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Safari for Windows?
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Pearls before swine?
I think itunes for windows is needed to really enjoy the music store experience, but Apple has done this thing before. Remember Claris Works for windows? They never embraced a very nice suite of features, instead paying any price for MS validation using MS Office.
I think itunes for windows is needed to really enjoy the music store experience, but Apple has done this thing before. Remember Claris Works for windows? They never embraced a very nice suite of features, instead paying any price for MS validation using MS Office.
Re: Re: A long term strategy
WinAmp3? It has disgusting interface (skinning is "cool" but the UI is horrible), has pathetic music management and organization abilities (ie, not much beyond "I don't like this anymore; delete the file"), and can't even display your track's file name if it's a few subdirectories deep (the "File Info" dialog box can not be widened and lists the full pathname of the track at the top, truncating pretty much everything beyond "C:\Documents and Setti..."!).
IMHO, if WinAmp3 was our only competition, iTunes would blow the Windows world away!
That having been said, the real competition is the highly-entrenched Windows Media Player. It has massive UI faults, poor management, and persistent bugs as well, but it has a fundamental, probably-not-surmountable advantage: it is "built in" to Windows and as such weasles its way into nearly every facet of the OS experience from web browsing to file browsing to virulently absconding file associations (might be fixed with XP SP1, but I gave up that fight long ago ...)
The clear competition is WMP, not WinAmp.
WinAmp3? It has disgusting interface (skinning is "cool" but the UI is horrible), has pathetic music management and organization abilities (ie, not much beyond "I don't like this anymore; delete the file"), and can't even display your track's file name if it's a few subdirectories deep (the "File Info" dialog box can not be widened and lists the full pathname of the track at the top, truncating pretty much everything beyond "C:\Documents and Setti..."!).
IMHO, if WinAmp3 was our only competition, iTunes would blow the Windows world away!
That having been said, the real competition is the highly-entrenched Windows Media Player. It has massive UI faults, poor management, and persistent bugs as well, but it has a fundamental, probably-not-surmountable advantage: it is "built in" to Windows and as such weasles its way into nearly every facet of the OS experience from web browsing to file browsing to virulently absconding file associations (might be fixed with XP SP1, but I gave up that fight long ago ...)
The clear competition is WMP, not WinAmp.
Originally posted by PaisanoMan
As another web developer, I would highly recommend reading about web standards. Designing pages for browser X or Y only reinforces their failure to adhere to long-published and oft-ignored web standards.
You CAN and SHOULD write XHTML/CSS that renders correctly in all modern browsers -- MSIE6, the Gecko family, Opera, Safari -- and be aesthetically pleasing at the same time (unlike the W3C's home page, for example).
If you are still laying pages out with tables and mucking about with invisible images, then I think you definitely need to see the benefits of learning modern web design principles. Trust me, it's for your own good.
damn right - couldn't agree more. I can't believe the number of high-traffic sites that just DO NOT work under any browser other than IE6 on windows. IE is CRAP at so much stuff - like CSS, and especially the PING graphics support. I HATE ie with a passion. Check out this page for an AMAZING example of what PNGs can do (hint: scroll down!).
Re: Re: Re: A long term strategy
if you want to have a look at the full extension in the info, why not try highlighting it? i mean, really. is that the best you can come up with?
that said, WMP is a gila monster with its jaws latched to windows. iTunes has as much luck ousting it as winamp. but that doesn't make winamp an inferior program.
i don't think so. in fact, i think, criticizing the skinning feature, you're biting yourself in the ass. that's the best part. you can totally change it. in fact, you can change it almost infinitely, and you can download some extremely pro-looking skins made by people creative enough to be mac users. as for the media library, you also don't know much about that either. it has organization by album, artist, song, genre, and so on, and has just as advanced id3 tag editing capabilities. seriously, don't go off on a program you haven't looked into.
if you want to have a look at the full extension in the info, why not try highlighting it? i mean, really. is that the best you can come up with?
that said, WMP is a gila monster with its jaws latched to windows. iTunes has as much luck ousting it as winamp. but that doesn't make winamp an inferior program.
Re: Re: Re: Re: A long term strategy
All IMHO, of course, but I have yet to see a WinAmp skin that I can use and which looks good. I am not going to invent their UI for them, and really don't feel inclined to mod my own skins.
I really would much rather have one working, consistent, maintained UI than the thousands of minorly-flawed skins WinAmp has.
I've been using WinAmp since 1.x on Windows; I just find that iTunes is soooo much more adept at working with music files than WinAmp!
For the record, I am talking about WinAmp 3 build 488 (August of last year ... might be a newer build out there by now).
1) UI is completely unlike the rest of Windows. You think skinnability is its best feature; skinnability means the UI looks and acts unlike everything else (and, no, you can't make it act like a "normal" Windows program with a different skin!) Skinnability was WinAmp's trademark eye-catcher back in 1998 or so (I forget when I started using it ... sometime in 1998-2000 time period), but it's IMHO no more useful than chrome on a Yugo. Somewhere in there they forgot to get the core UI paradigm sorted out, leaving that messy task to the skin modders. And so, what you are left with is a system where every skin leaves something to be desired, and a core program which forces compromise on the UI inventor (the skin modder).
2) "Media Library" tracks every file ever played in WinAmp. It doesn't organize the files themselves, and gives no indication (until I try to play one and nothing happens) that a file has been deleted. It is a database lookup, not a music management system.
3) Again, for all its faults, its competition (WMP) isn't much better ("me-too" skinning and inconsistent UI, poor to nonexistent file management ...) However, WinAmp still isn't as ubiquitous as WMP (on virtually every Windows computer shipped the last several years). If for no reason other than that, WinAmp isn't iTune's most visible competition. And, no, iTunes won't be shipping with Windows either, but there's a much better chance people will say "Apple, iTunes ... yeah, I want that" than "Nullsoft, WinAmp ..." Brand recognition buys worlds here.
First: just tried again with last August's build of WinAmp3, and, nope, selecting the file name does not do anything different. I click-and-drag across the file name, I double-click, I right-click, and the only one of those that does anything (the right click) still doesn't allow me to see the whole frickin' name!
Since I have to organize my files by myself, I have to know which specific file (the file name and the ID3 info can be quite different!) I am listening to in order to move it around/rename it, and WinAmp3, to the best of my knowledge, does not do that.
Second, no, it's just my most recent frustration with WinAmp.
WinAmp is cool. That's why I used it for so long. It is also very stable, which can't be said for much of the competition (MusicMatch has crashed on me more times than i can count ...) and comes from an almost-sorta more trustworthy source than WMP (a "rogue" group of AOL vs Microsoft ...), which keeps the DRM monsters at bay at least for now.
It just has severe (IMHO) UI problems.
All IMHO, of course, but I have yet to see a WinAmp skin that I can use and which looks good. I am not going to invent their UI for them, and really don't feel inclined to mod my own skins.
I really would much rather have one working, consistent, maintained UI than the thousands of minorly-flawed skins WinAmp has.
I've been using WinAmp since 1.x on Windows; I just find that iTunes is soooo much more adept at working with music files than WinAmp!
For the record, I am talking about WinAmp 3 build 488 (August of last year ... might be a newer build out there by now).
1) UI is completely unlike the rest of Windows. You think skinnability is its best feature; skinnability means the UI looks and acts unlike everything else (and, no, you can't make it act like a "normal" Windows program with a different skin!) Skinnability was WinAmp's trademark eye-catcher back in 1998 or so (I forget when I started using it ... sometime in 1998-2000 time period), but it's IMHO no more useful than chrome on a Yugo. Somewhere in there they forgot to get the core UI paradigm sorted out, leaving that messy task to the skin modders. And so, what you are left with is a system where every skin leaves something to be desired, and a core program which forces compromise on the UI inventor (the skin modder).
2) "Media Library" tracks every file ever played in WinAmp. It doesn't organize the files themselves, and gives no indication (until I try to play one and nothing happens) that a file has been deleted. It is a database lookup, not a music management system.
3) Again, for all its faults, its competition (WMP) isn't much better ("me-too" skinning and inconsistent UI, poor to nonexistent file management ...) However, WinAmp still isn't as ubiquitous as WMP (on virtually every Windows computer shipped the last several years). If for no reason other than that, WinAmp isn't iTune's most visible competition. And, no, iTunes won't be shipping with Windows either, but there's a much better chance people will say "Apple, iTunes ... yeah, I want that" than "Nullsoft, WinAmp ..." Brand recognition buys worlds here.
First: just tried again with last August's build of WinAmp3, and, nope, selecting the file name does not do anything different. I click-and-drag across the file name, I double-click, I right-click, and the only one of those that does anything (the right click) still doesn't allow me to see the whole frickin' name!
Since I have to organize my files by myself, I have to know which specific file (the file name and the ID3 info can be quite different!) I am listening to in order to move it around/rename it, and WinAmp3, to the best of my knowledge, does not do that.
Second, no, it's just my most recent frustration with WinAmp.
WinAmp is cool. That's why I used it for so long. It is also very stable, which can't be said for much of the competition (MusicMatch has crashed on me more times than i can count ...) and comes from an almost-sorta more trustworthy source than WMP (a "rogue" group of AOL vs Microsoft ...), which keeps the DRM monsters at bay at least for now.
It just has severe (IMHO) UI problems.
i do believe winamp has come a long way since then... wasn't 488 still while in beta stage? honestly, though, i am too lazy to check all the version changelogs for bugfixes. most winamp skins leave a lot more than a little to be desired, i'll give you that. but there are a few out there that really shine and leave little if anything to be desired in the way of UI.
this one ought to remind you of something...
this is one of the best skins ever, and by far the most popular out there.
this one is maybe a bit of a rip off mmd3, but nonetheless very good.
this one ought to remind you of something...
this is one of the best skins ever, and by far the most popular out there.
this one is maybe a bit of a rip off mmd3, but nonetheless very good.
short and simple
WinAmp3 sucks. Resource hog. Why do you think there are still so many WinAmp2 users?
Personally, I use QCD on my Windows machine (get at least 3.51). Way better.
www.quinnware.com
-p
WinAmp3 sucks. Resource hog. Why do you think there are still so many WinAmp2 users?
Personally, I use QCD on my Windows machine (get at least 3.51). Way better.
www.quinnware.com
-p
Re: short and simple
of course people still use WA2. there are lots of stupid, cheap, lousy PC users who refuse to buy computers that have GPUs that will offload their CPU. these are people that still have pentium IIs and windows 98. really, windows 98 will do it for you. WA3 sucks on everything but W2k and XP, because of transparency issues. but really. i had a P3 933 MHz, and ran WA3. it ran faster than iTunes does on my TiBook does. resource hog, ha! but of course, i had a 64MB GeForce3.
by that logic, you'd never use OS X. why do you think there are still so many 9 users?
of course people still use WA2. there are lots of stupid, cheap, lousy PC users who refuse to buy computers that have GPUs that will offload their CPU. these are people that still have pentium IIs and windows 98. really, windows 98 will do it for you. WA3 sucks on everything but W2k and XP, because of transparency issues. but really. i had a P3 933 MHz, and ran WA3. it ran faster than iTunes does on my TiBook does. resource hog, ha! but of course, i had a 64MB GeForce3.
not quite...
Wrong. OS X gives me many many things that OS 9 wouldn't have (I'm a switcher. I only used OS 9 casually before I got my iBook): command line, unix stability, free software (as in freedom, not as in beer). WA3 ran like crap on my P3-800MHz Win2k machine whereas WA2 didn't. WA3 plays mp3s. So does WA2. I'm not looking for tons of bells and whistles. I just want it to play mp3s without stuttering when I open TextPad or Visual Studio (and yes I have plenty of RAM and WA2 didn't behave that way). I would expect some bells and whistles from an OS so the analogy between OS 9 -> OS X isn't quite accurate.
Because they are poor misguided souls (or they are audio engineers and the software companies haven't gotten off their duffs to make the OS X version of their software (sorry, my friend is one and complains about it).
-p
Wrong. OS X gives me many many things that OS 9 wouldn't have (I'm a switcher. I only used OS 9 casually before I got my iBook): command line, unix stability, free software (as in freedom, not as in beer). WA3 ran like crap on my P3-800MHz Win2k machine whereas WA2 didn't. WA3 plays mp3s. So does WA2. I'm not looking for tons of bells and whistles. I just want it to play mp3s without stuttering when I open TextPad or Visual Studio (and yes I have plenty of RAM and WA2 didn't behave that way). I would expect some bells and whistles from an OS so the analogy between OS 9 -> OS X isn't quite accurate.
Because they are poor misguided souls (or they are audio engineers and the software companies haven't gotten off their duffs to make the OS X version of their software (sorry, my friend is one and complains about it).
-p
Apple porting Safari for Windows
Yeah like they ever will... Probably not until about another 10 months or so. 5-7 months to translate the codes and data to be compatible to Microsoft Windows... 3 Months (at least) for the testing of the software... and the distribution. So not in about ten months or so... I predict that. It took that much to make iTunes 4 for Mac & Windows.arn said:
Not a bad idea...
Apple products that have gained wider public attention have been good for Apple.
The iPod has been an amazing success, it's the kind of quality product that garners loyalty from consumers.
The iPod helped bring iTunes to the PC. The music store was a coup, and strong enough to survive the initial period of intense competition.
The quality of iTunes as a music player helps promote the company. If Safari ran as well on a windows machine as on a regular machine it would be another example of who has the better product.
If people start to show a preference for these programs that are not native but superior they make the connection that it would be even better on an Apple computer.
At least, that is the outcome you would hope for.
Or maybe Safari could be a profitable browser in wider release. People are getting sick of IE.
Apple products that have gained wider public attention have been good for Apple.
The iPod has been an amazing success, it's the kind of quality product that garners loyalty from consumers.
The iPod helped bring iTunes to the PC. The music store was a coup, and strong enough to survive the initial period of intense competition.
The quality of iTunes as a music player helps promote the company. If Safari ran as well on a windows machine as on a regular machine it would be another example of who has the better product.
If people start to show a preference for these programs that are not native but superior they make the connection that it would be even better on an Apple computer.
At least, that is the outcome you would hope for.
Or maybe Safari could be a profitable browser in wider release. People are getting sick of IE.
From the point of view of a web-based application, the browser IS the OS. This is a big reason why MS put such huge effort into IE.
So one reason for doing a port is that Apple could write web based applications which relied on proprietary features in the browser. If they could find a killer app that would force adoption, they'd gain some control over the desktop. Or perhaps if it's just installed as part of the iTunes for windows install, they could better integrate iTunes with web content. By adding a browser, they've sort of got their own little microcosm in a Windows machine.
This doesn't really add up, though. My guess is they just needed web integration with iTunes for Windows (e.g. for the music store) and so they ported what they needed and the rumor got blown out of proportion.
So one reason for doing a port is that Apple could write web based applications which relied on proprietary features in the browser. If they could find a killer app that would force adoption, they'd gain some control over the desktop. Or perhaps if it's just installed as part of the iTunes for windows install, they could better integrate iTunes with web content. By adding a browser, they've sort of got their own little microcosm in a Windows machine.
This doesn't really add up, though. My guess is they just needed web integration with iTunes for Windows (e.g. for the music store) and so they ported what they needed and the rumor got blown out of proportion.
windows users do not REALLY want alternatives. it is only microsoft who states that "choices" are all pc users want, but fail to mention that their goal is to force people not choose but rather use their product instead.
who CHOOSES idiot exploder? who CHOOSES windows media player? who CHOOSES microsoft messenger? -nobody. microsoft installs those so people wouldn't choose and therefore wouldn't choose better alternatives.
safari for windows would be nice. i could install that on my work pc. it will not however change anything on the pc side - at least in my current knowledge of apple strategies - and that can be proved by asking people who uses netscape/firefox today... almost all netscape users use unix. almost all windows users use the idiot exploder.
it's not about choice at all. it's about forcing people not to choose!
(for example: as long as apple doesn't allow wma files to play in ipod, apple has a chance of forcing ipod-people not to use wma and give them a reason to think about choosing aac instead.)
who CHOOSES idiot exploder? who CHOOSES windows media player? who CHOOSES microsoft messenger? -nobody. microsoft installs those so people wouldn't choose and therefore wouldn't choose better alternatives.
safari for windows would be nice. i could install that on my work pc. it will not however change anything on the pc side - at least in my current knowledge of apple strategies - and that can be proved by asking people who uses netscape/firefox today... almost all netscape users use unix. almost all windows users use the idiot exploder.
it's not about choice at all. it's about forcing people not to choose!
(for example: as long as apple doesn't allow wma files to play in ipod, apple has a chance of forcing ipod-people not to use wma and give them a reason to think about choosing aac instead.)
Bruce Lee said:
I totally agree, I think after a year and half, we're not one inch closer to a Safari version for Windows. There are a few alternative browsers available for Windows (e.g. Mozilla/Netscape, Firefox, Opera) that hardly anyone would notice, let alone use, Safari for Windows. Anyway I don't understand why this thread has been revived at all.
IE v. Firefox
From other boards I visit that are populated by mainly PC people, Fire fox is taking off. For many reasons now. IE is slow, unpredictable and prone to regularly crashing. People hate pop up windows and IE still does not have a solution for that problem.
IE is missing tabbed browsing and is not nearly as advanced as browsers like Safari.
How long before IE has RSS? I am not sure about Mozilla or Firefox (Same thing basically right?) and how long it will be before they have RSS. From what has been released, Safari 2.0 is going to place it way ahead of the pack.
Firefox, Mozilla and some of the other smaller browsers don't have a home page, which some people don't like. But being faster and more reliable than IE seems to make up for that.
I would like to see Safari on PCs so that I could use it on a PC when I am at work or somewhere that doesn't have Macs available.
It's conceivable that Apple could sell software for all computers, while retaining their hardware unit as well. There are always going to be people who prefer to use a better system with superior software.
From other boards I visit that are populated by mainly PC people, Fire fox is taking off. For many reasons now. IE is slow, unpredictable and prone to regularly crashing. People hate pop up windows and IE still does not have a solution for that problem.
IE is missing tabbed browsing and is not nearly as advanced as browsers like Safari.
How long before IE has RSS? I am not sure about Mozilla or Firefox (Same thing basically right?) and how long it will be before they have RSS. From what has been released, Safari 2.0 is going to place it way ahead of the pack.
Firefox, Mozilla and some of the other smaller browsers don't have a home page, which some people don't like. But being faster and more reliable than IE seems to make up for that.
I would like to see Safari on PCs so that I could use it on a PC when I am at work or somewhere that doesn't have Macs available.
It's conceivable that Apple could sell software for all computers, while retaining their hardware unit as well. There are always going to be people who prefer to use a better system with superior software.
Xtremehkr said:
Firefox and Mozilla are not the same thing. Firefox is Mozilla.org's next generation browser and its latest version 1.0 preview now has RSS but only as bookmarks. So I guess Safari's RSS integration will be better. But then, Mozilla.org has still a few months to improve Firefox until Tiger with Safari 2.0 is released.
Xtremehkr said:
Mozilla and firefox are pretty close to the same thing. Firefox is more or less just the browser part of Mozilla. Mozilla has a lot of other stuff built into it (Email clinet is include and some other stuff but I never used it so I would not know)
Umm firefox 1.0PR has RSS so firefox and mozilla pretty much already have it. Back when this was oringally posted Safari stood a good chance if it was ported over. But apple missed the boat on it if they ever where planing to do it since firefox pretty much has taken off and people are getting it like crazy.
I seen a lot of Mac users end up choosing Firefox over Safari so that should sign to show that Firefox by a lot of people is consider the best browser out there. From what I have look at in Safiari I find firefox to be a lot better. I really like Camio on the mac but it just can not get exintions.
A year ago it was a good idea and would of been nice but not that firefox has gotten up to the leval of Sarfiee and in many ways surpassed it it just became a lot harder for Safiree to stand much of a chance on Windows side
Interesting
Safari 2.0 is looking like a winner. I have both Mozilla and Firefox but am not familiar with the RSS functions. According to this article RSS is going to be intergrated into Safari in such a manner as to make it an easily usable function for most users.
From the article...
It seems that Apple is taking this browser stuff seriously, especially areas like privacy which is great. I wouldn't count them out just yet, ease of use is among the most important factors for any kind of product. Everyone would be using Linux or Unix otherwise I guess. I hear that they are great programs, just require a lot more familiarity than most other computers.
Timelessblur said:
Safari 2.0 is looking like a winner. I have both Mozilla and Firefox but am not familiar with the RSS functions. According to this article RSS is going to be intergrated into Safari in such a manner as to make it an easily usable function for most users.
From the article...
It seems that Apple is taking this browser stuff seriously, especially areas like privacy which is great. I wouldn't count them out just yet, ease of use is among the most important factors for any kind of product. Everyone would be using Linux or Unix otherwise I guess. I hear that they are great programs, just require a lot more familiarity than most other computers.
Meh is all I can say. The power of firefox is not in the browser it self (which is really good) but in the exention add-ons to it. That is what makes the browser really great. I would not be surpised to see an extention to add RSS feed. Also remember firefox is constanily getting better and a fairly rapid rate for a browser so by April or when even Tiger comes out we have to see where firefox is by then. With firefox they can not state what they will have more than a .1 verson ahead really.
as for easie of use firefox is great. I have gotten a lot of people who are very computerenpted and just like easy things to use. Put them on firefox and they loved it. Found it extermly easy to use
as for easie of use firefox is great. I have gotten a lot of people who are very computerenpted and just like easy things to use. Put them on firefox and they loved it. Found it extermly easy to use
I never understand rumors like this.
Why would Apple spend money to make the windows platform better with zero opportunity for revenue for them? When there is already free and better alternatives to IE on the 'Doze platform?
To show people how good Apple is? They have the iPod to do this.
This rumor simply makes zero business sense. Zero.
Why would Apple spend money to make the windows platform better with zero opportunity for revenue for them? When there is already free and better alternatives to IE on the 'Doze platform?
To show people how good Apple is? They have the iPod to do this.
This rumor simply makes zero business sense. Zero.