Safari 4 redux

Created , updated 2 minute read

So, Safari has been out for a while now so I thought I’d revisit my original comments on the beta.

From the "Stuff I’m pleased with" list:

  • Tabs on top: were unfortunately removed from the final version.
  • Full history search: turned out to be just as awesome expected, as did the Smart search field.
  • Top Sites: is indeed gimicky but fun.
  • Full page zoom: definitely makes it much easier to create pages which look good at all zoom levels, and brings Safari into line with Firefox’s behaviour.
  • Speculative loading: can’t say I’ve noticed it yet.
  • Acid 3 compliance: hard to feel the tangible effects of this but any advance towards standards compliance must be good for the web as a platform.
  • Native Windows look and feel: Haven’t even tried it on Windows yet…

From the "Stuff that sucks" list:

  • "Smart" Address Field: Unlike in the beta screenshots, it actually is smart and doesn’t hide URLs. Definitely doesn’t suck any more.

From the "Stuff I’m indifferent about" list:

  • Nitro engine: I’m programming more in JavaScript nowadays and as web applications become more complex I think we’ll appreciate this more and more.
  • Cover Flow: this turns out to be pretty darn useful while searching the history.
  • HTML 5 offline support: Haven’t even looked at it yet.

All in all, I think they’ve done a fantastic job. The new version is fast, slick, solid, and has some very nice features and UI polish to boot.