I have chosen not to do a full write-up of Safari 4 beta which was released to the Mac and PC masses yesterday, as Ars Technica have covered everything beautifully and intensively. However, I will instead give my very brief thoughts on Safari 4 instead of doing a formal review.
I love it.
Okay, so I’m not going to be that brief. But, that pretty much sums it up. On first opening I wasn’t sure about the new tabs placement at all, which are now located at the top of the browser window as opposed to under the bookmarks bar as in Safari 3 and earlier. For a while I kept double clicking on the bookmarks bar to open a new tab out of habit, but in actual fact I adapted very quickly to the new layout. The + icon at the top right of the browser window to open a tab feels more natural and intuitive. I like it.
The buzz on Twitter seems to be that people are missing the blue progress bar. Big time. Would you believe that I didn’t actually note it’s absence until I saw the masses of complaints. But yes, I think that might be something useful to have back as the little spinning indicator graphic isn’t really indicative of how much time we have to wait for a site to load.
Overall I’m very happy with Safari 4 Beta. Apart from the UI changes and some of the 150 new features, the speed increase is quite an improvement over an already speedy browser. I miss Inquisitor heavily as I can’t set GoogleUK as the default for my search results, but I’m sure there will be a new version along for Safari 4 soon.
So, have you tried Safari 4 beta yet? What are you liking and disliking about it?
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25 Feb 09
4:25 pm
Oh, I am definitely loving the new way tabs have been done. It seems more beautiful and elegant than the tab bar. And the little plus icon is far more intuitive and obvious than double clicking the tab bar, granted I use command-t most of the time.
My other huge love is Top Sites. I love being greeted with that for every new window and tab launch. I used to be greeted by google.com, mainly because it’s a fast loading site.
And my word, the SPEED! Simply amazing how my Mac can contain a Time Machine, and a warp engine!
This is the best browser yet, and I’m glad 1Password was patched so quickly. I, too, miss Inquisitor, but it’ll be back soon, I’m sure of it.
Oh, and Apple, I want that progress bar back. Or some kind of progress indicator. How about a little pie-wedge filly-uppy thingy like the built-in browser in LittleSnapper? That would work. Just not the gear spinner. Please?
25 Feb 09
7:34 pm
Hey Chris! Yeah, the tabs relocation is a very nice touch. I’m totally used to where they are now.
I’m not too bothered about Top Sites, to be honest. I just have a blank page for my Home page and any new tab launches. Top Sites is pretty and all, but I never have been into the coverflow stuff. I always use the icon view in Finder and list or icon view in iTunes. But, at least there’s a bit of iCandy there for when I want it.
The ‘pie-wedge filly-uppy thingy’ would be a great alternative to the progress bar, if they didn’t want to re-instate that. Infact, now you mention it I can’t understand why they *didn’t* go for the pie-wedge filly-uppy thingy in the first place. That would be much better than the spinner. You need to contact Apple about that NOW
25 Feb 09
8:06 pm
There’s a few hacks out there to get the blue progress bar back amongst other things. I’m the sort of person who just does what Apple tell me though, if they don’t want it then I don’t lol! So far I’m finding it very fast to browse sites. I use cmd-t for a new tab but I did used to use the double click method. One thing that is a bit annoying is you sometimes move the browser window about a couple of mm when you’re fiddling with the tabs (these glass trackpads are really sensitive), and I don’t like my windows moved a mm because I gay like that!
25 Feb 09
8:18 pm
I’m the same, Tom. I’m not going to mess with hacks to bring something back that Apple don’t want me to have. I’m a good fangirl
There’s even people frantically looking for hacks to put the tabs back where they were. Some people *really* don’t like change of any sort but they should give themselves a few days to get used to it at least.
26 Feb 09
4:15 am
I had a bit of trouble getting used to the tab location at first, but after the first day I was accustomed to it, in fact I wouldn’t have a even known there was a new Safari out if you weren’t my friend on Twitter! Like many I wish there was still the blue progress bar, but I think I can lean to live with it or wait until the put it back or an equivelent to it. My friend didn’t like it so he went to Firefox, I tried to get him back but there was no going back for him.
Over all I quite like the new Safari.
26 Feb 09
1:53 pm
sam
if you want blue progress bar comes back just type these two lines of code into the terminal:
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4IncludeToolbarRedesign -bool NO
defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4LoadProgressStyle -bool NO
26 Feb 09
2:18 pm
Hey Max! Oh yeah, Twitter is the place for Apple news. That’s where I heard about it first
Glad to hear you’re enjoying it.
Hi Oscar. No, like I mentioned in my comment above I don’t do hacks. I’m not too bothered about the blue progress bar at all
26 Feb 09
7:53 pm
TUAW wrote an article about the new tabs location. This is the best comment left, IMHO.
http://www.quicksnapper.com/purplelime/full/best-tuaw-comment/
Tomacintosh, it wasn’t you was it? If it was then kudos
07 Mar 09
3:13 am
I usually try beta software (I’m running Google Chrome on a work PC) but … last time I messed with an non-release version of Safari my machine was hosed. I’ll wait.