06.13.07
Safari on Windows
One of the announcements coming out of Steve Jobs’ keynote speech at Apple’s WWDC this week was the fact that Safari, the web browser for Macs, is now available for windows.Why would Apple do something like this?
Maybe they felt that it was a way to introduce Windows users to the Mac world and look and feel… and maybe they would get a few more people to consider getting a Mac…
Or maybe it’s so web developers can try Safari so they know how their pages and apps will look on the iPhone…
Maybe they feel like the browser wars need another round, that there is some reason to make Microsoft and Firefox look bad…
Or maybe there’s a more subtle message being sent… That Apple can port QuickTime, iTunes, and now Safari to Windows… and maybe any code written in Cocoa could soon be built for Windows… bringing a new set of developer tools that allow people to write code that runs on both Macs and Windows.
It could be coming… though I’m not holding my breath. If that’s not the case, there should be some other, bigger goal to making Safari available on Windows (a new product launch?). It’s not like the Jobs/Apple team to release things just for the heck of it.
Jason G. said,
July 19, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Here’s a good article explaining some of the motivation…
Ad revenue sharing from Google for all the people who use that browser. It supposedly adds up to $2 million per month for Apple; the Mozilla Foundation (makers of the Firefox browser) earned approximately $50 million last year.