I am going to keep this blog entry short.
Apple’s Safari for Windows is an embarrassment to Apple:
1. Not even basic DHTML fuzz testing was done – for a product that Apple claims it’s “engineers designed Safari to be secure from day one” to not pass basic, publically available tests is a good indication of how seriously Apple really takes security (e.g. not very). As a result, an exploit for the beta is already floating about.
2. Stop crapping on Microsoft’s UI guidelines. They are kept purposely loose, but that doesn’t mean you can just wholesale port the Mac UI conventions and break any look-and-feel commonality with everyone else’s Windows apps. It was annoying with I-Tunes, but it’s inexcusable in Safari (and yes, Aero Glass is prettier than the hideous new Leopard grey theme).
3. Dear Apple, your font rendering technology is obsolete. Don’t shove it down Windows users throats when ClearType is VASTLY superior (see screenshot here – Safari on the left, IE7 ClearType on the right).
In short, perhaps Apple should spend the time making I-Tunes work correctly on Vista and not dumping yet another poorly coded, ill-conceived Mac advertisement on to the Windows platform. Leave Windows desktop applications to companies and organizations that actually have some (even if very small) level of respect for the conventions of the Windows platform.
