iTunes to MS -- safari next?

M

macridah

root
Apple is porting iTunes to MS, and quicktime has been ported. Do you think apple should also port safari to MS or keep it mac only.

from macrumors with other random info:

Apple Marketshare, iTMS Windows and Apple as a Software Company...

- PowerMac G5 2.0GHz machines now shipping
- 7 Million active Mac OS X users.
- Panther is due before the end of this calendar year.
- Over 5 million Safari downloads since 1.0 release.
- "You can see, we are getting more and more into the software business so that we become - over time - less dependent on hardware"
- "We're committed to porting iTunes to the Windows platform by the end of the calendar year"
- The iTunes Music Store for Windows is thought to convince people to purchase iPods and -- over time -- Macintoshes.
- US Consumer Marketshare increasing from 1.2% to 3.5% from Q1 2001 -> Q1 2003.
- Education Marketshare increased from 15% to 16% from Q3 2002 -> Q3 2003
- Portable Marketshare (Education) increased from 24% to 30%. (Although Dell has #1 overall, Apple is #1 is portables.)
 
This has come up several times before, this keeps dying because no one seems to be able to come up with a benefit for Apple of porting Safari to Windows (some people mentioned things like "advertising the Apple brand", but that seems like quite a stretch)
 
How about a limited Safari? Sorry, _this function_ is able on in Safari for Mac. :p
 
Originally posted by Giaguara
How about a limited Safari? Sorry, _this function_ is able on in Safari for Mac. :p
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It is not that strange. I know people who have changed platforms just because there programs worked better on a Mac than a PC. Why not? Give the PC world a half-a** app and make it awesome for the Mac.
 
Quicktime was ported to allow quicktime to become "the digital media standard". iTunes will prompt wintel users to buy iPods, and will facillitate the use of the iTMS by wintel users. Safari cannot help apple in any way by being ported. and a half-a$$ app would more likely just make people think that ALL Apple products are of the same quality.

Quit the obsession with having every apple product available for windows.
 
Originally posted by Giaguara
How about a limited Safari? Sorry, _this function_ is able on in Safari for Mac. :p
Click to expand...


It is an idea but it could hurt.

There is nothing worse for a potential customer than to bug them with this, its been done before and it didn't work. people will dislike apple for it and it would potentially ruin its branding...

One of the main reasons I believe is the GUI it is much more responsive and forward thinking the tabbed browsing feature is used effectivley and to simply put it down safari would be a damn good alternative to explorer. just another fresh option.
 
Apple could offer Safari as a replacement for the discontinued standalone version of Internet Explorer, a high-quality, sleek, elegant browser that will evolve with the Internet. This would prompt web developers to start making their sites more standards-compliant as less of their user base is stuck in a proprietary browser.

If an online bank has 10,000 customers, and (by the 5% "rule") 500 use Macs with Safari and 9,500 use Windows with IE, then that bank isn't going to go to much trouble to make their service compatible with more than just WinIE. However, if suddenly half those Windows users used Safari, which hopefully would render pages exactly the same as the Mac version, then they would have to go to great lengths to make their service compatible with more than just IE.

Microsoft is very guilty of the include-this-feature-in-the-Windows-version-but-not-the-Mac-version syndrome. Have you ever seen transitional effects on your Mac using IE, NS, Safari, Camino, or anything else? I sure haven't. The only time I have seen transitional effects is when I'm on a PC running IE. Where are our effects, Microsoft? Don't we get to see cool fades and wipes and the like, too?

In short, Winfari could be a very good thing because it could standardize the Internet and break Microsoft's hold. Do you really want Microsoft to essentially have control of the appearance and functionality of content on the 'Net?
 
Transitional affects? You mean like live shadows, and varying opacity of stuff?
It's called Alpha channels. EVERY other browser (including MacIE) supports it through PNG images. WinIE needs you to "tell" it to use alpha channels, with a special CSS declaration for each PNG, to use "ActiveX extensions".
We don't need ANOTHER browser/os combo to fix things. We NEED developers to stop developing sites with WinIE-only code.
As for "winfari" "standardizing" the Internet. If Windows users are so desperate for a new browser, how come Netscape, Mozilla, etc; are all miniscule players compared to WinIE.

For the everyday user, as much as it pains me to say this, WinIE does what they want, most of the time. It's there, it's integrated, it works.

Now if for instance, Microsoft was found guilty of say.. "Using it's power in the market to squeeze out competition" (oh wait.. it was. the US DoJ is just too spineless to do anything about it) and they were forced to make their "tool for displaying World Wide Web HTML content on a personal computer" compatible with the W3C HTML 4 spec, then we might just be getting somewhere. But that won't happen.

Giving the masses a better alternative to their current (whatever) is nice, but when it's free it's not necessarily business smart.
Making the massess code standards-compliant pages is a feat of wonder, but not likely to happen anyday soon.
Giving the people who buy YOUR hardware and software the best browsing solution for free is really very nice, and smart business sense.
 
Why give PC users a free app that apple cant make a profit off of?

QT - you can up grade to pro for like $20
iTunes - music @ the iTMS for 99¢ a song
Safari - no profit what so ever...
 
Okay, sure, both those programs have upgrade options, but:

QT Player - absolutely free, upgrade not required
iTunes - absolutely free, purchasing music not required

It would be nice if Apple could find a way to milk Windows users with Safari, but I still think browser marketshare is a good way to go. Especially if they started aggressively advertising it.
 
That would mean developing the Webkit framework for windows. It would mean double the work for someone like Dave Hyatt. As I said before. Quicktime gives them compatibility. iTunes gives them (better) compatibility (with iPod), and iTMS. Safari gives us a great browsing experience.
 
Apple should make Safari available to Windows users for the same reason that they're porting iTMS to Windows -- so it can more seriously compete with IE and Microsoft's alternative software. Safari will be a much bigger success if it's made available to the majority of internet users, but frankly, Apple will need to build more features into Safari before Windows users would switch.
 
Originally posted by Ripcord
This has come up several times before, this keeps dying because no one seems to be able to come up with a benefit for Apple of porting Safari to Windows (some people mentioned things like "advertising the Apple brand", but that seems like quite a stretch)
Click to expand...

I rest my case =)
 
Originally posted by macridah
Apple is porting iTunes to MS, and quicktime has been ported. Do you think apple should also port safari to MS or keep it mac only.
[snip]
Click to expand...

I think that Apple may be shooting itself in the foot in the long run by porting iTMS to windows. The reason why I say this is because I think Apple makes most of its money on the sale of desktops and notebooks, and not iPods and music downloads. Increase in market share does not equate to profitability. I think by porting all of these nice-to-haves to windows, dilutes the value of the Apple desktop and notebook. I think there are certain features and extras that need to be available exclusively to owners of iMacs, iBooks, and power macs only.

So I think we should enable Windows to interact with Apple, but we shouldn't enable Windows to perform the same functions that could be exclusive to a Mac.
 
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there with the opinion that 'Mac's are for graphic designers only'... I've been working with a client's developer who said this exact phrase only a few weeks ago (and they develop site's on the Internet!)...

Hence, nobody in the PC world will have heard of Safari, let alone know how great it is.

What they need to see is that Apple produces great products including software. iTunes will do this, QT does already (though I suspect many who use it are blissfully unaware that it's even made by Apple (yes, even though the logo is there!))

Hence, if Apple developed Safari to include/integrate iTunes more, then a port to PC maybe a good idea. But, hang on... isn't that a M$ thing, sticking everything together to make something nobody knows what to do with (.NET Explorer thing!?)...

Every working day of my life is spent dealing with PC's IE baaad standards (non) compliance. Again, if Apple could gain a market share (not saying they would), then maybe M$ would buck there ideas up.

I believe now would be the right time to do such a thing, since, I think the new Explorer system on Windows (as opposed to the old browser concept), is truly shocking, and confusing-bloated.
 
Originally posted by arden
If an online bank has 10,000 customers, and (by the 5% "rule") 500 use Macs with Safari and 9,500 use Windows with IE, then that bank isn't going to go to much trouble to make their service compatible with more than just WinIE.
Click to expand...

Speak for yourself. *this* bank developer's online banking site was tested in safari before IE. :)

I think there are some tiny javascript things that don't work 100% because of the javascript IDE we use, but they're just client-side error handling, server side still works.

Your math's wrong, though 5% with macs != 5% with safari or even OSX. Not sure what the spreads are between OS < X and OSX, and between browsers ON OSX, but Safari would be a miniscule part of the overall numbers. Unless of course that's what half the dev team used. :)
 
Originally posted by malexgreen
I think Apple makes most of its money on the sale of desktops and notebooks, and not iPods and music downloads
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And that can only get them so far... once it's available on windows, the percentages will change, but the total will go up.

The number of people who would buy a mac to use itunes is rather limited, after all. When was the last time you spent over 1000 bucks to use a piece of software that has many free competitors which are basically 'as good' for most uses?
 
Originally posted by lionsweb
And that can only get them so far... once it's available on windows, the percentages will change, but the total will go up.

The number of people who would buy a mac to use itunes is rather limited, after all. When was the last time you spent over 1000 bucks to use a piece of software that has many free competitors which are basically 'as good' for most uses?
Click to expand...

But I don't think that's true. Because of iTMS, iTunes has a lot more value than Windows Media Player, or RealOne Player, IMHO. Just because of iTMS, I see people wanting to buy a Mac.
 
Originally posted by uoba
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there with the opinion that 'Mac's are for graphic designers only'... I've been working with a client's developer who said this exact phrase only a few weeks ago (and they develop site's on the Internet!)...

Hence, nobody in the PC world will have heard of Safari, let alone know how great it is.
Click to expand...

Seems that effective advertising in the places that pc buyers go to to make their purchasing decisions makes more sense than giving them free apps.
 
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