Inside OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: Safari 5.2 gets a simplified user interface with new sharing... - Page 2

You don't have to mess with arrow keys or anything at all.

You press A SINGLE keystroke (command-L) and you can BOTH type a query or type an address.

Press Enter.

You either get results back (if you had typed a query) or you get a page back (if you had typed a domain).

Much simpler --and one of the key features people love about Chrome.

What do you think I really mean?

Chrome have color syntax (http://sht.tl/bmPT) whereas Safari doesn't (http://sht.tl/j76). I'd rather color > bland b/w anytime these day.

You're comparing the actual browser to a text document.

Safari has ALWAYS had colored syntax highlighting, and it even has colored HOVER highlighting now.

No that's entirely different but I know what you mean .. I think you misunderstood. Those screenshots you posted are web inspector.

Do 'view-source' on Chrome vs Safari, NOT via web inspector. You'll see what I mean...

Does Reader deserve the biggest button in the whole UI? It’s really just a view control, and already had a fine spot. It’s nice, but if anything, I use the Zoom Bigger button more. Maybe that button should be four inches across...

In fact, I’d rather have a big Reading List button than an oversize Reader button. Reading List also makes iCloud more useful, so you’d think Apple would focus on that.

This sounds like a UI experiment that won’t make it out of beta.

I also need RSS: RSS serves as an “alternate home page” for a site, from which I open multiple tabs. Who wants to switch back and forth between two browsing apps? Luckily, I’m sure a Safari Extension can fill the RSS need if Apple doesn’t. But I’m hoping Apple is actually improving RSS (it needs it) and we’ll see that later.

Ah, I see what you're wanting. I think Apple's decision here is to make the source be just plaintext for copying out to documents. Color would add complexity (and perhaps require different encoding), no?

This thread is getting long and I'm not going to read everything, but... The Safari update looks very Chrome-like.

A unified URL and search field with auto-completion means that a search engine knows what web sites you're typing in. I see that as a major invasion of privacy.

Microsoft didn't follow Vista with Mountain Vista. What's wrong with Apple?

What's that? The search engine that you're using to find stuff knows what you're typing into it to find stuff?

Search engines were capturing what you typed into the URL bar already. Or, alternately, they won't be doing it with the new setup. Believe whichever you want to believe.


Google exists on the Internet. Your privacy has already been invaded.


Please stop this.

That's a pretty good summary of the 46 posts above yours into a line... it also included a debate on whether that's a good thing or not and if anyone is ripping off anyone else.

If you are offended by facts, why don't you bury your head in the sand somewhere?

Or alternatively, you could refute them with an argument. What you offer is worthless hot air.

Only complaint that makes any sense seem rather tinfoil-hat-esque to me, but are not an issue at all if you can turn off search suggestions. For me, this is a feature I'd wanted since the Firefox 0.8 days--it never made any sense to me that the bars were separate.

It looks like Chrome's omnibus is still better, though, in that you can search specific websites by typing in the URL (or part of it) and hit Tab. It also has tabs on top, which is win. I've never understood why I need the title of my current tab to be shown twice.

If not for Safari's better OS integration, I would probably use Chrome.

It's clear and blatant this site has a strong slant and the articles are highly opinionated. I don't mind this, because there's a million other tech blogs online (even apple fan sites) that pretend to be fair and balanced. This site doesn't, and thats fine. I'm glad it exists, as I enjoy reading articles written with obvious passion towards the company and the product. Maybe its because I happen to share that passion, but bitching about the fact that this site is opinionated is pretty ridiculous, as it's been like that for 10+ years. You don't like it, don't read it. Its not the wall street journal, reuters, etc and doesn't pretend to be.

If I have to use a PC I use chrome so Im glad that the unified entry bar is coming to safari. I wonder how this will translate to OS X since the on-screen keyboard for URLs is different to the one for general text entry (ie [ . ] [ / ] [ .com ] instead of spacebar).

Agreed!

I like this feature when I use Chrome on my old Windows XP laptop. Glad it is being introduced to Safari (my preferred browser on Mac).

from 1998-2006 (more or less), MSFT solidified its desktop dominance in part by co-opting Javascript. They made their own version that would run properly only on IE on Windows. Then the Web development community played along by developing sites for IE on Windows because it had such huge [monopolistic] market share. Even IE on Mac was not 100% compatible. This then became the mantra of keeping Macs out of the enterprise "Why they just are not compatible!" (The same thing was being done by MSFT with Office - Mac versions were not 100% compatible. Tho no one was whining about "walled garden Windows" in those days.)

This is why Safari exists, and probably why Apple did WebKit. They were delving into cloud computing (.mac and later MobilMe) and wanted to be sure that there was at least one browser that would render their sites properly. WebKit ensured that the new standards would indeed become standards now that so many browsers use WebKit.

Essentially, WebKit broke the MS monopoly on the desktop.

I'd give Apple the lion's share of the credit for making web standards as popular as they are today across so many platforms but I'd give Mozilla the lion's share of the credit for breaking IE's browser monopoly.

I like nearly all the choices they made here:

- keeping the toolbar customisable so you can add a homepage
- no tabbed title bar, I tried it and didn't like it
- unified search is great, it will only submit a Google search if it can't find what you type in

I'm not sure about the giant tabs as they look like they might be a pain to reorder but I like that you can see the full text in the tab.

What I don't like with tabs is how they run off the end and you have to use the drop-down to see what the furthest ones are. Part of me wishes that they had a collapsible side-bar with tabs that had image previews of the page but I tried that with OmniWeb and I just couldn't get used to it.

Maybe it needs something like Exposé where you can hit a key combo or button and you get an iPad-like thumbnail view that shows as a transparent overlay on top of the page you are on. They could get rid of the tab bar and just have a small button with a page counter. This would also show tabs/pages that existed in other windows.


I'd say webkit deserves some of that credit too though, especially regarding the mobile space. Webkit's share now exceeds FF/Gecko:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_s...f_web_browsers
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-w...-201102-201202

I like how W3C optimistically puts IE at 20%. If only that were the case. At least it's below webkit now. If Microsoft decided to adopt webkit and put their hardware acceleration back into the project, that would be a very decent thing to do. It would then practically force FF to jump to Webkit and the web would finally be complete.

Not an issue as they shrink down to what they are in Safari 5.1 as you add new ones so the length is dependent on the number and width of the window.

Peraonally I don't care for them being so long as I am use to keeping the tab bar visible and then clicking on the empty space to create a new tab. This new method forces me to go all the way to far right to create a new tab in that manner.

Also, I'd like for the option to add a separate search bar even if the address bar can still do both.

Mozilla definitely broke the browser monopoly. Firefox took a huge share of browser usage back when Safari was unknown for non Apple users and Chrome didn't even exist yet. But the real dagger to Microsoft's dominance in browser market share is iPhone and Android. As mobile browsers increase in usage IE will fade away. Thank god. And another positive is that the remaining desktop share of IE will soon be mostly IE 8 and 9, which are infinitely better than 6 or 7, at least from a developer's point of view. The whole browser landscape is so much better than just a couple of years ago.

Most major websites have an app now which is much slicker. The web is so 2000s.

Those JS overlays that keep informing you that they have an iPhone app are the new Flash splash screens. I personally don't like to use separate apps for every website I visit. I'm sure it's better as an app btu switching out of Safari just to hit a website for a second just isn't worth it for me.

Fair enough. I don't think the web is going away, it's just not where the excitement is any more. Browser wars seem moot to me nowadays.

It's the way tabs take up the full width of the window reducing each time one is added that I hate. I guess I'd get used to it in time, but why "mend what's not broken"? Or just "why"?

You have a point, except the fact that the unibar is much better an invention.

WebKit is a widely used technology and it used on mobile browsers and in Chrome because it's great. Chrome, the app; is the single most influential app in the last five years. It's highly innovative and very fast. Google came out of nowhere to pretty much take over the web browser game. I personally prefer Safari, but I can see why a lot of people say Chrome is the best browser. Chrome might be using the WebKit engine, but Apple can't copy enough of Chrome's innovative features. The fact the Chrome isn't mentioned in the title of this article is insulting. Please please please tell me Apple stole the "you don't have to move the mouse when closing several tabs in succession" feature. Clearly Chrome's best feature.

I think the most annoying thing for me is the size of the space beneath the address bar with/without tabs open. I think it is a waste of valuable space!

Apart from that all other features are welcomed!

How about people that have been using Safari since 1.0 and HATE the lack of the search bar? The unified bar looks terrible.

So they stole from Google's Chrome? Nice. It looks like Apple has reached it's peak with Snow Leopard and will not start taking features away until the Mac is as useless as an iPad.

Wake up GOOGLE!!!! Time to make an OS worthy of taking over OSX and Windows.

i like chrome but i wouldn't call it the most influential app. there were several browsers and chrome didn't alll of a sudden make the web popular.
the single most influential App was App-le
love them or hate them you have to admit its true.

That's exactly right: Apple will NOT take features away from the Mac. So what's your point?

You mean the Bookmark Bar?

I haven't used it yet, but if Apple implemented it intelligently (and I expect they did) you enter your search or your URL in the unified bar, then hit enter. If a URL, it takes you to the web page. If a search, it takes you to the search page. It should simplify things for both the power user and regular user alike (e.g. at the very least your keyboard shortcut becomes CMD+L instead of CMD+OPT+F). The drop down menu with choices should be entirely optional outside the choices outlined above (and it currently is).


I used to tech people, freelance, how to use their computers, in addition to providing all manner of other technical services. I saw this frequently so this should help. Many new computer users don't fully understand the concept of a URL. Heck, I've seen them frequently enter a URL (e.g. yahoo.com) into Google.


Don't count on it. If it is ever removed from the interface there would still be a configuration option to display it. But that won't happen in the future I can envision because the URL is such a valuable piece of information to avoid scams.


Right click, view source, black and white. The Web Inspector has syntax highlighting. If they're bringing syntax highlighting to the regular View Source command, that would be great.


First, this may or may not be information the search engine companies bother logging, and second, who cares? Really. Your final search is being submitted to their server and recorded for advertising purposes, so what more value (and what additional privacy loss) comes about from the potential threat of them logging your search in progress?

If they used that information for much of anything it would be to study search patterns to improve their search engine (for example, better results returned from searches).


I do like Chrome's omnibus quite a bit. I've wished for it to be in Safari for some time now. I might be wrong, but I seem to recall it making its way into a pre-release beta of Safari only to be stripped out (the same pre-release also had top-level tabs). One thing I do love about Safari is how it currently (Lion) handles address auto-completeion and drop down options.


I love Safari on OS X. When I'm using Windows, though, a pretty good chunk of the magic is gone, and I wind up using Chrome. Although lately I've started to wonder what Google may be doing with information potentially gathered from browsing through Chrome. I'll have to look into that.

Which you can turn off at will?

Anyone test GPU acceleration? Safari and Chrome seem like the last browsers not to get it, and Chrome has it but burred in settings (about:flags). I know Apples site says it has GPU acceleration but its not the more expansive form IE9 or Firefox have, its limited to just a few things in Safari.

C'mon man... you just don't like change. Get used to it because it'll happen all the time.

My hopes as well. I was very disappointed to hear RSS was gone from Safari with 5.2. It's one of the features I most frequently use in Safari.

I also agree with the comments on the UI above.

Okay, that makes sense. So the browser code has logic that determines whether to do a direct navigation or perform a search based on the content that was input ... that should be pretty seamless. I guess the only time this would fail is if I actually wanted to search Google for a domain name rather than navigate to it, or maybe do a specialized search like link:appleinsider.com, but I could always just navigate to Google and do that kind of stuff from there.

I never said that.