By SteveJack
Why did Apple CEO Steve Jobs release Safari, the company’s hitherto Mac-only Web browser for Windows?
Because he’s a genius, that’s why.
Forget about browser market share on the desktop, not that it won’t come along for the ride, but desktop share for share’s sake is beside the point.
Mr. Jobs is thinking twelve moves ahead and playing the game to win; the game, not a game. You see, I firmly believe that Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal has long been to take back what he believes is rightfully his, and Apple’s. Well, they’ve long been the same thing, Jobs and Apple: “Jobsapple.” You know, like Brundlefly, but much neater – the ears stay on – and without the bad ending.
What’s Jobs’ and Apple’s, of course, is “personal computing.” But, “personal computing” is evolving rapidly away from the desktop. It’s going portable: laptops, sure, and also powerful full-featured mobile devices like the iPhone. iPhone, as I pointed out back in January, “is really a small touchscreen Mac OS X computer, a Mac nano tablet, if you will.”
Jobs is betting that the iPhone will be a big hit. That’s a good, sound bet. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is predicting 45 million iPhone units sold in 2009. That’s on top of his expectations for 12.4 million in 2008 and 3.2 million units this year. That’s roughly 60 million units in the next 30 months – and I believe he’s underestimating!
So, with 18.6 million Safari users currently, according to Jobs’ in his WWDC Keynote yesterday, and some percentage of Windows Safari users to come, with the Mac user base growing nicely, plus all iPhone users on Safari, we’re looking at 100 million or more Safari users within 30 months.
That’s a lot of users. Not counting any new devices Jobs has up his sleeve, either. Developers, developers, developers! Build it and they will come.
Steve Jobs, by releasing Safari to Windows, has laid the foundation for the next major computing platform which will be Web-based, built for Safari, mobile, and Apple’s.
The big question is what, if anything (apart from the usual FUD campaign), can Microsoft do to effectively respond to this massive threat?
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
Steve cares about his iphone customers.
They all need a browser that will make the iphone the dream box it is.
even if they use a pc
next time I am on a pc I will download it for shure!
lolwindows. they can’t do spit.
ie for mac? ha!
Apple released Safari for Windows because the iPhone is going to sync bookmarks and presumably other things from Safari on one’s home PC… and Apple expects to sell a lot of iPhones to PC users.
Safari is to iPhone what iTunes is to iPod.. A Windows version of Safari needed to be released so that PC users can sync bookmarks etc just like Mac users can.. A large majority of iPhone owners will be Pc users..
That being said, I still don’t see Safari as any type of major threat to Microsoft. Even with the 100 million copies Mr. Jack estimates will be in circulation within 30 months, well, that’s still only a third of what Firefox has distributed and they still have a paltry marketshare percentage compared to IE.
Bottom line: Safari will no doubt grow, but it will hardly be a threat to MS.
Microsoft don’t need to do anything. Users will soon discover that they still need Internet Explorer (or Firefox or Opera) in order to correctly view some websites…
all microsoft has to do is make the best products
easy?
Safari quickly will take much of firefox market share away … why because these people already wanting to move away from Microsoft.
Apple is the large deep pocket company that many will begin to trust with browsing the internet.
Don’t forget Apple Ace in the hole their buddies at Google.
Safari on Windows will be the browser of choice for Mac Users running boot camp, Parallels and the other VMs. I was using Firefox until today, but no longer…
And I wish to gripe publicly my despair that there will be no wi-fi iChat IM support in the iPhone. As if AT&T needs any more revenue for SMS text messaging. Hopefully Skype or Google or others will implement a web-based system (which integrates with AIM or similar.)
That’s an excellent point made by SteveJack. It was even emphasized in the keynote (at the end), when Steve Jobs and Scott (I forget his last name) explained how developers can write apps for iPhone… web-based and through Safari.
I don’t think it’s an immediate “massive” threat to Microsoft. In the keynote video, Steve Jobs showed a pie chart of IE’s share versus FireFox, Safari, and others. A few slides later, he shows a pie chart of where he wants Safari to go. In that hypothetical pie chart, Safari had displaced FireFox and “others,” but the IE portion remained roughly the same. He was just trying to make a point, but I think even Steve Jobs realizes that simply releasing Safari for Windows is not going to affect IE’s share.
Why? Because the typical Windows PC -using drone is NOT going to bother installing another browser if IE is working OK. The portion of PC users who did bother to do so are already using FireFox instead of IE. How about the PC-to-Mac switchers? If they switch, won’t the Safari share increase at the expense of IE. No, because a Windows PC user who would consider getting a Mac was probably using FireFox instead of IE already. Therefore, the IE portion will remain largely unaffected.
However, if those other devices like iPhone (not pure computers) are considered in the long term, I’d have to agree that having Safari for Windows out there will become a significant threat to Microsoft, because it will give Apple it’s “platform.”
I believe he did it primarily to ensure the 3rd parties see more opportunity to develop web applications and therefore negate the main criticism against the iPhone right now – that there’s no third party apps or support. Safari on Windows also allows users to become familiar with the Mac software which make the decision to switch just a tad more comfortable. It’s another no-lose move by Apple which also hints toward a new iWork package just in case MS gets their nose out of joint over it.
A genius? Ha Ha Ha! It’s more like a desperate attempt to cut a percentage or two out of IE marketshare. And it’s going to fail miserably. I can’t think of a segment of the software market more crowded than web browsers. People ain’t gonna switch browsers in 2007 cuz they’re pretty happy with IE, Firefox, or Opera. What the hell was he smoking when he came up with this brilliant idea?
I would just love to see Balmer’s reaction to news such as this.
I’m gonna find out where M$ buys their chairs and then short my AAPL and buy heavy into that chair company. Every time AAPL goes up the chair company stock should rise even more!
Well, things are changing. Hell froze over, the meltdown has spawned a flurry of change were Microsoft is soft at.
Media it must dominate. If it can not dictate the format that news, business, and web 2.0 is based on. Then it must switch it open standards. Here Microsoft has had problems with.
The tight control is now becoming slippery. When a Windows user see Safari and finds out it is faster than the newest IE7….. first question-I thought Microsoft was better, Isn’t it what they told us?
Build doubt and people cleave off the fold.
And the lemmings are running full speed!!! This may catch a few before the cliff.
Well, its a thought.
I’ll switch from Firefox when Safari supports bookmark syncing via .Mac on the Windows side….
Of course there is the possibility that Safari will be a non-event on Windows. Most Windows users won’t download anything non-MS. For those who do, Firefox is a very good browser and in my experience it is bandwidth that is the limiting factor, not browser rendering speed.
Besides whatever impending iPhone functionality we see, what reason does a PC user on Firefox have to switch to Safari?
Is Safari better than Firefox somehow? In any way, shape or form? I certainly don’t see it.
Eat shit, jovial pc boy.
Safari is faster than other browsers, in the same sense as PPC is faster than Intel.
Is Safari better than Firefox somehow?
——————-
Good question R2, and the answer is no.. It’s certainly nothing like when Apple made iTunes available for Windows.. Safari is just a browser, nothing revolutionary or cutting edge about it.
Since this morning I have repeatedly heard people saying “oh but PC users will get a taste of Apple programming…” Well what are they going to notice that is so different from what they already use.. Apart from the fact that less sites render properly on Safari, I don’t think they’ll notice anything much different than Firefox.
I know the received wisdom on these pages is that everything Microsoft does is worse than worthless, but what you have to realise is that the best browser on the Windows platform these days is Internet Explorer 7, not Firefox any longer, and how the hell is Safari going to win that one?
Windows users have already had the Apple experience in the shape of QuickTime and it stank.
John Gruber has a good point to make–smart lad–and it’s one I’ve yet to see anyone else mention.
Getting browser share is highly profitable, because Google, and others, pays something for every search done from the search box in the browser bar. (You see “safari” in the agent string when the Google search runs.)
Mozilla made more than $50 million last year from this. I knew that, but didn’t think of it in this connection. But that is one more very obvious motive.
“Apart from the fact that less sites render properly on Safari, I don’t think they’ll notice anything much different than Firefox.”
Uh, uh. They don’t. Safari’s text-handling is far better than Firefox’s. See this old Zeldman article:
http://www.zeldman.com/2006/11/27/safari-beats-firefox/
It’s also very fast, and once you get used to the bookmark-browsing method, you don’t want to go back to clunky, nested drop-down menus. The RSS is better, too. And there are a bunch of other smaller reasons why one might also prefer it even on Windows.
Granted, some sites that use IE-specific JavaScript might work in Firefox but not Safari. But, then again, Safari 3 has far more support for JavaScript than 2 did. There’s not much it’s not likely to work with.
Safari 3 *IS* incredibly fast. At first I thought, “who cares if it can render fast”? But having used it, I must admit it is slick.
Why did they bother making it fast? Probably because iPhone has a weak (compared to a desktop) processor.
I think there is more with Safari and I mean also the webkit. I just downloaded the beta version of AIR from Adobe (formerly the Apollo project) and it’s using the safari webkit engine.
iTunes was the chum. Safari is the irresistible bait on the hook that will get all those lemming fish outta the Windows waters and into the MacOS X boat!
Come on Guys and Gals! Grab your gear. It’s time for some serious fishin’!!!!
Woo Hoo!!
from Steve:
iTunes was the chum. Safari is the irresistible bait on the hook, throw in iLife on WinTel Macs and we’ll get all those Max OS X fanboys out of the dying drying up tide pool that is Mac OS X, tag them and release them into the Windows ocean with the vast majority of other Apple customers.
What can Microsoft do?
It can manipulate its yet-substantial global licensing base to (illegally) estop its clients from running Safari.
Up to the current juncture Microsoft toadies have proven a resilient and stubborn force in resisting change. Apple’s ingenious move to universalize Safari will be met. . . not with a peaceful, thankful tone. . . but with whole-scale market aggressiveness as only Microsoft can dish it out.
After 25 years+ of the CommonName parasite and never even once an apology from unca Billy, one begins to envision the big picture as to WHAT Microsoft is and whom it’s really controlled by.
. . . It ain’t your granny from Rochester!
Safari needs to first be stable and well behaving before anybody would really want to switch. Its hard enough even considering switching, with Firefox and Opera already being so good, and the “I could care less” mentality of most people who use IE.
If Safari is as good as SJ says, word of mouth amongst Windows users will spread its adoption — just as it did with Firefox.
And Apple is not alone in this war. It has allies. Google and Yahoo provide web2 type services and Safari will be a reliable bridge to those services under Windows, as well as on OS X. Microsoft will not be able to pull their usual criminal stunts by damaging the bridge to these competitive services by crippling them in IE. And if they try to cripple Safari under Windows in some upcoming (dis)service pack, they will face some anti-trust music.
Note the difference in how Apple and Microsoft approach the market. Apple positions itself to win by enabling consumers/users. Microsoft positions itself to win by criminally screwing competitors, even when it damages their own customers. Apple ports Safari to Windows, while Microsoft stops IE development on OS X.
@Pissed Off
the Mac beta was released as the same time. Works perfect for me. Others are reporting problems with some plugins. I am using SafariStand and Inquisitor and they work fine. Sites that have been difficult (Roughly Drafted oddly enough) now seem to render much better.
@Eric
Couldn’t agree more. OTH, I only use Windows for Quicken and website testing but was surprised when I loaded Safari and didn’t see a .Mac option. Oh well.
Finally, Google Docs works in Safari Beta 3. No Jabber yet though, but I gave up on that a long time ago and am strictly .Mac/iChat now anyway
Safari a massive threat to Microsoft? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I don’t see why Firefox has to lose here. Safari and Firefox will combine to eat away at IE browser share. I use Safari as my primary browser, Firefox for my secondary.
When forced to use a Windows machine, as I was on a 3 week trip to Bulgaria, the FIRST thing I do is load Firefox. Bulgaria is great! Windows continues to suck.
It remains to be seen who, besides Windows using iPhoneers will be running Safari, BUT there are a helluva lot of Windows using iPod owning, iTunes and QuickTime using folk who might just give WinSafari a peek.
Remember also, that ANY Safari-based application that runs on an iPhone will also be available and be able to run on EVERY desktop on the planet. And since Apple does it’s best to adhere to web STANDARDS, it’s an even bigger deal. This is something you can’t just sniff at and ignore!
It’ll be a slow roll like the iPod and iTunes.
This is only the beginning!
I like Safari but until it has a sidebar like Firefox, I don’t use it. I like having my bookmarks in the sidebar. It’s beyond me to understand why Apple doesn’t include a sidebar as part of Safari’s features. Firefox has had one for ages so has IE.
Does Apple just not get the importance of the sidebar?
There is only one reason to releast Safari for Windows – the iPhone.
iPhone runs Safari – if websites are not Safari compatible, they won’t work well with iPhone. With less than 5% market share, it is very difficult to justify the expense of testing and debug for Safari when Firefox is available to Mac users.
The article is right on. The next computing platform will be mobile computing. The iPhone is a mini-mac and Apple has again contolled the hardware and software develoment. This will change everything.
Safari is fast, and with a greater market percentage share it will make all those ‘IE only’ sites open to ridicule.
No other web browser makes the web look as good as Safari does.
Of course it isn’t a threat to Microsoft in it’s own right.
But the pieces are starting to fall in place…one by one..until it’s too late.
Except there are a lot of web based business applications that will only run on IE. Some may run on Firefox, but they won’t work with Safari. I must use some of these apps and there is no way I can get around it. MS has some lock in with IE because of these web-based business apps.
Safari on Windows isn’t exactly getting warm reviews, and it also happened to get pwned within hours of its release:
“David Maynor, infamous for the Apple Wi-Fi hack, has discovered bugs in the Windows version of Safari mere hours after it was released. He notes in the blog that his company does not report vulnerabilities to Apple. His claimed catch for ‘an afternoon of idle futzing’: 4 DoS bugs and 2 remote execution vulnerabilities.”
Separately, within 2 hours Thor Larholm found a URL protocol handler command injection vulnerability that allows remote command execution. “
Have you downloaded Safari for a PC?
I use a PC at work and downloaded Safari. Initial thoughts . . . total piece of crap. Seriously. Web pages loading slowly, especially the images. Interface stinks. Hard to differentiate between tab and toolbar above because of color scheme. No “Uninstall” option on the Start menu on Safari’s program group. Cannot hover over icons to see their function (for example, Windows users usually hover the mouse over that “Spider” icon – or is that a bug – and see its function). So much for Apple’s legendary interface. And the web pages do not render that well – kind of blurry. Now I know I can probably change a few settings and overcome some of these issues, but if Apple wants to gain traction with the masses in the PC browser market, the program (even a beta!) must work well without fine tuning. I admire Apple and I owned and loved many Macs over my lifetime, but we need a reality check here. In its current state, in my opinion, Safari is absolute crap. Outclassed by both Firefox and IE. My 2 cents.
The biggest effect of Safari for Windows is that Microsoft can’t stop dedicating resources to developing IE. With real competition in a market they have to pull their fingers out now they can’t just default to dirty tactics. Then Firefox will have to improve to match it.
So everyone benefits, whether they use Safari or not.
As to Microsoft facing anit-trust action if it illegally cripples Safari for Windows, have you read the previous MDN article at 5http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/bush_administration_doj_repeatedly_defend_microsoft/?
David Maynor has zero credibility — anywhere. Nice try, Realist.
Maybe it’s because Steve thinks that people in Windows hell deserve a second glass of ice water.
@ jovial pc boy
A genius? Ha Ha Ha!
Thanks for reminding me. Steve Jobs was a college dropout, but look where Apple’s gone!
Bill Gates was also a college dropout. Seriously.
It’s more like a desperate attempt to cut a percentage or two out of IE marketshare.
Yeah, cut a percentage or two. Each percentage can be worth 5%, 10%, or 25%. But you meant “percent”, didn’t you.
And it’s going to fail miserably. I can’t think of a segment of the software market more crowded than web browsers.
“Fail miserably”? They don’t make money right off Safari – it’s free.
And widgets for Tiger’s Dashboard are above 3000, and gadgets for Vista’s Sidebar are near 1000. You can complain that many widgets and gadgets are free, but so are web browsers.
People ain’t gonna switch browsers in 2007 cuz they’re pretty happy with IE, Firefox, or Opera.
But maybe not happy enough. Personal computing is so confusing, so how can you consider yourself to be jovial?
What the hell was he smoking when he came up with this brilliant idea?
Improper use of the word “hell”. Better use: “like giving glasses of ice water to people in hell” (from Steve Jobs himself at D5).
And I thought someone came up with ideas like this from either a crazy mind (isn’t everyone crazy these days?) or a good one. Or both.
Your turn, jovial pc boy.
@ Realist
Safari on Windows isn’t exactly getting warm reviews, and it also happened to get pwned within hours of its release:
“David Maynor, infamous for the Apple Wi-Fi hack, has discovered bugs in the Windows version of Safari mere hours after it was released. He notes in the blog that his company does not report vulnerabilities to Apple. His claimed catch for ‘an afternoon of idle futzing’: 4 DoS bugs and 2 remote execution vulnerabilities.”
Separately, within 2 hours Thor Larholm found a URL protocol handler command injection vulnerability that allows remote command execution. “
Read these words: Safari 3 BETA. This is not the final version of Safari.
MW: audience … they don’t want to listen.
I am an “analyst.” I know, I know…
I read SteveJack for a reason. Look back at SteveJack’s previous articles and note the dates. Then, with hindsight, note how well he dissected Apple’s moves. He has a very good record.
I agree that this is a major threat by Apple against Microsoft. SteveJack has nailed it once again.
Firefox is my primary browser on my Mac accounts, because I have grown dependent upon the plugins Mouse-Gestures, Flash-Block, and Nuke-Anything. As soon as equivalent functionality is found in Safari, I will probably sideline Firefox.
When I must use Windoze at work, IE only appears when contacting the Redmond mother site. BTW, I develop MS software as well, but do it from XCode on my PBook17.
I predict Safari will get loaded on a lot of cubicle-tethered PC’s by workers who choose to run Macs at home.
My home is a Microsoft-Free zone, and we breath a lot easier that way.
This is not about getting marketshare from IE. I don’t think Safari on Windows has to do with it. I think the Mozilla guys should be more scared of Safari than Micro$oft.
But, if you develop a web app (AJAX, JavaScript, you name it) and test it on Safari, it will run on the iPhone, no questions asked. If you test it on other browsers (especially IE), well… we all know how it works.
Not releasing Safari for Windows carries the following message: “If you want to develop iPhone compatible apps, get a Mac”.
While we Mac users wouldn’t have an issue with that, the hard fact is, people develops a lot on Windows.
As a browser itself, I’m a Safari user, and I like it. Nevertheless, there are a couple of things about Firefox I like better:
1. Better handling of AJAX (at least compared to Safari 2, I’m testing 3)
2. A very nice JavaScript debugger, better than any other browser I’ve seen before.
I am afraid the EU is going to cry that the iPhone should be made compatible with browsers from the competition.
The availability of Safari for Windows has an extra benefit – more and more websites will now render properly under Safari, as the cost to test them with the Safari browser becomes trivial (just load Safari onto the tester’s PC). Tech support staff can have the Safari browser loaded on their PC and help customers with browser problems (I’ve had problems with websites that don’t work under Safari, and companies are generally apologetic but cite “limited development and test resources” – causing a wait of some time before they get around to fixing the problems).
The fact is, websites that are badly written and don’t work well under Safari will make things like the iPhone look bad – people will cuss out Apple rather than recognizing M$ fault for its pseudo-standard implementation of html/xml/java. However, no company (except Microsoft) really wants to have customers encounter websites that don’t work using the customer’s browser of choice – its just bad business. Companies want happy customers, and web pages that work for Safari users – regardless of platform – make it easier for more people to buy whatever your firm is selling. It also makes it easier for more people to buy and use iPhones and Macs, or to run Safari on their PC (because it’s the same interface as on their iPhone, or that they’re used to iTunes) and perhaps get a feel that Apple products can be pleasant to use… earning mindshare at a minimum, and increasing hardware sales throughout the product line as a happy side effect. This is a good move on so many levels, I’m genuinely impressed.
One thing to bear in mind with IE is that it NEVER goes away on a Windows machine. Unlike any other browser that can be removed/deleted from the machine, IE resists attempts to delete it. So if “out of sight is out of mind”, the corollary is “still in sight, still in mind”. The inability to get IE off the machine makes it hard to break user habits.
Connect the dots . . . I love this game . . . could it be that we need a browser to get the internet onto our (no . . . not just iPhone) iPods? Gee . . . maybe I can use those web-apps on my iPod too? I think many WOULD switch from IE to Safari on their PCz if it helped them with features for the 6G iPod. Hmnnn . . . now that’s sneaky . . . but I’m liking it! BTW by doing this I “think” his Steveness just announced YouTube on the iPhone/iPod . . . didn’t he?
One more thing . . . isn’t Safari on WIndowz just a trojan horse for the iPhone apps to work on ANY computer? Steve doesn’t care if you keep IE. He just wants you to turn on Safari when you are thirsty. “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell,” Jobs explained and generated laughs from the audience.
Microsoft does what Microsoft does best. That is, set the paid attack dogs loose to bash and lie and discredit Apple nonstop at least until the release of the iPhone.
Here is an example:
http://msn.fool.com/investing/general/2007/06/13/apple-not-up-to-it.aspx?logvisit=y&source=eedmsnln
<b>peach picker:<>
<i>And I wish to gripe publicly my despair that there will be no wi-fi iChat IM support in the iPhone. As if AT&T needs any more revenue for SMS text messaging. Hopefully Skype or Google or others will implement a web-based system (which integrates with AIM or similar.)<>
Meebo.
When I create a web page, it looks essentially the same in every browser. I have MS IE, FireFox, Modzilla, Netscape and Opera.
When I look at the web pages in Safari for Windows, it’s a totally different and frustrating experience. All the text is BOLD, and all the text that should be bold is BOLDER. On my LCD display that’s less then a year old, the text looks smudged – some of the letters “S” look like the Number “8” – many lines of text look they were printed on paper with still-wet ink and someone took a finger to them…
EVERY web page loads loads slower in Safari then they do in any other browser – FireFox loads them fastest of all.
I don’t understand how any of this translates into Safari rendering web sites “properly” or “the way they should look.” If every other browser renders a web page the exact same way and Safari renders them in a way that makes them look differently (IE Worse) then isn’t the problem with SAFARI and not the other browsers or the sites themselves?
I’ll have Safari running while I’m working in FrontPage or Adobe Illustrator and I’ll get an error message saying Safari has to shut down because of a critical error. Reporting the error causes my machine to lock up or freeze…
By the way, the spell checker does nothing. Selecting it from the menu doesn’t do anything…
I’ve tried to use Safari since I downloaded it Friday Afternoon and rebooted my machine once each day (four shut-down/reboots in 4 days.) It’s the biggest waste of time.
“The fact is, websites that are badly written and don’t work well under Safari will make things like the iPhone look bad – people will cuss out Apple rather than recognizing M$ fault for its pseudo-standard implementation of html/xml/java.”
Pseudo-standard? Are we Macabites getting a wee bit standoffish?? IE, Firefix, and Opera all handle “Microsofts'” implementation with ease. It’s really not hard to do. This is internet based technology we’re talking about. Apple has absolutely no excuse for creating an inferior browser. Even they have enough technical know-how to create a browser that can actually render pages correctly, yet they refuse to use it. Typical.
The correct implementation of html/xhtml/xml/java, etc. isn’t dictated by Microsoft, as you say. These are standards developed by groups such as, and spearheaded by, the W3C. Microsoft, Firefox, and Opera simply adhere to the standards as they are supposed to. Apple, on the other hand, continues to “think different”, and produce shoddy browsers that simply don’t measure up.
The fact that Apple has been able to brainwash you into actually believing that Microsoft is somehow responsible for Safari’s massive shortcomings is laughable… and very, VERY sad.
Why did Apple CEO Steve Jobs release Safari, the company’s hitherto Mac-only Web browser for Windows?
Because he’s a genius, that’s why.
Forget about browser market share on the desktop, not that it won’t come along for the ride, but desktop share for share’s sake is beside the point.
Mr. Jobs is thinking twelve moves ahead and playing the game to win; the game, not a game. You see, I firmly believe that Steve Jobs’ ultimate goal has long been to take back what he believes is rightfully his, and Apple’s. Well, they’ve long been the same thing, Jobs and Apple: “Jobsapple.” You know, like Brundlefly, but much neater – the ears stay on – and without the bad ending.
What’s Jobs’ and Apple’s, of course, is “personal computing.” But, “personal computing” is evolving rapidly away from the desktop. It’s going portable: laptops, sure, and also powerful full-featured mobile devices like the iPhone. iPhone, as I pointed out back in January, “is really a small touchscreen Mac OS X computer, a Mac nano tablet, if you will.”
Jobs is betting that the iPhone will be a big hit. That’s a good, sound bet. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is predicting 45 million iPhone units sold in 2009. That’s on top of his expectations for 12.4 million in 2008 and 3.2 million units this year. That’s roughly 60 million units in the next 30 months – and I believe he’s underestimating!
So, with 18.6 million Safari users currently, according to Jobs’ in his WWDC Keynote yesterday, and some percentage of Windows Safari users to come, with the Mac user base growing nicely, plus all iPhone users on Safari, we’re looking at 100 million or more Safari users within 30 months.
That’s a lot of users. Not counting any new devices Jobs has up his sleeve, either. Developers, developers, developers! Build it and they will come.
Steve Jobs, by releasing Safari to Windows, has laid the foundation for the next major computing platform which will be Web-based, built for Safari, mobile, and Apple’s.
The big question is what, if anything (apart from the usual FUD campaign), can Microsoft do to effectively respond to this massive threat?
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
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There is an additional revenue stream that no one seems to have mentioned as a reason for releasing Safari on Windows. That is, launching a revised iWork that is a hybrid of a standalone suite and a web 2.0 offering via .mac. This way, you can access a productivity suite from your mac, your iphone, and your windows pc – all in a uniform way. Businesses would want that before they standardized on iWork. Just some wild speculation.
Gee, that’s pretty thoughtful. But as a developer I’m just happy that I can test Safari but simply running it on my Vista development machine. So thanks Apple for making it easier to test on Safari.
I for one am happily using Safari everyday on my sweet iPhone.
I will not involve myself in the Mac vs. Windows wars, I prefer to have the self-respect to laugh at both of them. The fact they can get some consumers fight amongst themselves religiously over which is better means they’ve won, they can control the pace of innovation as they please without worry. It’s been a mixed bag, we’ve seen them do great things: the iPod/iTunes, XP and we’ve seen them do horrible things: IE6, AT&T;. So really I don’t want Jobs to stick his finger in something that seems to be finally thriving outside of the Apple/Microsoft dichotomy. Luckily, I don’t think I have to worry that much due to the success of Firefox and the continuing improvement of Opera. I haven’t yet found a site that doesn’t fully function in Firefox as opposed to IE or Safari, and though Opera still has issues I feel much safer using it if I think I need to browse with extra caution. Not to mention Opera is the least bloated of all including Firefox and runs the snappiest. I use a PC I built myself and Macs at my school every day, so I know what IE and Safari offer, and they are both dismal compared to the alternatives. Of course, he’s welcome to try and “blow away” the open source alternatives, but I think it’s popularity will remain limited to mostly iPhone users with PCs. Safari for PC won’t be a “massive threat” in the browser world until it can outshine Firefox and others (or more likely RDF/FUD them out of existence).
Safari for Windows , A Superb Alternative to IE.