A Tale of Two Safaris: Mac STOMPS Windows

Pete Mortensen ()

Safari Mac.png

To my eternal shame, my job requires that I use Windows at work. Lately, that’s been extremely interesting, because I just got a new machine at the office, and it’s spec’d similarly to my beloved 2.4 Ghz Unibody MacBook. That means that I actually get a pretty clear sense of the relative performance of Windows XP v. Mac OS X (what, you expected Vista). Honestly, for most tasks it’s a wash. I don’t do a lot of heavy graphics work on either platform, and web browsing is kind of web browsing. I typically use Chrome (fastest Windows browser) at work and Camino (fastest Mac browser at home).

Today was really interesting, however, because I tried out Safari 4 for Windows before I got to it for Mac. And I was extremely disappointed. It ran no faster than Chrome (maybe a bit slower), and it misrendered at least 50 percent of the sites that I visited — it couldn’t find thumbnail pictures, and it was flat-out ignoring CSS sheets on several sites. Within about an hour of starting use, I uninstalled it and moved back to Chrome. The beta is just about as beta as anything bearing the name I have ever seen. Running the Acid 3 test crashed the browser.

Installing Safari 4 to Mac, however, was as far removed from it as I can imagine. Animations were smooth out of the thumbnail Top Sites page. The browser aced the Acid 3 test on the first try — and each successive one. Twitter loaded like it was an app on my hard drive. A heavily Javascript driven message board I visit popped up faster than anything I’ve seen it since I was on text-based USENET in the mid-90s. It lived up to the hype, and it actually provided a worthy contender to Camino as the best browser on the platform (although I ain’t switching anytime soon; ).

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I’m left at a bit of a loss from all of this. On the one hand, I’m delighted to have a blazing-fast new web browser for my Mac. On the other hand, I can’t believe Apple would ship such terrible software for Windows. How are you going to convert anyone when your product is inferior to the status quo?

22 comments »

About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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Posted in Reviews, Software |

  • CG

    Nag, nag, nag… it’s freakn BETA, dude! This is fast turning into CultofCRAP and not Cult of Mac! There is tons of great things happening, great applications being made for the Mac, great news to report and you continue to stick about 25% negative Apple/Mac coverage in here and ruin the “Cult” part of the good 75% part of it… geez, would someone else take over the baton, in these days, the greatest days Apple has ever had… record $10 Billion quarter, iPod, iPhone dominance… and YOU KEEP NAGGING! Put it on the semi cult of Mac/PC web site!

  • Nadya Suleman

    The Windows Safari 4 works great for me. Your windows machine must be badly screwed up.

  • http://www.yummyapp.com/ Stephen Darlington

    I had a very different experience on Windows (I’ve not dared upgrade at home on my Mac). It feels faster than Chrome, it’s stable and renders all the sites I’ve been to just fine. This on a dual-core AMD, XP laptop with 2Gb memory.

    I really couldn’t like Safari 3 on Windows but this is pretty good. I’m close to switching Safari to the default browser.

  • pawel_z_wrocka

    Strange, I have just the opposite experience (though my work PC, Lenovo W500, is quite different from my home white iMac).

    I installed Safari 4 on the PC first. It runs like a breeze, 100/100 Acid3 Test. Then I installed it on my Mac. No big problems here, but when I run it for the first time, the intro refused to play. It kinda sucked in comparison to Windows (sic!). I have yet to run the Acid3 at home.

  • mimimi

    i dunno what you’re talking about. i just installed safari4beta on my vista sp1 32bit, it runs perfectly well and smooth and passed the acid3 test with 100% without any hiccups. all the web sites i have done look exactly the same as before. perhaps your windows machine is a mess and the webmasters of those sites used nasty CSS hacks. anyway, my first impression was totally different than yours.

  • http://macphobia.com MacPhobia

    How are you going to convert anyone when your product is inferior to the status quo?

    Quite right

  • Chris Herbert

    I too, am not thrilled about Safari 4 on my XP machine. I can’t get Top Sites or Cover Flow to work and I have 96MB of video memory on an Intel Extreme Graphics card. Does anyone else have the requirements but cannot run these features? Thanks.

  • http://greginthedesert.net Greg Smith

    I had the opposite experience. I installed Safari 4 on a rather ancient T42 with Windows XP. I did not have any rendering issues and found Safari 4 significantly faster than 3.

  • http://mario.ec Mario

    I’ve had no issues with Safari on Windows XP, both at the office and running it with Fusion on my Macbook… Both handled everything as expected, including the Acid3 tests

  • firesign

    safari for windows has sucked since day one. as in massive suckitude. i don’t even know why apple is bothering with it (btw apple, PLEASE stop trying to ram it down my throat when updating itunes for windows). most windows users just use ie or firefox. on the other hand, i totally agree about safari 4 on the mac. i installed it on my 15″ unibody mbp last night, and so far i’m very very impressed.

  • http://www.unifiedforunifat.com Will

    hey
    thanks for sharing your thoughts. Your experience with Safari 4 Beta on windows seems contradictory and almost uncharacteristic to everyone else’s usage. could it possibly be your windows machine (wouldn’t be surprising)?

    Thanks
    ~Will-i-am~

  • the Dude

    It ain’t shipped anything final yet. It’s BETA software still!

  • http://icedtrip.net icedtrip

    Terrible software? Inferior to the status quo? What am I missing here?

    Although I have not had a chance to try the beta on a Windows machine, is the beta that much different than it is on the Mac? I’m also running under the assumption that Firefox would be considered the status quo.

  • torigirl

    Tabs now on top of everything. No refresh/stop button at all, only Command R.

    Coverflow does not fill all the 12 boxes with content, only the generic logo.

    Granted, iTunes is a sort of browser — Safari doesn’t need all it’s features, like Coverflow or Icon view or Spaces or whatever you call it.

    Snow Leopard OSX 10.6 will be all about performance, why this stupid eye candy instead of options like some 3rd party utilities like Glims, PithHelmet and Safari Source?

  • Viswakarma

    Safari 4 is a beta!!! In addition Windows is one lousy OS! I live with it for 8 hrs during the week, cursing the stupid piece of crap every few minutes.

  • Greg

    “…On the other hand, I can’t believe Apple would ship such terrible software for Windows. How are you going to convert anyone when your product is inferior to the status quo?”

    Could it be because it is BETA??? Just a thought. :-/

  • http://www.wiredtocare.com Pete Mortensen

    When I said “status quo,” I meant Google Chrome. Safari 4 beta for Windows isn’t better than Chrome, so there’s no reason to switch, even for a leading-edge user. And I’m comparing Apples to apples here: Chrome is much faster on this particular machine.

    And as to the beta comments, Apple was clearly comfortable with Safari 4 for Mac — they deleted Safari 3 once it installs. It’s just not a very good piece of software for Windows, when it could be the best argument possible for switching to a Mac…

  • E

    I witnessed no such issues with Windows. In fact, the performance was so good and the stability and rendering were so good I left Chrome for it. I would tend to agree with your other readers who argue you should be examining your system for any issues.

  • Tom Benson

    You need a windows machine with a graphics card that supports DirectX 9.0, or you will not see any of the 3D features (CoverFlow etc), and may experience rendering problems…

    Running a machine with 96MB of graphics memory, I’m surprised you get any 3D / OpenGL / DirectX programs to work…

  • http://www.cyclelogicpress.com Partners in Grime

    Safari 4 works great here.

    “No refresh/stop button at all, only Command R”
    Check to the right in the address bar.

  • Sean

    Torigirl, the refresh button is in the address pane, just like on the iPhone and Touch.

    Coverflow and History need a few minutes to load all of those web sites. Once they are loaded it is quite smooth and functional. As long as you leave Safari running, which I do, you wont have to wait for the loading again.

  • http://appbeacon.com AppBeacon

    I have the same situation. Develop on XP during the day and Mac at night. I installed Safari 4 on the XP machine before Windows.

    That’s where we part ways. I’m loving Safari 4 on my XP machine. It works great. I just wish there were more control of tabs. WHY can’t I set Safari to open all new windows in tabs of the current window. Hello???

    P.S. Safari 4 is MUCH faster on my wife G5 iMac than before.