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No More IE for Mac

Originally posted by NNO-Stephen
no matter how you slice it, overall, the lack of IE on Mac is a bad thing for Apple. The switch campagin has a lot to say about most Windows apps on OS X, but if many are dead in the water such as Windows Media Player and IE, and probobly Office and MSN messenger, that takes a lot of the ease of switching away.
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I think this is an important point that most folks here have missed.

At the end of the day, the fact that MS is no longer developing IE outside of the OS should have little or no impact on IE for the Mac, because the latter is developed by the MacBU (Mac Business Unit @ Microsoft) and is a totally different codebase using a totally different rendering engine (the Windows one is called Trident, the Mac one is Tasman).

What is more likely is that MS felt it was no longer worth the investment, and instead you'll see it moved forward by the MSN folks, who are at least getting money back from the folks using it.

Your other point is even more concerning... that of MS Office support. I'm sure to some extent Apple's release of Safari put MS's nose out of joint. With Apple supposedly working on a replacement for AppleWorks (the "Document" word processor, a spreadsheet whose name I forget, KeyNote obviously), my guess is that Office' days on the Mac are probably numbered too (and declining Apple market share gives them the perfect excuse)

At the end of the day, the presence of apps such as Office goes to the heart of the Switcher campaign. If MacOS didn't have Office and other apps compatible with the popular Windows apps, it would be so much harder for them to Switch. And if MS loses Windows sales to Apple as a result (or if the high visibility and core pretence of the campaign gives that impression and hurts MS on Wall St), then at some point BillG may feel that the cost to MS in lost Windows sales outweighs the money they make back selling Office X.

Consider also that in such a world, the only way a new user (that didn't already have Office X installed) could run Word, Excel etc. (in a way that was 100% file compatible) would be to run Virtual PC, which *cough* Microsoft owns... and which you'll need a Windows license for, plus a copy of Office 10/11 for Windows.

The only way Redmond doesn't win would be if, as with Safari, Apple creates alternatives that are so compelling (and ideally, so compatible!) that you don't need Office X, much like nobody is really sweating the demise of IE. While Safari has been a major success in this regard, I'd have to say IMHO Keynote fell well short of the mark (its not bad for a 1.0 product, but its no PowerPoint either)

The danger is that this kind of move, like Corel's decision to abandon Bryce on the Mac (which is also suspect given MS's investment in Corel), may lead to a world where the Mac is once again marginalized solely to the world of DTPers and graphic designers, and loses its appeal with folks @ home that need a system that is compatible with the Wintel stuff their companies make them use (like me!)

:( :( :(
 
I don't think this is worth desparing too much over...

Internet Explorer for the Mac is very different to Internet Explorer for Windows. The feature set is very very different.

For example, IE:mac doesn't have ActiveX support.

If Microsoft are going to try and dominate the web by controlling the browser market, even if we had IE:mac, we'd probably still be excluded.

Point is, IE for mac is an incredibly slow, archaric, unstable and incredibly buggy browser.

You have to wait ages for tables to load, press the stop button like a thousand times to stop a page from loading, sometimes the entire page disappears on you etc.etc.etc.

IE for Mac was already dying a slow death well before work on Safari started. Microsoft never would have added support for .NET. As soon as Netscape fell, it simply wasn't in Microsoft's interest to develop Internet Explorer for the Macintosh.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Its a bad news indeed

Originally posted by Fukui
I'm not sure about that, IBM had no OS to use on its new PCs so they asked MS for one, they bought it from some guy in seattle...ask yourself this, why would IBM of all companies sell thier OS to MS to develop when they were looking for an OS?? Answer: they didnt have one.
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You're right. Even though the actual details of the IBM/Microsoft/Digital Research story vary somewhat depending on who writes the story, the undisputed fact is that Microsoft licensed and then purchased Q-DOS from Seattle Computer and renamed it MS-DOS.

As far as Windows is concerned, Microsoft originally positioned it as an operating environment of choice because of OS/2's hefty hardware requirements. So, the plan was for users to run Windows for a few years and then move to OS/2 by 1990. However, when Window 3 sold surprisingly well, Gates decided to ditch OS/2.
 
Web design

I believe that webdesign will be more and more based on open standards (W3C), if a webdesigner, would test his pages on Safari first he will be sure that it will work on any browser, so why approach it the other way around? So this is the call, don't support MS monopoly since we do have a splendid alternative; W3C. With open standards you could say that being abused by MS becomes a free choice again, just say no.
 
The bigger picture

It seems to me that a number of issues are involved here that have probably been talked abut but I'll throw in my 2 cents.

Webdesign

What are apple based designers supposed to so when Microsoft no longer makes IE for the Mac. What happens when they stop making it standalone as they anounced would happen after IE 6 for the PC.

This is a BIG BIG deal. You can say that the designers should test on safari, but NO ONE will care if they test in safari and it doesn't work on IE 7. Microsoft is making a big power play here and they are going to make IE fully intergrated into the OS, what happens then? You must know that managers aren't going to give a **** about being fair, they are going to want product that works on the majority of the market. I don't care if microsoft says they are going to follow the standards, because they are big enough to maniuplate the standards.

I am a web developer and I know many many graphic designers and I really wonder what this means for them. How many work places are going to shift to PC based design platforms?

If I have to develope for the IE in a mac environment at what point am I going to have to test on a PC, at what point is this going to really add steps to the work flow? This is a pain in the ass.
 
well - I'm not sure this is so good. even though I'm personally using Camino - there are some sites only working in IE...in Sweden - this is the case with governmental sites :-(

Maybe I should leave Sweden for - say Cupertino ;)
 
Re: The bigger picture

Originally posted by curious0
Webdesign What are apple based designers supposed to so when Microsoft no longer makes IE for the Mac. What happens when they stop making it standalone as they anounced would happen after IE 6 for the PC.

This is a BIG BIG deal. You can say that the designers should test on safari, but NO ONE will care if they test in safari and it doesn't work on IE 7.
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As a web designer are you really under the impression that 'if it works in IE for the Mac it will work the same way in IE for Windows'?

Dave
 
Re: The bigger picture

Originally posted by curious0
What are apple based designers supposed to so when Microsoft no longer makes IE for the Mac. What happens when they stop making it standalone as they anounced would happen after IE 6 for the PC.

This is a BIG BIG deal. You can say that the designers should test on safari, but NO ONE will care if they test in safari and it doesn't work on IE 7. Microsoft is making a big power play here and they are going to make IE fully intergrated into the OS, what happens then?
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IMHO, Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot here because it sees browsers as no longer worth dominating.

What happens when IE only comes with new OS installations? Well, for one, browser innovation at MS falls off a cliff (like it hasn't already). For another, no longer can web designers say "just upgrade to the latest IE and it'll work fine" ... they have to design to the lowest common denominator, which will be IE 6.0 on the PC.

Microsoft has a fairly low per-OS upgrade ratio. I don't think XP is even at 20% of the market yet; Windows 2000 and 98SE are still top contenders as far as market penetration is concerned. In 2005 Longhorn will be released, presumably with a new IE; will we see 20% on "IE 7" by 2007? AFAIK, that would be the lowest next-upgrade adoption rate of IE ever (6 has been low I believe, but primarily because it offers so little above 5.x).

Dropping IE for the Mac? That's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, users see that and say, "I can't browse the Internet[/ik] if I buy a Mac?!?" On the other hand, web designers have long assumed that "Works fine in IE for Windows" means "Works fine in IE", which is just so incredibly wrong when you are dealing with standards-flouting browsers like IE has been the last several revisions.What this gives us, at the least, is some level of consciousness amongst web design firms that they are not (as they have not for some time) providing adequate service to their Mac-based customers. I see market transparency as a good thing here, for everyone but Microsoft.

Again, why would MS do this? Browsers are no longer the "potential cash cow" they looked to be in 1995. Users vehemently avoid any attempts to merchandise through the browser; developers vehemently avoid licensing add-ons (aside from Flash, which IMHO is the devil's work; I see Faustian diplomacy at work there). Microsoft has not been able to capitalize on its browser investments, and doesn't see that changing.

So, they're backing out of the race. Yes, every Windows desktop will have a Microsoft-supplied browser. However, the 25-40% of all users who will actively seek out a "better" product wil strongly gravitate towards the maintained and secure alternatives (Phoenix being the best of the bunch out there right now; others may join the fray).

The result: web designers damned well better start getting used to standards-compliant browsers. The lazy hegemony of IE is going to end. Supporting only the "latest" version of IE will mean shutting yourself off from more than half of your customers.
 
IE 5.2.3

HAHA! just checked out versiontracker and there it was: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.2.3!

Wasn't the development supposed to be stopped? guess this will be the last one.. well, not gonna update anyway.
 
Microsoft is not stopping development of the stand alone browsers because they are pulling out of the browser market, they are doing it to get deeper into the browser market. They were accused of monopolistic behaviors because IE was supposedly embedded into the system and would be unable to remove it (which as we all know is a crock of ****, but now they are trying to make good on their word by actually embedding the browser into Windows further stretching their browser monopoly and also giving them some actual ground for the next time that argument comes up.
 
Re: IE 5.2.3

Originally posted by Windowlicker
HAHA! just checked out versiontracker and there it was: Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.2.3!

Wasn't the development supposed to be stopped? guess this will be the last one.. well, not gonna update anyway.
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Damn you! I RUSHED here to post this as soon as I saw it.

AppleMatt
 
Originally posted by NNO-Stephen
Microsoft is not stopping development of the stand alone browsers because they are pulling out of the browser market, they are doing it to get deeper into the browser market. They were accused of monopolistic behaviors because IE was supposedly embedded into the system and would be unable to remove it (which as we all know is a crock of ****, but now they are trying to make good on their word by actually embedding the browser into Windows further stretching their browser monopoly and also giving them some actual ground for the next time that argument comes up.
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Honestly, I hope this backfires on them. By leaving IE6/Win and IE5/Mac floating out there as their "best" and "latest" while Mozilla, Opera, Safari, etc. keep improving for the next 2-3 years will make MS browsers look like worse and worse browsing options.

By the time IE7, or whatever it will be called, comes out, people will have tried 3rd party browsers and hopefully found a better browsing experience.
 
While Safari has been a major success in this regard, I'd have to say IMHO Keynote fell well short of the mark (its not bad for a 1.0 product, but its no PowerPoint either)


sorry to turn a light i your room, but keynote is impressing everyone here at college.

powerpoint is outta my life dude
 
Originally posted by arn
It just makes the Mac a little more incompatible with PC's.
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It doesn't "make" the Macintosh any more incompatible. All it does is highlight the existing incompatibilities that a handful of web sites have with everything except Internet Explorer.
 
Re: Missing the point

Originally posted by shadowself
This is just the final phase of Microsoft's classic "accept, extend, kill-of-non-MS-Windows-versions".
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Otherwise known as Embrace, Extend, and Exterminate. This is arguably the biggest MS "innovation" around.

One wonders if MS can innovate a way to apply the EEE strategy to Open Source.
 
Originally posted by Wonder Boy
BTW- I have never been too hot about the name "Safari". As an anthropologist, one would think I would appriciate the name, but I don't. I think Apple could have done better (don't bother asking for suggestions on alternate names, because I have no idea what it should be called).
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I always thought iBrowse would have been good.
 
Re: HOLD THE PRESSES

Originally posted by mikeyredk
microsoft just realised a new version

http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/10902
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That's not a "new" version per se. Microsoft said they'd keep IE 5.2 patched and supported. That is their new patch.

A general rule is:

[Major] . [minor] . [bugfixes for minor/patches] = 5 . 2 . 3

[edit] However, there EXISTS Internet Explorer 6.0 for Macintosh, it's called MSN for Mac OS X. It's version 6.0 according to its browser string posted earlier in this thread.
 
It's been mentioned several times in this thread, but I really do find it intersting that MS without question does have a new version of IE for MacOSX already finished and running in the wild--as said, it's called MSN now.

What I find really interesting, though, is that according to the MacEdition CSS test suites, the MacBU (or whoever did the work) was doing a very good job with it; in most areas it apparently has better standards support than any other browser. It kicks the ass of IE6 on windows, and even bests Moz, KHTML, and Opera 7 in a few areas.

Basically, considering how good IE5 Mac was when it first came out (oh, so many long years ago, before it was trampled upon by its competitors--don't forget it once had best-in-class standards support), it's the browser I would expect a new version to be.

The tragic part isn't really that they're not giving it away free (though their charging for an alternative platform browser at this point would be ironic); it's that the only way anyone can get it is to pay $10 a month and sign up for "Sign of the Beast" Passport, so you can be in the happy MSN club. Of course, they should be forced to give away a version of IE for every significant platform, just in case, but apparently the USDOJ doesn't care that much so at least they could sell, rather than lease, it to us.

Having it labeled IE would've embarassed the heck out of the IE Win team, though.

Relevant link: http://www.macedition.com/cb/resources/abridgedcsssupport.html

[random question: why can't an MS browser support a :hover pesudo class for anything other than a elements? It's only been a standard for 5 years now. Is Billy such a big fan of Javascript or something?]
 
Originally posted by macmax
sorry to turn a light i your room, but keynote is impressing everyone here at college.

powerpoint is outta my life dude
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Don't get me wrong... its not a bad 1.0 product... it just hasn't had the years of user feedback that PowerPoint has had.

I find the relatively low number of templates (and the choice of only two resolutions) a bit limiting, and the control over text formatting is pretty abysmal.

I'm looking forward to Apple's new "Document" word processor though. I write a lot more documents than I do presentations. I'm kinda interested to see how they innovate in that space.
 
If I recall, Adobe released a few software packages that were Windows only. The reason no Mac outcry? Many of these purposes of these applications could be accomplished in Apple's iPhoto, iMovie, Final Cut Pro/Express. Sometimes when a software behemoth decides to leave a platform out in the cold it's not that it's doing that bad, but it's doing that good.
 
Originally posted by Gymnut
If I recall, Adobe released a few software packages that were Windows only. The reason no Mac outcry? Many of these purposes of these applications could be accomplished in Apple's iPhoto, iMovie, Final Cut Pro/Express. Sometimes when a software behemoth decides to leave a platform out in the cold it's not that it's doing that bad, but it's doing that good.
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True, but that's Adobe, not Microsoft. anything Microsoft does is not because of lack of competition, it's to squash it. just watch. there will be consequences... but wait, theres more.

AOL settles with MS about the lawsuit over something or ohter, and Windows Media Player is the media player that is bundled with AOL... AOL runs on Mac OS... UNLESS either one of these three things happen.

AOL no longer supports Mac

Windows Media Player is developed for mac

they give mac users the already craptastic WMP that has been out for a long time that is brain damaged.

that's the three choices.
 
Re: Ditto

Originally posted by jaykk

Please apple, bring us Safari for Linux. and Windows too
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I would LOVE to see Apple produce more software for Linux (which would be any at this point). It would be sweet to have iTunes or Safari for Linux.

However, I am not the proper person to consult when it comes to business practice and how economical any particular move might be. If the internet has truly opened up a new rift in doing business, it would be that of more free commercial-grade software being offered. Look at how much stuff Apple gives away for 'free'. Eventually they need to make some money in the end so they can continue making more products.

But if Apple really does want to pi$$ M$ off, they could make more products for Linux to make Linux an even more promising platform.
 
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