Apple Announces Safari 4 Public Beta

R0GUE · #1 02-24-2009, 03:52 PM

Apple today announced the public beta of Safari 4 for Mac and PC that brings several new features including a new 'Nitro' engine.

The Nitro engine in Safari 4 runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3. Innovative new features that make browsing more intuitive and enjoyable include Top Sites, for a stunning visual preview of frequently visited pages; Full History Search, to search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages; Cover Flow, to easily flip through web history or bookmarks; and Tabs on Top, to make tabbed browsing easier and more intuitive.

“Apple created Safari to bring innovation, speed and open standards back into web browsers, and today it takes another big step forward,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Safari 4 is the fastest and most efficient browser for Mac and Windows, with great integration of HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards that enables the next generation of interactive web applications.”

Safari 4 is built on the world’s most advanced browser technologies including the new Nitro JavaScript engine that executes JavaScript up to 30 times faster than IE 7 and more than three times faster than Firefox 3. Safari quickly loads HTML web pages three times faster than IE 7 and almost three times faster than Firefox 3.

Apple is leading the industry in defining and implementing innovative web standards such as HTML 5 and CSS 3 for an entirely new class of web applications that feature rich media, graphics and fonts. Safari 4 includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies so web-based applications can store information locally without an Internet connection, and is the first browser to support advanced CSS Effects that enable highly polished web graphics using reflections, gradients and precision masks. Safari 4 is the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test, which examines how well a browser adheres to CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG web standards that are specifically designed for dynamic web applications.

Innovative new features in Safari 4 include:
Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages in a stunning wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click;
Full History Search, where users search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to easily return to sites they’ve seen before;
Cover Flow, to make searching web history or bookmarks as fun and easy as paging through album art in iTunes®;
Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing with easy drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones;
Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history;
Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches;
Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site’s layout and text;
built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility; and
a new Windows-native look in Safari for Windows, that uses standard Windows font rendering and native title bar, borders and toolbars so Safari fits the look and feel of other Windows XP and Windows Vista applications.

Apple - Safari 4 Beta

Taisto · #2 02-24-2009, 04:20 PM

Nice to know, i`m getting the beta right now. Anyway, i was wondering when CoverFlow will enter into the Safari - guess we didnt have to wait long. And a very nice thing - native font rendering for Windows version, cause older one looked terrible sometimes.

Added :

Ok got it, will test for some time. But - first things, it works very fast, it gets 100/100 in Acid3 test, every site which i visit regularly is working correctly, Top Sites are very nice, and Apple proved something once again - noone makes better eye-candies than Apple...even inside a web browser ( cover flow, top sites, animation with zooming selected site etc )

throttlemeister · #3 02-24-2009, 10:36 PM

Starting for the first time, you get that Safari4 animation on the Apple website: *BOOM*

Restarting, opening a second tab: *BOOM*

Not very stable or useful. Not for me at least. Removed it again real fast. My system is fast & stable. But S4, nope.

Puttabong · #4 02-24-2009, 11:02 PM

Very interesting!
My first impressions are positive.

For those of you who don't like the tabs on top, fire up the Terminal and enter:

Code:

defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO

R0GUE · #5 02-25-2009, 12:05 AM

I'd love to try it but the beta destroys many input manager hacks such as 1Password :/

*Update*
I found out on the arstechnica site that 1Password can be enabled quite easily:

Quote:

- Quit Safari
- Locate 1Password in your /Applications folder
- Ctrl-click > Show Package Contents
- Contents > Resources > SupportedBrowsers.plist
- Root > Safari > MaxBundleVersion > Change 5525.9 to 5528.16
- Start Safari

If you don't see the icon, customize the toolbar and the icon will be there to drag in.

The number 5528.16 is the current build of Safari 4 as released today. That will no doubt increase with updates. And you'll have to fix this every time you install an update of 1Password until the folks at Agilewebsolutions it. Which shouldn't take too long considering how easy a fix this is.

newbmac · #6 02-25-2009, 02:02 AM

Adblock work?

blast9999 · #7 02-25-2009, 05:04 AM

One thing that always bothered me about the tabs in Safari was that I could never find the keys to move from tab to tab. This new version solves that with a easy to remember key - control-tab to move to the right and control=shift=tab to move left. Very handy when comparing two webpages, and flipping back and forth without having to navigate with the mouse. What about adding a feature like W7 where two pages could snap side by side?

oneshot · #8 02-25-2009, 05:04 AM

hmmmm well right after the welcome to safari 4 video thing safari crashed and each time I try to go to it after the video it crashes....also I tryed oppening a new tab and it crashed....weird

Edit: Yeah it crashes ever time I try to oppen a new tab >_<

Also If I try to show new sites????

is this a problem with my video card or something???

blast9999 · #9 02-25-2009, 05:15 AM

Is you homepage set to the default Apple one? That page has a lot going on and I wouldn't bother going there first. Mine showed a black screen on the intro page, so I closed it and opened my last session tabs and it worked ok, showing them all normally so far. It did overwrite Safari 3 with 4 so it makes it hard to compare the two.

oneshot · #10 02-25-2009, 05:42 AM

yeah my homepage is the apple one. Its weird.

If I try to open a link in a new tab by holding command and clicking on a link then it will open it in another tab.

If I press Command + "T" than it crashes??