Apple Announces Safari 4 Public Beta
 

http://infinitemac.com/images/news/safari_icon.pngApple 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

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 ) :)

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.

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:

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:

Adblock work?

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?

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???

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.

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??

Same behavior as I am getting.

Maybe it is caused by us not running 10.5.6?

hmmm maby?

I really am trying to postpone installing 10.5.6 as long as I can because I don't want to accedently mess up and kill my Operating System =/

That was my line of thinking too. :)

ay I figured out how to fix it!

its because everytime you open a new tab it opens "Top Sites" in the new tab.'

Go to Preferences and under

New Tabs Open With:

select "Blank Page"

=D

Did you remove the Apple site as your homepage?
That's what I was trying to say...
I've noticed that vers. 4 is faster than 3 for refresh. Plus when it refreshes, the screen freezes for a second or two, and then a full new page appears. Before there was a gradual, and slower refresh. This new one seems way smoother too. I like it!

That does it for me too. S4 does seem to be significantly faster loading pages. So far I like (now that it doesn't crash anymore ;) )

Ohhhhhh I thought you were talking about apple.com haha.

Thank You anyways =)

I wonder why that page is crashing my browser though

Hello,

there is a update for 1Password that add support for S4b.

Secret Safari 4 Menu
 

Someone has worked out how to access Safari 4's hidden preferences. This method allows one to change prefs without the need for terminal commands.

Secret Safari 4 Menu

The first tab really bugs me from an aesthetic and useablity viewpoint, there should be a clear divison from the main window controls imho. Hopefully this will be addressed before final release. I find having to look and move my mouse higher to the tabs awkward but that may be because i'm not used to it yet :-/

The new web inspector is much better offering some basic css editing but still a long way from replacing Firebug for me (a firefox extension).

I will have to try this, but I have never liked Safari, the crashes, etc. I use Firefox. Hopefully, this will be a better version of Safari.

tried, good so far, i liekd so much "Top Sites" feature (i miss that from Opera) and really some improvement loading page speed.

but guys, don't forget remove Safari addons first, no one here advice about that, qand got some crash after update,
remove SafariStand, Glims, Satf, PithHelmet, others

I have taken the plunge and updated to 10.5.6 Vanilla and now Safari 4 does not crash anymore, also nog with the "Top Sites". I don't know what is different, but apparently it likes 10.5.6 Vanilla more than 10.5.5 Voodoo.

Im using voodoo 9.5.0 on 10.5.6 system and it never crashed here on Top Sites, wonder where`s the problem then.

Dunno either, but I do know it doesn't crash here anymore. :)

Its now day two of using Safari 4 and I must confess that it is a welcome improvement over Safari 3x. Issues have been resolved and features that required third party hacks have now have been integrated natively within the app itself. It's also good to see third party devs such as Haoli, MHO and Agile respond so swiftly in updating their code to work with the beta.

However, there is one thing that I'm still uncertain of and that is those darn tabs. I kind of understand why Apple has done what its done, but to me it just feels plain wrong and goes against what we have been taught by Apple human interface guidelines. For example, in Safari 3 I could have several tabs open and could quite easily see my tabs because they were in my 'focus area', but now, visually they are out of my focus area and require me to move my eyes away from where they should be. I know it sounds bizarre about areas of focus etc., but this is what good UI design is all about: making software easier to use and not because it might be more practical, so this turnabout in UI design is more about style over substance in my humble opinion. Another small gripe is that when an unfocused tab is next to the window controls it suddenly gives the familiar appearance of Tiger and its non-unified toolbar:

http://rogue.infinitemac.com/img/Scr...8h.04m.03s.png

See what I mean? That's one thing I love about Leopard's GUI and that is the unified toolbar. I'm not sure what Apple was thinking here.

I also miss the 'stop/reload' button in the toolbar. Placing it in the address bar and having a couple of mouse-over states to change it from reload-to-stop-to-progress indicator is somewhat misleading and not very practical. Fortunately this can be rectified by accessing Safari's hidden preferences. It's also too close to the RSS icon when it's present and might cause some aggravation to users who might inadvertently click away from it. An idea might be to make the stop/reload button in the same vain as the 'add bookmark' button but placing it at the other end of the address bar?

I'm sure there are plenty of users out there who will disagree with me and want to champion the new tabs, that's great! you're welcome to your opinion :)

Maybe one day I'll come around to the new way of doing tabs Apple's way, but for now I'll remain in the retro tabs camp.

Overall I'm still impressed with the beta.

What are your thoughts?

I`ve been using the beta for few days now - sometimes it crashes with many tabs opened, but as for beta - it does work great. I must say that i like the new tabs very much :) Well, the older style was nice to - but i enjoy the change. Rogue, i think you`ll get used to those tabs :)

What i miss in Safari 4 is - stop/reload button, and a button for Top Sites...i know most ppl would say that using Cmd+Opt+1 is easier - but im just used to move my mouse to the left side of address bar and click the button...well, i surely wont get used to using this keyboard shortcut :)

What i dont like in the GUI is...ok, i know it`s stupid - add to favourites button sticked to the addres bar...it hurts my taste :P would rather move it to the left.

About the browser, hmm, it sometimes miss few things on the sites using a lot of java/flash, it`s working faster, i like the top sites function and the animatios, and i hate the fact that loading progress has disappeared from the addres bar. Think that`s all :)

I've tested safari 4 with voodoo final and AnV's voodoo and it crashes instantly. It won't even open. Perhaps it's the new Top sites thing, maybe it's all java, and I'm having a hard time to run certain java apps. So I'm back to safari 3 for now...

@Taisto: Have you updateed your system to 10.5.6 and then installed voodoo's package?
Also, are you running in 64bits?


REQUEST:
Can someone with a 10.5.5 leopard send me these 2 files?
/usr/bin/update_dyld_shared_cache
/usr/lib/dyld
i've downloaded a couple of combo updates and I can't find them.

@eMatoS : I`m using iPC 10.5.6 release with 9.5.0 Voodoo kernel. Running in legacy mode.
Top Sites seems to cause problems on systems lower than 10.5.6, aswell as the Safari intro movie - dunno why.

Thanks Taisto, I'm suspecting that this is related to 10.5.6 dyld and update_dyld_shared_cache. I've been running voodoo since their first beta and never noticed these issues until now. (both files were updated with 10.5.6)
e.g.: in gmail I can't create a new mail, and I'm sure I've done that before the update.
Sorry for the offtopic.

I was mentioning about tabbing thru tabs using the control-tab key combo, also the old command-shift-arrow still works. When doing that I noticed that the tabbing stopped moving with the keys when it hit my gmail webpage, weird?

nice!
but no good to use