Saturday, June 14, 2003
|
From the Killed-Dead-Sam Dept Slashdot | Microsoft Kills off Mac IE While I'm sorry to see Mac IE go, it stands to reason. Mac IE hasn't been updated in several years, has somewhat broken CSS support (although better than OmniWeb 4.2's support, it's nowhere close to being "good".) Safari is the scapegoat, in my mind. Microsoft claims that they can't complete because they don't have access to the underlaying OS. Umm, guys, you're writing a web browser. On Windows, yes, IE is more than a browser - but I don't think anyone would go for that on a mac. Browsing your file system with a web browser? It doesn't make sense to a Mac user, I don't think. Now, yes, being able to open a directory on Windows and then jump right to web is cool, but I only rarely see people use it. What else would they need underlaying access to the OS for? Not for plugins - the carbon version of the netscape API is there. Active-X? Maybe - heaven help us, but maybe. Safari needed to be written. Both to reduce the need for Microsoft's support for the platform, and because Mac OS X needed a modern web browser. A Browser written 4 years ago and only marginally updated since don't count. Yes, I remember thinking that Mac IE 5 would be our savior. It was hot stuff back in the day of IE 5 Windows. Standards support, fast, didn't look like IE 4.5, etc. Now it's old, slow, and buggy. Apple either shot themselves in the foot with Safari (tipping Microsoft to not develop IE Mac anymore), or an amazing stroke of genius (Putting an alternative into play before this bomb dropped). I guess it was going to happen - Microsoft is stopping development of standalone IE anyway. Tying it into the OS further. Logically it would become harder and harder to separate the two, code wise. It was probably a matter of time anyway. BTW: Microsoft seems to have won the anti-trust case. Oh, they're a trust. But they weren't punished. Logically the browser should have been spun off - or kept Always Separate. IIRC they're doing the exact thing they got in trouble for - and appear to be getting away with it. Oh, and Microsoft, it is possible to write mac software without seeing OS X's source. Now we just need a solution for Office in case Microsoft decides to pull that too. |
