&uot&t
“While a Mac is a unified, tightly controlled hardware-and-software product from Apple, a PC contains an unpredictable mixture of hardware components integrated by any number of companies, lorded over (usually) by a Microsoft operating system,” Mike Elgan opines for Computerworld.
“The insular Apple universe is a relatively gentle place, an Athenian utopia where Apple’s occasional missteps are forgiven, all partake of the many blessings of citizenship, and everyone feels like they’re part of an Apple-created golden age of lofty ideas and superior design,” Elgan writes. “But the Windows world isn’t like that. It’s a cold, unforgiving place where nothing is sacred, users turn like rabid wolves on any company that makes even the smallest error, and no prisoners are taken. Especially the Windows browser market.”
MacDailyNews Take: If the Windows sufferers are so unforgiving, why do they continue with Microsoft’s Windows?
Elgan alleges, “Apple sent its first emissary, the beta version of Safari for Windows, into the Windows world, and it was unceremoniously kicked into the well.”
MacDailyNews Take: Proof for that statement? Elgan offers none. A roster of ignorant Windows-only tech nerds spouting off in online forums does not necessarily translate to the general public. In fact, usually it doesn’t. See the insular Windows-only crowd’s initial receptions to Apple’s iPod and iTunes for prime examples. Safari is hardly the “first emissary” into the WIndows world: see QuickTime, FileMaker, iTunes, etc. By the way, Elgan really ought to read the publication for which he writes: Computerworld: Apple’s Safari for Windows well-crafted and fast – very fast – June 14, 2007
Elgan predicts, “Apple can expect much more of this in the future. The problem? Safari for Windows just isn’t Windows enough… Apple will need to do things the Windows way or get eaten alive… Apple will need to approach Windows UI with humility — a rare commodity at Apple — and do things the Microsoft way, or pay the price in market share.”
“Direct competition on a level-playing field that Apple doesn’t control just isn’t Apple’s thing,” Elgan explains. “Safari on Windows will fail.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Fail at what, exactly? Fail to subject users to multiple ActiveX vulnerabilities per day? Is Elgan predicting that Apple will pull Safari for Windows from the market? Regardless of whatever failure he thinks will befall Safari, you can bet that we’ve iCal’ed Elgan’s pronouncements for future reference. And calling Safari for Windows not “Windows enough” is a compliment. If Apple “did things the Windows way,” Safari would have to be rewritten to suck.
The fear emanating from some quarters of Apple in general and Safari for Windows in particular is palpable.
Did someone say iTunes for windows?
MDN – you are wrong this time.
What he writes couldn’t be more true.
I agree– fail at what? Likely twice upping its share and making more money off of google searches?
I wish I could fail like that.
MW “fall,” as in “Whatever.”
…because we all know what a bloody wreck that turned out to be
MW: problems, as in this guy has problems
His collegue said the exact opposite in an article just yesterday.
Whatever Apple does, I hope they NEVER do things the Doze way. EVER.
“Apple will need to approach Windows UI with humility — a rare commodity at Apple — and do things the Microsoft way, or pay the price in market share.”
Is this guy dense or what? How can Apple lose marketshare when it’s starting from ZERO in terms of Safari marketshare for Windows?
He’s so itching for Apple to fail, it’s like watching a dog chasing its own tail.
Elgan – Angle – Angel – Glean – The best one – Nagle, the Knight of Norleens, NOT.
first emissary? I think not. FileMaker Pro has been running on Windoze for more than 8 years!
Didn’t the Windows fanbois say the exact same thing about iTunes for Windows?
Exactly.
Interestingly enough, Safari isn’t Apple’s first foray into the Windows software world. Quicktime has been with us, lo all these years. Then there’s iTunes. So it seems that Apple can write great products for Windows. I have no doubt that Safari will bring Apple lots of money via search and be the platform for iPhone development, as intended. Everything else is just gravy.
Fairly bizarre post really — it’s difficult to see failure for safari, when its marketshare starting point is a flatlined nil.
Besides, what about iTunes?!
Over a million downloads in 48 hours…well, a lot of Windows users seem to feel otherwise.
Enough said.
This kind of article just is more proof to me that there is obviously something under the table for writing articles that poop Apple and uplift M$.
Just like the WinSin bimbo the other day
who said Leopard looks like Vista.
If you got facts, report ’em…good or bad. But just report facts. Keep Safari the same across both platforms, like iTunes. A reminder to this guy…iTunes is one of the largest Windows program downloads…close to 300 million. The iPod uses iTunes…the iPhone uses Safari and iTunes. If the iPhone does well, Safari will surpass Firefox and will gain market share.
“”But the Windows world isn’t like that. It’s a cold, unforgiving place where nothing is sacred, users turn like rabid wolves on any company that makes even the smallest error, and no prisoners are taken.”
It may be a cold place, but “unforgiving?”
Windows users forgive Microsoft on a daily basis for it’s unstable, security infested, proprietary, good enough slapped together products they use every day.
Time to kicked it into the well.
The author of this article doesn’t know what he’s writing about … one example: iTunes for Windows was Apples “first emissary” into the Windows world, NOT Safari for Windows. Elgan is just wrong … wrong on the facts and wrong on his prognostications.
I sit corrected on the first Windows App from Apple. Shows how much I know about Windows software!!!! <big grin>
“The Windows world is cold an unforgiving …”
Windows users are the most forgiving users ever, given their tolerance of the legion of security flaws over the past … (how long was Vista gestating?) … several years.
Did the “cold and unforgiving Mike Elgan” achieve anything in the world of Windows? Did he even hint at a possible class action suit against MicroSoft?
I doubt it.
Wonderful, isn’t it!
John
The writer is right!
Apple will not survive any direct competition against Microsoft. Bill Gates will eat Apple for breakfast. He will chew them up…
Don’t play with a sleepy lion – when this great lion bite, he BITES!!!
Now Apple will have to suffer the consequences of this guy Steve Jobs’s super ego.
Stick with your pathetic OS Steve!!!
The most important reasons to release windows Safari are perfect iPhone and iTunes compatibility and much less about pure competition with Microsoft. Am I wrong?
Again the window’s crowd fails to see Apple’s motives and take things at face value.
Apple’s goal is NOT to compete agains Internt explorer or other Windows centric programs. It is to create a cross-platform environment for iPhone applications and provide a easy means of testing them for Windows based development shops (i.e. no need to buy iPhones to test their apps).
If they achieve just that (and they will), Safari will have succeded. Success being defined by Apple’s goals of course not by some Nerdy Windows’ geek vision of the world.
I agree with Computerworld and IMat on this one. I find this move puzzling. In fact, even though I love Safari and use it as my primary browser on my Mac I find the existence of Safari in itself a bit puzzling.
I think Apple would do much better to make Firefox the “standard” browser. First, it covers their flanks a little as they have less exposure to bad press like this article.
Second, it bolsters Firefox against IE and gives people even more of a reason to move away from IE. Now when someone sees the light and wants to dump IE, there’s a choice between Safari and FF. I don’t see how that helps the cause.
Third, Firefox does all the work, saves Apple from incuring the cost of developing and maintaining a product they make no money from anyway.
Fourth, it’d be warm-and-fuzziness all around for Apple to embrace FF.
Fifth, now as a web developer I have one more browser to test my sites with…
Last, of all the software out there I’d choose an Apple product 99% of the time over another brand. The one application I could live without and be happy is Safari replaced by FF.
My 2 cents.
This is seriously crap journalism, the comment
“users turn like rabid wolves on any company that makes even the smallest error, and no prisoners are taken. Especially the Windows browser market.”
begs the question, if windows user are so rabid, why have they never turned on microsoft, who produce a constant pile of ‘turds’ and make many mistake
Yeah, his argument falls down because he tries to make Windows out to be some free market haven where only the best succeed, bla bla bla…And tries to conflate Safari’s beta insecurities with Apple’s OS X security as some very broad ‘thing that will be bruised’
Nothing could be further from the truth. On a Mac you can run Beta software just fine, in a sandbox. In Windows… one program, just might take down your whole fuckin system.
Hehehe…
Which returns me to my original point: if Windows was so unforgiving because of ALL the devs competing… why is 95% of Windows software clunky, awkward looking and a pain in the ass to use?
“…Apple will need to approach Windows UI with humility…” This is the kind of Windowfied-using arrogance I like to throw in the face of those who claim that Apple users are somehow high-brow-seperatists with their heads in the clouds just because we see and use something else – something that, putting it very mildly and exremely fairly, is just as good as anything MS has ever put out or ever will put out.
The fact the Safari doesn’t look like a Windows product is not an accident – it’s an attempt to awaken poor dupped Windows users into the fact that there really are choices.
And finally, the big evil world of Windows is not even a tiny bit intimidating to Mac users or developers – we simply feel sorry for 95% of the world that’s been bamboozled and subsequently locked into using something called Windows. Mac users are very demanding and at the same time more reasonable, and that equals getting our real needs met by our developer of choice.
You really should come on in, the water’s perfect. Stop wasting time grand standing and trying convince yourself that you’re somehow more in touch with reality because you have to try harder to make what you’re unnecessarily stuck with work. You’re not going to get any medals for living your computing life this way, and no one give a sh@t about the fact that you do waste so much time trying so hard, so why keep doing it the same old way? Hmmmm?