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This is Karn's personal view on what is affecting WebKarnage in the world of web and here in the studio. Don't expect subtlety any time soon...
Safari 4 Beta, other Betas and support for them.
Hi all!
Been a long while, but we need to put a few thoughts to you about Beta browsers and developers/users responses to them. This was all brought into a new focus when, just a couple of weeks ago, Apple released the Public Beta of Safari 4.
Wow, what a browser, but what an even more amazing response to it! Let us try and put some perspective onto this, which we think shows how unique the response to this Safari Beta has been.
Internet Explorer 8 Beta has been with us for a while, and has some users, but not really a noticeable amount from the view of the world of development and support, and with Microsoft's track record of changing things dramatically after the release of a Beta, who could possibly afford to put work in to support it, only to have to redo that work in the near future? All developers were turning out the standard response of "We don't support browsers while in Beta". And why wouldn't they. Standard practice we all say, then....
Apple release the Public Beta of Safari 4! The Mac world in particular goes rampant on it, getting Safari 4 reaching over 1 percent of active browsing in a matter of days! In todays market, that is an unheard of response to a Beta, and this isn't just a 'normal' beta from the Mac perspective either. Safari 4 Beta replaces some core parts of the system, namely the WebKit system used by not just Safari, but apps like RapidWeaver (web authoring), DEVONnote (information gathering + browsing), LittleSnapper (screen and web shots with library and browser) and more besides. Other browser plugins were affected too, like 1Password (auto form filling & password generator, a constant companion to many Mac users).
What would be the response? Would we see the expected "We don't support browsers while in Beta"? Not so in this case. A matter of hours, and a little article was produced be Agile Web Solutions on how to get 1Password to accept being used by Safari 4 (a simple plist edit), and in less than 48hrs an update could be downloaded with a permanent fix. These solutions were made public through the use of Twitter very quickly. RealmacSoftware, not far behind, were quickly at work on fixes for RapidWeaver. RapidWeaver uses the WebKit system extensively for previewing sites during building. This meant some internal code changes. The first available fix was again a matter of just a few days. LittleSnapper seemed to work straight out of the box. This is just a quick look at 2 particularly 'on the ball' developers, and more responded too.
What a different response to a normal Beta release! We have to say we find Safari 4 Beta to be at least as stable as Safari 3.2.1, and perhaps this also was part of the reason for such a good reception and a phenomenal take up. It also seems to reduce the system resources required while increasing speed of rendering. For those of us doing web development, there are also awesome tools to help troubleshoot websites including some Javascript debugging. All without any extra plugins required. We even noticed there are significant improvements in the Windows version, running well even on some old machines we tried it on.
Does this set a different standard for Beta release, or is it just a one off? Time will tell. we haven't seen a response quite like it.
WebKarnage
Been a long while, but we need to put a few thoughts to you about Beta browsers and developers/users responses to them. This was all brought into a new focus when, just a couple of weeks ago, Apple released the Public Beta of Safari 4.
Wow, what a browser, but what an even more amazing response to it! Let us try and put some perspective onto this, which we think shows how unique the response to this Safari Beta has been.
Internet Explorer 8 Beta has been with us for a while, and has some users, but not really a noticeable amount from the view of the world of development and support, and with Microsoft's track record of changing things dramatically after the release of a Beta, who could possibly afford to put work in to support it, only to have to redo that work in the near future? All developers were turning out the standard response of "We don't support browsers while in Beta". And why wouldn't they. Standard practice we all say, then....
Apple release the Public Beta of Safari 4! The Mac world in particular goes rampant on it, getting Safari 4 reaching over 1 percent of active browsing in a matter of days! In todays market, that is an unheard of response to a Beta, and this isn't just a 'normal' beta from the Mac perspective either. Safari 4 Beta replaces some core parts of the system, namely the WebKit system used by not just Safari, but apps like RapidWeaver (web authoring), DEVONnote (information gathering + browsing), LittleSnapper (screen and web shots with library and browser) and more besides. Other browser plugins were affected too, like 1Password (auto form filling & password generator, a constant companion to many Mac users).
What would be the response? Would we see the expected "We don't support browsers while in Beta"? Not so in this case. A matter of hours, and a little article was produced be Agile Web Solutions on how to get 1Password to accept being used by Safari 4 (a simple plist edit), and in less than 48hrs an update could be downloaded with a permanent fix. These solutions were made public through the use of Twitter very quickly. RealmacSoftware, not far behind, were quickly at work on fixes for RapidWeaver. RapidWeaver uses the WebKit system extensively for previewing sites during building. This meant some internal code changes. The first available fix was again a matter of just a few days. LittleSnapper seemed to work straight out of the box. This is just a quick look at 2 particularly 'on the ball' developers, and more responded too.
What a different response to a normal Beta release! We have to say we find Safari 4 Beta to be at least as stable as Safari 3.2.1, and perhaps this also was part of the reason for such a good reception and a phenomenal take up. It also seems to reduce the system resources required while increasing speed of rendering. For those of us doing web development, there are also awesome tools to help troubleshoot websites including some Javascript debugging. All without any extra plugins required. We even noticed there are significant improvements in the Windows version, running well even on some old machines we tried it on.
Does this set a different standard for Beta release, or is it just a one off? Time will tell. we haven't seen a response quite like it.
WebKarnage
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