“Is Safari coming to Windows? There have been rumors floating around for a while that Apple might be porting its Cocoa language to the Windows platform which would allow WebKit, the engine behind Safari, to run natively in Windows,” Scott Gilbertson blogs for Wired News.
Gilbertson writes, “Now it seems that the Mozilla Foundation thinks a Windows Safari port is a possibility. Buried in yesterday’s tentative Firefox 3 wiki roadmap document is this line: ‘WebKit may be ported to Windows.'”
“With the announcement of the iPhone the possibility of a Window’s WebKit port does seem like it would make sense… Some people think Apple would be better off not porting its software to Windows and keeping the ‘Mac experience’ unique to their own platform, but as Apple becomes less a computer manufacturer and more a device manufacturer it might make more sense to strive for interoperability.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bizarro Ballmer” for the heads up.]
Why? Firefox is at least as good.
Wow, didn’t they say hell had frozen over when Apple released iTunes for Windows? What will be said if Safari is released for Windows? “Eh, big deal”
First post? LOL
I don’t get the logic. iPhone has OS X/webkit. WIndows has iTunes, used for syncing with the devices (iPod, iPhone, Apple TV.) Where is the need for Webkit for Windows? Who benefits?
This could be true, but there would be more to the story than what this Wired blogger puts forth.
This is such a stupid theory. Why would the release of the iPhone mean Apple needs to make a Windows version of Safari? It’s idiotic. Notice the article doesn’t give any reasonable evidence to support this idea. Wired are a bunch of Monkeys.
Maybe because all those iPhone buyers who have a PC are going to be using Safari on their iPhone and will want to sync their browser?
I should add, iTunes itself incorporates some- or all- of webkit, used to render the iTMS.
> Why?
The article says it. Interoperability. iTunes is supposed to sync bookmarks from computer to iPhone. I suppose Apple could design it to sync IE or Firefox bookmarks, but there may be other new features for iPhone and Safari that would make it advantageous to have control of the device and software. With Apple, it’s all about control.
Firefox is a great browser, and it is as good as Safari. Therefore, there is no great “keeping the ‘Mac experience’ unique to their own platform” advantage in keeping Safari Mac only. Creating a Windows version of Safari may be a good move at this point, and doing it on conjunction with the iPhone release will generate big interest.
If I understand things correctly, iTunes makes extensive use of WebKit. This means that there’s probably already an internal build of WebKit for Windows. Beyond that, WebKit is based on KHTML, and anyone who wants can port KHTML to Windows.
The rumors that Apple is porting Cocoa to Windows go way back, and have been pretty much completely debunked: it doesn’t make any business sense at all for Apple to release a version of Cocoa for Windows, because that eliminates one of the major selling points of the Mac. Developers would love it, especially if it was done with the usual standard of Apple software quality, but it would cannibalize Mac sales like nothing else has since the clones.
So the summary of the summary is, the author noticed the ancient rumor about Cocoa for Windows and a line in a vague Firefox roadmap, and divined Apple’s strategy from those two bits of non-information. Brilliant!
I have said for a couple of years that Apple should do this. They need more software experiences to entice people over to the Macintosh platform. Users can currently experience iTunes + iPod on Winblows, and a web browser makes most sense as software item #2 to be ported. Apple can claim to be the white knight – swooping in to rescue Winblows users from the crappy experience of IE 7.
Go for it, Apple!
I can see iCal and Address Book for Windows as part of iPhone management software platform.
Doesn’t seem to make any sense to me. There is no money in developing a web browser for Windows. They can easily port bookmarks from IE and Firefox for use in the iPhone. iTunes will be the central interface with the iPhone. What’s the point?
Unfortunately for Windows users they are tied to keeping and using Explorer because you can’t download Windows/Vista updates using a different browser. I’ve tried.
That doesn’t seem legal — but that’s never stopped MS from doing anything.
You dn’t need to port Cocoa to Windows in order to port WebKit.
Cocoa is “unportable” to Windows.
Why? Quite simple. In order for Apple to really make strides in the home computer market, they need to be more compatible with web sites. There are far too many sites that don’t work with Safari and as long as Safari is Mac only, the browser market share will remain very low, which will discourage developers from working to make sites compatible, which will frustrate new Mac users that suddenly discover the site they love doesn’t work on their new Mac.
By releasing Safari for the PC, they could easily double their browser market share in a week.
And let the rumors come back!
I think Apple should do this if it is true. It just makes sense to do it at this time. Windows users would have another fine piece of Apple software to use on their computers, and they would have another reason to give the Mac a serious look.
What about Windows Viruses penetrating a Windows version of Safari?
but as Apple becomes less a computer manufacturer and more a device manufacturer
—
If you think Apple is willing, or interested in giving up the PC business, you’re on crack. Actually, their treatment of the new iPhone shows that Apple is doing the same thing they’ve always done: hardware+software to produce the sleekest and best experience.
Why does one have to trade off with the other? The company is already split in two… iPod and Macintosh…
This new phone falls very much in the middle of those two, so a third ‘sector’ might be in order, but by no means is Apple becoming less of a computer company, especially not when Mac sales are zooming upwards as they have been in the past 3 years…
Some people can’t seem to get their heads around this zero-sum game thing.. the third option is that the company GROWS…
Much like Sony, except Sony had conflicting interests. As long as there are no conflicting interests, Apple can win on all fronts.
And if I know that, you can bet Steve knows that. Duh.
Who cares about Safari — ICHAT ICHAT ICHAT FOR WINDOWS!!! That’s the only other software that makes sense. Everyone I know is blown away when they see videoconferencing on a Mac — I’ve honestly had friends buy a Mac because of it. If iChat was available on Windows and offered the same ease of use and look on both platforms, it would transform instant messaging. I’m sick of trying to video with Windows users when all their video solutions are awful OR we have to both switch over to Skype or Sightspeed or some other non-standard.
Of course, given how tightly iChat is integrated with Address Book and Mail, I’m sure that would present some problems… But I just want to see a Windows iChat experience that works as seamlessly as the Mac version.
Am I missing something that would make this un-doable?
Think virtual machines. As VMs become more commonplace the OS will disapear into the background. What we use will be a series of ‘components’. Webkit/Safari will be just another ‘component’, along with Windows Presentation Foundation (whatever that is) and all the other Windows stuff. Mac OSX will then be the ‘glue’ that holds these components together. Effectively it will be ’embrace and extinguish’.
Look at this a WebKit port as another step along the way and it might make more sense.
It’s true. iPhone runs Safari. You can synchronize your bookmarks. Windows users will have the option to use the mac browser. Embrace-extinguish. They’ll use iTunes, Safari. . . why use winblows at all? Maybe we’ll see iLife for windows just as we see office for mac?
And here I was hoping Apple would keep some iPhone integration Mac-only to drive Mac sales. Still possible, I guess.
This reminds me of another rumor about iLife coming to windows. Both of these are BAD idea because it takes away from the superior Mac experience. If the Mac represents “greener pastures” then porting our software to windows makes Mac a lot less green. I don’t think it would encourage windows users to consider the Mac, if anything it would encourage them to stick with the status quo of crappy windows because they’ll also get our best software as well.
Bullshit, WebKit and Firefox are two completely different projects.
Who cares about Safari — ICHAT ICHAT ICHAT FOR WINDOWS!!! That’s the only other software that makes sense. Everyone I know is blown away when they see videoconferencing on a Mac — I’ve honestly had friends buy a Mac because of it.
Which is why they should not port it to Windows. This piece of software (much like iMovie, iDVD and iWeb, are pieces of software that do things that the PC doesn’t do (at least not as well).
With Safari, you just have a web browser. It basically does the same thing as the other browsers. Also,having Safari on a Windows machine will help them gain market share in the browser market; which means something. Even if iChat took 99% of the market on Windows machines, it has no net gain, no value. As a Mac only app, it has the wow factor that can draw in new hardware customers.