Calling it, “the fastest browser on the Mac and the best browser on any platform,” Apple today introduced Safari 1.0, completing the wildly successful beta program which had nearly five million downloads since its initial release on January 7, 2003. Safari has become the browser of choice
for millions of Mac users and will be the default browser for all newly introduced Macintosh computers, starting with the Power Mac G5 announced today. Apple also released a software development kit that allows developers to embed the Safari HTML rendering engine directly into their applications.
The fastest web browser ever created for the Mac, Safari re-energizes the browser category through innovations like built-in Google search; SnapBack to instantly return to search results; a completely new way to name, organize and present bookmarks; tabbed browsing; and automatic “pop-up” ad blocking.
“Safari has reinvigorated the browser market with innovative features that deliver the best browsing experience on any platform,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO in the press release. “Every Mac user should download Safari today and join the millions already using it.”
“Wells Fargo very much values all of our Mac customers, and we fully support the Safari 1.0 browser for access to our online financial services,” said Kevin Zaney, senior vice president, Wells Fargo Internet Services in the press release. “Using the Safari browser Mac users can take advantage of Wells Fargo Online to quickly and conveniently view all accounts in one place, manage investments and pay bills online.”
“Safari has become the pre-eminent web browser at the Mac Publications web sites which see more than 2 million visitors a month,” said Rick LePage, president of Mac Publishing in the press release. “Representing more than 40 percent of the browsers hitting our sites, Safari has overtaken the long-time leader, Internet Explorer. This is an amazing achievement for a brand-new browser — overtaking the market leader in less than six months — and a testament to Safari’s intelligent design and innovative feature set.”
“Macromedia is committed to helping developers create and deliver the best digital experience possible, and Safari’s HTML engine is a great step forward for the Mac developer community,” said Norm Meyrowitz, president of Products, Macromedia in the press release. “The engine will give developers the speed and comprehensive Internet standards support they need for great rendering within their applications.”
Based on KHTML from KDE’s Konqueror open source project, the Safari rendering engine delivers the best performance and standards compatibility available on the Mac platform. Apple will continue to work closely with the open source community and share its ongoing optimizations to the KHTML code.
Safari 1.0 is available immediately as a free download at [url=http://www.apple.com/safari]http://www.apple.com/safari[/url], requires Mac( OS X version 10.2 “Jaguar” and is optimized for Mac OS X v10.2.3 “Jaguar” or later. Safari 1.0 is localized for English, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, French Canadian, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Korean and Simplified Chinese.
Mac OS X v10.2 “Jaguar” requires a minimum of 128MB of memory and is designed to run on the following Apple products: eMac, iMac, iBook, Power Macintosh G3, Power Mac G4 and any PowerBook introduced after May 1998.
I was hoping this release would fix problems rendering Outlook Web Access, but it doesn’t look like it.
Anyone else having problems using Safari to access corporate Exchange servers?
i’m surprised this is 1.0. safari crashes all the time
Mine has never crashed. Might be some other 3rd party gizmo that you have installed.
On my dual 800 with 1 GB of RAM Safari 1.0 crashes on startup. I think this is the first version of Safari that has this problem which is ironic, considering that the others were betas.
I don’t know how they call it “the fastest”. Maybe my G4/450 isn’t enough but MS IE seems to still be better. I hate MS though so I’d rather use Safari.
The interface is good. I like the tabbed browsing. I like the built-in Google search. I like the way the bookmarks are organized. I like how the bookmarks are synchronized. It’s awesome having a Mac network at home.
I’m tired of seeing the swirly rainbow twirl ceaselessly. Most Java applets still don’t load. Secure sites give me problems. It is a great innovation but needs serious performance improvements.