Sam Oliver
French website MacGeneration reported Saturday images of new English-language support documents alleged to be from Apple, containing a list of features in Safari 5. It suggests the software update will include 25 percent faster JavaScript performance than Safari 4 and DNS prefetching to speed up browsing.
The document also mentions a new feature, Safari Reader, which adds a Reader icon to the browser and allows users to view articles "in a single, clutter-free page."
Expanded HTML5 support will reportedly add over a dozen new features, including Geolocation, full screen and closed captions for HTML5 video, and more. The update will also allegedly feature new tools that aim to help developers, including a Timeline Panel in the Web Inspector, identifying areas for optimization.
Other features mentioned in the documents include smarter address fields, hardware acceleration for Safari on Windows, search history with date, a "Private Browsing" icon, and improved page caching.
Safari 4 was released just less than a year ago, on June 8, 2009. Apple dubbed it the "world's fastest browser," saying it ran JavaScript 4.5 times faster than its predecessor. It is available for both Mac and Windows.
MacGeneration also reported Saturday that Mac OS X 10.6.4 will see release from Apple this week. The site also had a screenshot of a list of features from an English-language document. It features the same list of improvements that have been seen in the beta builds of the Snow Leopard operating system seeded by Apple to developers.
The update will allegedly resolve an issue that causes the keyboard or trackpad to become unresponsive, fix a problem that prevented Adobe Creative Suite 3 applications from opening, and addresses a playback issue in DVD Player when using Good Quality deinterlacing, among other fixes.
Update: Finally, MacRumors reported Saturday that it has heard that new version of Xcode, version 4, will be shown off this week. Xcode is the suite of tools used to develop software for Mac OS X.
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Marko Zivkovic
Wesley Hilliard
Amber Neely
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
74 Comments
Will Apple continue to add to the developer tools until we have a nice pro html editor?
I hope safari 5 for windows will handle html5 as well as safari 4 for mac os x; in apples html5 showcase a lot of features don't work as well as on the mac.
but what about a new mobile safari?
For some reason, this article brought back some old memories...
Remember when lack of a decent web browser dominated discussions on mac related forums? IE had been left to languish, firefox wasn't yet on the scene, and the few other alternatives weren't terribly compatible. With nearly everyone grudgingly using IE, performance was a HUGE issue. Simple scrolling and window resizing were actually benchmarks that people debated endlessly.
Now though, it seems that web browsing has progressed to such a point that it is no longer an interesting topic for discussion. Or perhaps just that it is no longer one of the most interesting topics. Instead, we've moved on to discuss other things; like flash, web video standards, etc.
I'm betting this thread doesn't get too many comments...
The document also mentions a new feature, Safari Reader, which adds a Reader icon to the browser and allows users to view articles "in a single, clutter-free page."
Isn't this already a feature in Safari? I ws pretty sure it made a pretty decent RSS reader. It was one of the major features of some version. I do not remember which one, but I do know they made a big deal out of it.
I actually expected this after seeing Apple post that HTML5 page. Apple is investing a lot in the web, but doing so rather quietly. Safari's webkit base is, no matter what is said in the court of public opinion, leading the charge in improving browser features, and bringing the web into a new age.
Sadly, the same cannot be said for Microsoft, who's idea of leading the way is stealing from others, or do the bare minimum to save face.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Microsoft hater, or an Apple Fanboy. It just seems Microsoft are really dragging their feet here, and they don't seem to care.