In LA

Apple released their web browser, Safari, for Windows a couple of days ago, and since then it has been downloaded over a million times. I’d love to know why all those people downloaded it. Was the reason:

• curiosity
• they’re running OS X on their other computer and like Safari
• features
• performance
• security
• to test web pages for browser compatibility
• because they’re playing the game “Steve Jobs says”

Speaking for myself, I downloaded it out of curiosity, and ran it for a few minutes on Chinese Windows XP running under Parallels Desktop (running an Apple app inside of Windows on a Mac - kind of like making turducken out of fruit and building materials). It seemed fine for browsing, I remember feeling that it looked better typography-wise than IE or Firefox on Windows, but I didn’t quantify that feeling with any testing. A million downloads in two days is a big number, I’d love to know the reason why Jane Doe Windows user would download Safari rather than or in addition to Firefox or IE7. I’d also love to know why Apple released Safari for Windows –does Apple feel that releasing a browser for Windows with a bit of a Mac look and feel will attract more people to switch over to OS X?

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2007 at 4:20 am and is filed under Apple, Geeky, Tiger. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.