPhoto is going to work like a glove with Abode's Photoshop Elements, but how will it work, especially farther down the road, with Lemke Soft's Graphic Converter, or even smaller applications. Maybe it won't. Perhaps Apple is thinking so big and Apple-oriented that they threaten their very base.
Microsoft has done this, monopolized aspects of its system, but still third-parties horde to it with tons of applications. But they do this not because Microsoft does things right with Windows as an OS, but because Microsoft is doing so well on store selves. The work of third-party MS developers seems to be in spite of the Windows software, not because of it.
Apple does not have the luxury of 92% of the world-wide computer users, so if Apple keeps rolling out these first-party, all-encompassing programs, what will happen? How will an iBrowser effect iCab, Opera, Omniweb, Mozilla, or even Netscape and IE? Instead of giving us a great piece of software, it might eliminate 10 other great pieces of software and leave us with nothing but a monoprogramistic Aqua version of Windows.
iCab hasn't been in the running for years. It's browser is just so far behind, for Apple to consider the consequences of what will happen to it are irrelevent. Maybe the author should worry about what will happen to it - then it might finally resolve the problems it's had for over 2 years.
Opera and OmniWeb are a little different. They are both newer, and are actively being developed. Opera is hindered by it's free version, which is supported by ads. Nobody likes to have to see even more ads in their browser. It negates the whole speed advantage Opera claims to have.
OmniWeb is another story. It's a significant part of the OmniGroups revenue stream, and it's a pretty good browser. It's major area of deficiency is it's support of standards - CCS1&2, Java, and full support of HTML standards. It's interface is the best out there, and it offers some really great features. But if it can't render HTML as good as the other two (Gecko and IE), then I can't use it for everyday browsing.
Which brings us to Mozilla and Netscape. These are open source projects that will probably weather any political action on the part of Apple and an internal browser. More than likely, Apple will choose to use the Gecko rendering engine for whatever browser it creates. Apple might even have hired Hyatt just to work on Chimera full time, and keep adding to that project. It's sort of what they did with the FreeBSD guy they hired (can't remember his name right now). He works for Apple, but his job is to contribute to the FreeBSD codebase...
Really, it's about time Apple have a browser of their own. As long as it's fully standards compliant and fast, I don't care what the political ramifications are....
dongmin
macrumors 68000
I think we all agree on one thing: the browsing experience on the Mac could be better. So we can go one of two ways:
1. Apple produces its own browser that works seemlessly with the OS so that it's faster and more reliable.
2. Apple gets more aggressive in helping out browser developers like OmniGroup. Maybe Apple needs to pick one developer and partner with them to make a killer browser.
Hiring of Hyatt could be for either reason. He could be working on an Apple in-house browser team. Or he could just be paid to work on the opensource project, independent of Apple.
I haven't used Chimera yet since I still mostly rely on OS 9 (10.1 is slow on my iBook). But Mozilla is pretty darn good. It has some bugs and I can get flash to work with it, but overall it's beats IE or any other OS 9 browser for features, speed, reliability, and stability.
1. Apple produces its own browser that works seemlessly with the OS so that it's faster and more reliable.
2. Apple gets more aggressive in helping out browser developers like OmniGroup. Maybe Apple needs to pick one developer and partner with them to make a killer browser.
Hiring of Hyatt could be for either reason. He could be working on an Apple in-house browser team. Or he could just be paid to work on the opensource project, independent of Apple.
I haven't used Chimera yet since I still mostly rely on OS 9 (10.1 is slow on my iBook). But Mozilla is pretty darn good. It has some bugs and I can get flash to work with it, but overall it's beats IE or any other OS 9 browser for features, speed, reliability, and stability.
Try it...
Dongmin -
If you haven't tried Navigator, boot in to OS X, goto chimera.mozdev.org, download the latest nightly build and prepare to be wowed. Yeah, it's no where near done, but the speed in which it renders pages is amazing, and since it uses Gecko, it's standards compliant.
As for names, here are my faves...
iNav
iBrowse (too cheeky?)
iSee
iWeb
Any of these would be fine with me... And I really hope that Chimera fully adopts the "Navigator" name.
Dongmin -
If you haven't tried Navigator, boot in to OS X, goto chimera.mozdev.org, download the latest nightly build and prepare to be wowed. Yeah, it's no where near done, but the speed in which it renders pages is amazing, and since it uses Gecko, it's standards compliant.
As for names, here are my faves...
iNav
iBrowse (too cheeky?)
iSee
iWeb
Any of these would be fine with me... And I really hope that Chimera fully adopts the "Navigator" name.