I have used Mozilla till 1.4, and Firefox after it turned 1.0. Shortly thereafter I started using Thunderbird. Then, somewhere along the way, I switched from Windows to OS X. The thing is, I have used both Firefox and Thunderbird for years and they just keep feeling worse. They are the best apps of their kind on Windows, not so on OS X.
Sure there are powerful features in there, but the UI does strange things. Some browser tabs cease to respond to mouse input, others cease to respond to keyboard input. Thunderbird tries to make the user go insane if the IMAP server doesn't bother answering its calls for a little while. Mails disappear in inbox, only to reappear once you switch folders and switch back. The "Today", "Yesterday" labels duplicate and jump around. Bookmarks and e-mails do not get indexed in Spotlight. There is still no way to use keyboard for navigation in Firefox!
I switched to Safari+AcidSearch a while ago. Thunderbird will go next.
Only thing I ever used Firefox' extensibility for was a small toolbar button which enabled you to whitelist or blacklist cookies for the current page without digging into Preferences. This really should not be an extension but be in the default install under "customize toolbar". Sadly, Safari can't whitelist cookies at all, but I expect I'll manage. If not, I'll turn to Opera.
Unfortunately we care because if Mac users are locked out of the web, no one will be buying Macs anymore. There is a web design company out there who locks Mac users out. They have other clients. That's not good.
Hey Gon - Opera recently removed the ad from the free version. This is a good time to get into Opera. BTW- Its built in email client is far superior to Thunderbird, IMHO.
Unfortunately we care because if Mac users are locked out of the web, no one will be buying Macs anymore. There is a web design company out there who locks Mac users out. They have other clients. That's not good.
MM
Any retailer who chooses to deliberately decrease their sales by 3-4% is in deep trouble. Hardly anyone has margins big enough or competitors few enough that they can afford that luxury (only exception I can think of is... Apple!).
If you run a business, what would you say to someone who came in your door and said, "We can make your website a little spiffier. Oh, and sales will drop by at least three percent. They don't have to drop like that... we just choose to alienate three or four percent of your customers. Is that OK?"
i wear a fair amount of Gap clothing. i don't have any that says 'Gap' anywhere but on the tag, and come to think of it, other than a few sweatshirts, i don't usually run acrossed much there that does have the logo on it.
The main reason i wear their stuff is i like how it fits and it seems to stay nice longer than anything else I have. I do agree that the clothes there are pretty expensive. I would be happy to switch to something else, and since everyone here says Gap costs 2x as much as other clothes of equal quality, where can i find these other clothes of equal quality (and equally as attractive looking) for half the price? I'm not trying to be a pain, just asking.
Any retailer who chooses to deliberately decrease their sales by 3-4% is in deep trouble. Hardly anyone has margins big enough or competitors few enough that they can afford that luxury (only exception I can think of is... Apple!).
If you run a business, what would you say to someone who came in your door and said, "We can make your website a little spiffier. Oh, and sales will drop by at least three percent. They don't have to drop like that... we just choose to alienate three or four percent of your customers. Is that OK?"
It's even better than that. You have to wonder if maybe Mac users are right in line with their target audience. In fact, I remember when Bang & Olufsen released their BeoSound2 mp3 player, it didn't work with Macs. There was a huge uproar that Mac users were a large part of their market as they share similar qualities like design over functionality, luxury brand, etc. B&O relented and now the BeoSound 2 is compatible with Macs and iTunes.
For apparel, it may be less so but still, you have to wonder. Especially for Banana Republic.
Hey Gon - Opera recently removed the ad from the free version. This is a good time to get into Opera. BTW- Its built in email client is far superior to Thunderbird, IMHO.
Thanks, I was aware of that, and I also have a license stashed from Opera's anniversary free license handout they had just a while ago. I have used Opera for some downloads that weren't Firefox compatible, but like Firefox, it doesn't feel quite exactly like OS X software, so I'm trying Apple's software first as it at least has the potential to be perfect.
Granted, I like "power" features and am therefore likely to find Opera nicer in the long run. Is it stable? Do mails and bookmarks get indexed to Spotlight?
As for the thread topic, I think this is just what to expect from a big, unwieldy company - left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. That is, it's what to expect from today's business. I don't see the retail business of the future to be different in a revolutionary way, but smarter, more adaptive and more personalized, all of that accomplished cost-effectively with new technology and a razor sharp focus on the customer. Screwups like accidentally (?) locking many percent of your customers out of your web sales is not something that a company can tolerate if it wishes to still be a big player in ten years.
Gap is to blame for lack of QA, but then again you probably find their site was done by management that is happy that it runs on 85% of the browsers out there. The only question is how does that percentage actually compare to the type of market interested in GAP.
I did a few tests of mine own and here are the results:
Works:
- Firefox
Does not Work:
- Safari
- OmniWeb
- Opera
And there are still others that I have not tested, including iCab.
I emailed Gap's customer service and told them about the issues with the Safari browser. They told me that they will work on it. I hope they fix it soon.
Edit:
Here's Gap's reply:
Dear Soren,
Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding the enhancements we have made
to our website. We were sorry to hear of your frustrations regarding
Safari accessibility. Customer feedback is very important to us. In an
effort to improve the shopping experience for everyone, please be
assured your comments will be forwarded to our Technical Team. We
appreciate the time you have taken to share your concerns with us and
hope you will give us another opportunity to serve you in the future.
If we may be of further assistance, please contact us via e-mail at
[email protected] or by calling 1-800-GAP-STYLE. Our Customer Service
Consultants are available 24 hours a day for your convenience.
I develop web applications and have run into ridiculously stupid bugs in Safari's JavaScript implementation. The truth is that Safari's JavaScript is not ready for primetime. Why should Gap put in workarounds to make up for Safari's bugs? Blame should be placed squarely on Apple.
Kaiser79 - The site does not work on Opera 8.50 on Windows either. It exhibits the same behavior described at the top of this thread; constantly reloads without showing anything.
Gon - I don't know if Opera integrates with Spotlight. I kind of doubt it. I am on windoze and the Macs that i admin are on Panther.
I develop web applications and have run into ridiculously stupid bugs in Safari's JavaScript implementation. The truth is that Safari's JavaScript is not ready for primetime. Why should Gap put in workarounds to make up for Safari's bugs? Blame should be placed squarely on Apple.
IE and Netscape are full of bugs too. The reason Gap might want to work around a bug is to increase their sales by three or four percent. Presumably they want to make money more than they want to enforce good coding principles.
It would be like a fast food joint making their drive-thru only wide enough to fit cars, and telling customers with SUVs that they should have bought a standards-compliant vehicle. True, those people are ruining our roads and our environment more than regular cars, but presumably McDonald's still wants their business.
I develop web applications and have run into ridiculously stupid bugs in Safari's JavaScript implementation. The truth is that Safari's JavaScript is not ready for primetime. Why should Gap put in workarounds to make up for Safari's bugs? Blame should be placed squarely on Apple.
This attitude is exactly why the web is such a screwed up mess. IE is in no way the most web compliant browser out today yet this doesn't stop lazy web site designers from blanking out other browsers. Are you saying that IE is 100% Java compliant?
The Gap is just unfortunate to be using nincompoops to design their site. Hopefully they will get this corrected soon.
As has been said, Safari is now the 3rd most commonly used browser. Wake up.
Comments
Sure there are powerful features in there, but the UI does strange things. Some browser tabs cease to respond to mouse input, others cease to respond to keyboard input. Thunderbird tries to make the user go insane if the IMAP server doesn't bother answering its calls for a little while. Mails disappear in inbox, only to reappear once you switch folders and switch back. The "Today", "Yesterday" labels duplicate and jump around. Bookmarks and e-mails do not get indexed in Spotlight. There is still no way to use keyboard for navigation in Firefox!
I switched to Safari+AcidSearch a while ago. Thunderbird will go next.
Only thing I ever used Firefox' extensibility for was a small toolbar button which enabled you to whitelist or blacklist cookies for the current page without digging into Preferences. This really should not be an extension but be in the default install under "customize toolbar". Sadly, Safari can't whitelist cookies at all, but I expect I'll manage. If not, I'll turn to Opera.
MM
Originally posted by marmotton
Unfortunately we care because if Mac users are locked out of the web, no one will be buying Macs anymore. There is a web design company out there who locks Mac users out. They have other clients. That's not good.
MM
Any retailer who chooses to deliberately decrease their sales by 3-4% is in deep trouble. Hardly anyone has margins big enough or competitors few enough that they can afford that luxury (only exception I can think of is... Apple!).
If you run a business, what would you say to someone who came in your door and said, "We can make your website a little spiffier. Oh, and sales will drop by at least three percent. They don't have to drop like that... we just choose to alienate three or four percent of your customers. Is that OK?"
The main reason i wear their stuff is i like how it fits and it seems to stay nice longer than anything else I have. I do agree that the clothes there are pretty expensive. I would be happy to switch to something else, and since everyone here says Gap costs 2x as much as other clothes of equal quality, where can i find these other clothes of equal quality (and equally as attractive looking) for half the price? I'm not trying to be a pain, just asking.
Originally posted by TheToe
Any retailer who chooses to deliberately decrease their sales by 3-4% is in deep trouble. Hardly anyone has margins big enough or competitors few enough that they can afford that luxury (only exception I can think of is... Apple!).
If you run a business, what would you say to someone who came in your door and said, "We can make your website a little spiffier. Oh, and sales will drop by at least three percent. They don't have to drop like that... we just choose to alienate three or four percent of your customers. Is that OK?"
It's even better than that. You have to wonder if maybe Mac users are right in line with their target audience. In fact, I remember when Bang & Olufsen released their BeoSound2 mp3 player, it didn't work with Macs. There was a huge uproar that Mac users were a large part of their market as they share similar qualities like design over functionality, luxury brand, etc. B&O relented and now the BeoSound 2 is compatible with Macs and iTunes.
For apparel, it may be less so but still, you have to wonder. Especially for Banana Republic.
Originally posted by funkfeend
Hey Gon - Opera recently removed the ad from the free version. This is a good time to get into Opera. BTW- Its built in email client is far superior to Thunderbird, IMHO.
Thanks, I was aware of that, and I also have a license stashed from Opera's anniversary free license handout they had just a while ago. I have used Opera for some downloads that weren't Firefox compatible, but like Firefox, it doesn't feel quite exactly like OS X software, so I'm trying Apple's software first as it at least has the potential to be perfect.
Granted, I like "power" features and am therefore likely to find Opera nicer in the long run. Is it stable? Do mails and bookmarks get indexed to Spotlight?
I did a few tests of mine own and here are the results:
Works:
- Firefox
Does not Work:
- Safari
- OmniWeb
- Opera
And there are still others that I have not tested, including iCab.
gap.com now redirects to:
http://www.gap.com/store-closed/Gap/.../en/index.html
which says:
Thank You for Visiting the New Gap.com
We're updating our site with innovative new features to bring you an extraordinary shopping experience.
We're sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you.
Please check back soon.
Originally posted by TheToe
FWIW, it appears that someone at the Gap realized that alienating customers is not so good for business...
gap.com now redirects to:
http://www.gap.com/store-closed/Gap/.../en/index.html
which says:
I emailed Gap's customer service and told them about the issues with the Safari browser. They told me that they will work on it. I hope they fix it soon.
Edit:
Here's Gap's reply:
Dear Soren,
Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding the enhancements we have made
to our website. We were sorry to hear of your frustrations regarding
Safari accessibility. Customer feedback is very important to us. In an
effort to improve the shopping experience for everyone, please be
assured your comments will be forwarded to our Technical Team. We
appreciate the time you have taken to share your concerns with us and
hope you will give us another opportunity to serve you in the future.
If we may be of further assistance, please contact us via e-mail at
[email protected] or by calling 1-800-GAP-STYLE. Our Customer Service
Consultants are available 24 hours a day for your convenience.
Sincerely,
Shannon
Customer Service Consultant
Gon - I don't know if Opera integrates with Spotlight. I kind of doubt it. I am on windoze and the Macs that i admin are on Panther.
Originally posted by kaiser79
I develop web applications and have run into ridiculously stupid bugs in Safari's JavaScript implementation. The truth is that Safari's JavaScript is not ready for primetime. Why should Gap put in workarounds to make up for Safari's bugs? Blame should be placed squarely on Apple.
IE and Netscape are full of bugs too. The reason Gap might want to work around a bug is to increase their sales by three or four percent. Presumably they want to make money more than they want to enforce good coding principles.
It would be like a fast food joint making their drive-thru only wide enough to fit cars, and telling customers with SUVs that they should have bought a standards-compliant vehicle. True, those people are ruining our roads and our environment more than regular cars, but presumably McDonald's still wants their business.
Originally posted by kaiser79
I develop web applications and have run into ridiculously stupid bugs in Safari's JavaScript implementation. The truth is that Safari's JavaScript is not ready for primetime. Why should Gap put in workarounds to make up for Safari's bugs? Blame should be placed squarely on Apple.
This attitude is exactly why the web is such a screwed up mess. IE is in no way the most web compliant browser out today yet this doesn't stop lazy web site designers from blanking out other browsers. Are you saying that IE is 100% Java compliant?
The Gap is just unfortunate to be using nincompoops to design their site. Hopefully they will get this corrected soon.
As has been said, Safari is now the 3rd most commonly used browser. Wake up.