“Apple’s Safari may not be rewriting the rules for Web browsing on Windows just yet, but it’s leading the way with one significant change: photographs with better color,” Stephen Shankland reports for CNET News.
“Unlike the prevailing browsers on the Internet–Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox–the Apple browser supports different ways of encoding images that can mean richer, deeper colors. With the beta version of Safari now on Windows, Mac OS X users aren’t the only ones who’ll be able to see the difference,” Shankland reports.
“Apple machines are in widespread use among graphics professionals, and the operating system supports color encoding schemes that are called profiles and are standardized by a group called the International Color Consortium (ICC). Safari checks to see whether an image is tagged with a particular ICC color profile and displays it accordingly, tuned to work with the user’s monitor,” Shankland reports.
Full article here.
For some reason, I thought of Pleasantville when I read this article.
Y’know I heard a bunch of crap on the net about how Safari isn’t nearly as good as IE, Firefox, blah blah blah, and then I was at a friends house over the weekend and I downloaded Safari for them. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! Safari destroys IE. They were so happy, and I think that Safari for windows is gonna be another hit. It may take awhile, but there’s no question that for the average user, Safari is the obvious choice.
… and blurry fonts too.
they don’t deserve it.
still, could be good for photographers and graphics professionals who need to proof out their work to windoze folks.
Question is this:
If Apple keeps releasing Mac OS X specific software for Winblowschunks, what incentive is there to buy a Mac anymore?
Leave it to Apple to bring Windows users into the 21st Century. Safari’s been color-managed for how many years now?
Yep. I do love telling people that their PC’s aren’t even geared to interpret and show true colours of ICC profiles. After all it makes little or no difference in a spreadsheet.
They always look a bit stunned!
accurate color won’t mean jack sht to pc people, until windows explorer does it too, then all of a sudden, it is as if windows did it first.
It is funny how things done on a mac don’t impress pc people until windows copies it, then it is a must have feature.
Silly question Road Warrior. There are about a hundred thousand reasons..and counting.
The incentive to get a Mac is that when I use my computer I use more than iTunes, Quicktime and Safari. I use OS X for a start. The logic could work that if Windows users are spending enough of their time using decent Mac software then the battle with windows will become ever more annoying.
“… and blurry fonts too.”
Call ’em blurry – I call ’em accurate. Fonts on Windows look to me like the output from my Mannesmann-Tally dot-matrix printer circa 1983. Blech!
Does this mean that Apple will port ColorSync to Windows? Otherwise, how will WinDOS users be able to calibrate Safari with their monitor’s color profiles?
M.X.N.T.4.1: Absolutely. My sister, a hardened Windows user, forbade me from mentioning Mac superiority.
I bought her husband an iPod for his college graduation. She loved it and bought an iPod nano for herself. They both love iTunes.
Recently, her DellBox has been driving her crazy. USB not working correctly… reboot after every device is plugged or unplugged! CD drives no longer recognized… she bought FOUR different ones! Yikes!
She called me one night to ask if everything I’ve been saying about Macs is actually true! Holy Jumpin’ Catfish! Yep, I said, and MORE.
She’s just waiting until she can’t stand it any more. Sooooon, I hope for her sake!
The one sticking point? She want to keep her monitor. The MacPro is too expensive, the mini is, well, the mini. I’m working on a craigslist/eBay/iMac scenario for her. Please Apple, a Mac midi?
@Majikthize:
Safari has recognized ICC profiles since day one. Interestingly, IE for Mac did, too. Even the version for OS9. Mac users have had color managed browsing for over ten years!
@Majikthize
Fonts are displayed better in Safari on Mac for sure. But on Windows, it sucks. I use Firefox instead. Mather of taste I guess.
A shocking number of photographers and graphics professionals got sucked into switching to Windows a few years ago when, for some reason, everyone thought Adobe had abandoned the Mac platform (there was some evidence for this).
They have, in very large numbers, switched back. I have proof of this.
-insider
You don’t say..?
That’s interesting that Safari for Windows has better graphics. I have read where Windows users have been complaining about the blurry text inside Safari, so Apple is at least giving them something better to look at.
I think the best way to respond to comments of “blurry” text with Safari/Win is to call it “more accurate”. The way that fonts are displayed on Windows (in browsers and the OS in particular) is not at all what the fonts actually look like. Its ridiculous.
take a look at this link (from the article) in Safari and other browsers
I tried it in Safari, FireFox and Camino
http://www.color.org/version4html.html
The problem with reading these CNET articles is that we have to endure the asinine comments from the Windows groupies.
It also broke my iTunes-for-Windows. I just re-installed … hope this doesn’t break the Safari 3.0.1 I just updated to.
Had a problem with Safari 3/Mac this weekend – it failed to upload my pod cast to my host. Safari 2 had no problem with that. Good thing I have Firefox as a backup! I mention this mostly because there are as many podcasters out there as there are folks who really need the more precise colors offered by Safari.
DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page
Are there still intelligent people buying windows?
Or should that be, have there ever been?
@hotinplaya:
Thats some wild stuff. Thanks for the link – I guess Camino doen’t make the grade at all with ICC profiles…Safari sure does, though!
I’ve read a lot of opinion pieces that have mentioned how Windows users don’t like the smooth fonts. Seriously? Why would anyone want to look at text in that chunky, blocky, style? Every time I see one of my websites in Windows I cringe and can’t believe that people put up with that. Now Apple gives them something beautiful and they complain? People like that deserve Windows. I just don’t get it.
What does better browser color taste like?
Is it tangy or just super sweet?