Apple reinstates Apple.com 'start page' after long absence
The default Apple.com start page Safari directs users to upon opening appears to have gone live recently after having been absent from the company's servers for months.
First spotted by AppleInsider reader Gregg, the start page looks to have the same design as it did when the URL began redirecting users to the Apple.com homepage sometime in June.
Although Safari used the start page as its default homepage, it was thought to be one of the least visited pages on the company's website as the web browser's property is one of the first to be changed. Users often change Safari's homepage to their favorite website or a search engine.
The current start page carries over the same template as the most recent redesign, which occurred in 2008, and features four prominently-positioned tiles that dynamically change, cycling through the latest products on each page refresh.
Apple's online store, featured commercials and iTunes movie trailers flank a central "Hot News Headlines" RSS feed that seems to be up to date. The bottom of the page is reserved for a large section featuring content from iTunes.
Those interested can visit the start page here.
First spotted by AppleInsider reader Gregg, the start page looks to have the same design as it did when the URL began redirecting users to the Apple.com homepage sometime in June.
Although Safari used the start page as its default homepage, it was thought to be one of the least visited pages on the company's website as the web browser's property is one of the first to be changed. Users often change Safari's homepage to their favorite website or a search engine.
The current start page carries over the same template as the most recent redesign, which occurred in 2008, and features four prominently-positioned tiles that dynamically change, cycling through the latest products on each page refresh.
Apple's online store, featured commercials and iTunes movie trailers flank a central "Hot News Headlines" RSS feed that seems to be up to date. The bottom of the page is reserved for a large section featuring content from iTunes.
Those interested can visit the start page here.
Comments
I honestly don't ever recall seeing that sort of start page since I guess I always changed it to google as soon as I got a new computer, exactly like the article mentions, however, I can see how this is more appropriate for a fist time Apple device owner rather than seeing an advertisement for the very device they just bought.
When it was gone, I was glad. Now I'm just confused.
It's like Yahoo!'s pages and all those other sites that try to be absolutely everything imaginable in one place. Sort of anti-Apple itself, I always thought. I wish they'd just do "apple.com" as their default home page on new machines/Safari.
I could have sworn I saw it last week when I was setting up a new user account. I tend to switch home pages and browsers, so it goes away pretty quickly.
I have the Most Viewed grid as my start page. Don't understand why anyone would ever have a specific webpage that almost certainly won't be their desired destination.
I think they should do something like what Firefox does, which is have a custom search page:
http://www.google.co.uk/firefox
Apple's site is a shop, there's no reason to visit it every day.
It could be hosted by Apple if they preferred and queries could be fed to multiple engines including the sources Siri uses to return better results than Google but including Google results. Then they also get information about what people are searching for and they can link it with iAds.
Ultimately, when people have just bought a computer and started using it, the first thing they do online is not likely to be buying something else from Apple.
It should also do smart things using other tech they have. They have face detection algorithms so if you find a hot picture of a girl and don't know who she is, you should be able to drag the picture into the search box and Apple will tell you who she is and find more pictures.
They can of course use Siri for voice search too but it can do anything like you can play a music track that might be in an advert in the background and it can listen to what you are playing as it is going through the internal sound system, analyse it and tell you info about it.
They can return location-aware cinema listings, restaurant reviews etc. It won't undermine other search engines, it's an aggregate + special sauce.