Apple branded web browser?

satchmosatchmo
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Much has been discussed about the slower speed when browsing in IE on a Mac.

Not surprisingly, it probably isn't optimized for the Mac as it has been for PCs.



Is an Apple branded browser needed that takes advantage of OSX and the mac platform?

Perhaps they could buyout one of the upstart browsers out there.

Food for thought?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    Noooo, no, no, no!



    Dealing with the ever-changing web standards in the last thing Apple needs right now. The Mozilla project is doing a great job now and with Chimera will likely be the best browsing solution for the Mac.



    Remember: a product branded with the Apple logo isn't necessarily a good one. Look at how badly Apple stripped down SoundJam MP to make iTunes 1.0.
  • Reply 1 of 8
    crawlingparanoiacrawlingparanoia Posts: 443member
    Well, they were never able to make a browser in the last couple of years because of the MS deal they had going. Now that it is (almost?) run out, however, an Apple web browser is absolutely possible. And with IE for OS X lagging, and sucking, and not having any recent updates... I think they should try and do it.



    Rather than buying an upstart however, they should just make their own browser using the gecko rendering engine. It's fast, renders well to the standards, displays the same across platforms, is open... it could work really well for them. And a company like Apple would be able to do it well, I think.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Starfleet, if they based their browser on Mozilla, the ONLY thing they'd have to worry about is the interface and a few other items. Mozilla.org would take care of the standards support, and all the under-the-hood stuff (as development continues over time).



    Frankly I wish Apple would go for it because their agreement with MS is almost done and it would make developing Mac sites a lot easier a year or so from now because so many people would use the Apple-branded browser if it was decent (which it would be if it were based on Mozilla).



    Would also make for better *looking* sites because Mozilla actually supports a lot of CSS 2 positioning stuff IE does a lousy job at for one thing.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    kelibkelib Posts: 740member
    IE is still by far the best browser for the Mac IMHO. But isn't the slow browsing on the Mac just as much a problem with the TCP/IP stack in OsX? They don't need a new browser to fix that.



    But it would still amaze me if Apple didn't come up with their own browser application. They claim to deliver the whole 'widget' and one would think a decent browser should be part of that widget.



    But as one said above, an Apple branded software is no guaranty for quality. AppleWorks is living proof of that
  • Reply 5 of 8
    fran441fran441 Posts: 3,715member
    Apple already played the web browser game with Cyberdog. Based on OpenDoc, it was supposed to be a key part of the Copland project. But when Apple's focus shifted, Cyberdog was discontinued.



    That's the history lesson for today.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    neutrino23neutrino23 Posts: 1,562member
    There are a number of good browsers for the Mac. My favorite is OmniWeb. I doubt Apple would spend their resources on this if it isn't really needed.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    Apple will buy the OmniGroup and make it a subsidiary of themselves.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    That could work too. Although people need to realize that 4Billion is no longer 4Billion, given all the acquisitions Apple has made in the last six months or so. All these companies being bought out cost moolah, unless they're doing some kind of stock swap deal or something.



    I just did some web usability research last night and found from that web stats site that nearly 90% of all web users are using IE 4 or higher. That's ****ed. Someone mention IE as being the best Mac browser...I disagree. IE 5 is neither as flexible in how you can set it up as Omniweb 4.1 beta2, or Mozilla...nor is it anywhere near as standards compliant as Mozilla (though it's probably still a little better than Omniweb, at least until the final version is released).



    IE's CSS positioning support sucks bad among other things. You can tell when you create sites using DIV tags...in order to get the spacing right you almost have to run DIVS containing images right on top of those that contain text, for example. Also there are some test sites out there which let you text IE against a specific CSS function. It's interesting to see how many common ones fail.



    Mozilla totally trashes any other Mac browser out there in terms of standards support, and it's not even done. As the dot releases come this summer and fall, it will get even better. I really hope in a year or so there's a good swath of Mac users who have moved to Mozilla...mostly for selfish reasons.



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