Should Apple Ride the FireFox Wave?

jeb1138

jeb1138

Carioca
When Apple released Safari in 2003 nothing big was really happening on the browser scene (on the surface at least), and at the time theirs was the biggest browser news out there.

No one can blame them from not being able to forsee the Firefox explosion, but it's here now. Just compare
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=firefox&btnG=Search+News
to
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=konqueror&btnG=Search+News

Would it be an extraordinarily prudent time for Apple to make a big, big switch right now and turn Safari into an Apple-customized, Apple-optimized custom build of FireFox?

Sure they've thrown a lot of money at Safari development, but those are sunk costs. That's done and over and there's no sense getting teary-eyed about it.

The question is: At the current stage, would it be more profitable for Apple to jump on the FireFox bandwagon? I can see such a move benefitting both camps.

For Apple:
- Apple would get all the benefits of free development on a *popular*, and enormously well-liked, open source browser. Think of all it wouldn't have to do.
- It would position itself even more behind the rising tide of anti-microsoftism by throwing it's weight behind FireFox.
- Its self-touted contributions to open source code that it is giving to Konqueror would suddenly be worth a hundred times more, and would consequently be 100 more times brag-worthy.
- Mac users would suddenly have even better access to Firefox plug-ins (you can bet Apple would find some way to make them even more accessible and help improve on them) which would further annihilate any old preconceived notions about Apple being uncustomizable.
- Apple would have a much easier time getting webpages and webpage developers to work out-of-the-box with it's built-in browser.
- It's just as free as Konqueror.

And for Firefox:
- Firefox would see a very healthy, nearly immediate jump in it's usage (Safari has 1.21% browser marketshare as of today, up from .3% since last November) and its growth numbers.
- Apple would be certain to put some of its advertising power behind the new alliance, and even a tiny chunk of Apple's massive marketing power would be tremendous for FireFox's name recognition and growth potential.
- The news likes FireFox, the news likes Apple, the news likes Google. All three (Google's relationship) would be behind this story. That's what you call beautiful free advertising.

What do y'all think? Is it time for Apple to surf the FireFox wave?
 
Apple needs differences and Apple needs competition.

Therefore it is good that FireFox is available on MacOS. And it is good that Apple proposes another browser.
 
i agree, competition encourages innovation. it should go the opposite way-- firefox should do everything they can to make their browser the best it can be for mac- hence more innovation. (I for one could use a solution to the weird "page-flipping" instance with the two-finger scroll in firefox)
I use both browsers equally, and enjoy the features of both.
 
I think also, the licence of the mozilla core doesn't match with the khtml licence, and doesn't suit apple.
 
I think there's also technical and interface issues here. The interface of Firefox is built using XUL. There's already heavy modification of the core Mozilla code to get it to use OS X widgets as much as it does. Apple would either have to write a whole new front-end (much like they did with Safari and KHTML) or they would have to comprimise on interface (which is unlikely). Camino is an example of what Firefox is like when its more integrated into OS X and almost no one uses it. Firefox also still has tons of Mozilla code hanging on, which isn't really suitable for an app of the profile we're talking about.
Also, we're talking about changing more than just Safari here. WebKit is used by lots of other applications and is integrated at a pretty low level. It would be a big problem for developers if Apple changed the nature of WebKit.
Just my 2 cents.
 
safari is firefox. by apple.

itunes is an apple rebuild of an old first-generation indie music library app

ipod is an apple rebuild of a very good early indie mp3 hard drive idea and robust OS

safari is an apple rebuild of firefox - look at the similarities between the two, it's not that far-fetched, and is in fact true.
 
Lets just let Apple take nice features from Firefox. I'm fine with that. Let that pirate flag wave, baby!
 
I'd rather see the opposite happen - Safari take on some of the most useful things in Firefox (bookmarks panel, extensions, ability to add search engines, etc) and then make Safari available for Windows (just like they did for iTunes).

Firefox has a few advantages which wouldn't suit Apple:
  • Users currently accept that it's a little buggy/experimental
  • It has a common user interface across platforms (I think Safari's UI is better, esp. for OS X)

Kap
 
Ok. screw windows. itunes creates revenue for Apple, it makes sense to port it to windows. safari makes no revenue. why port it?

a sidebar could be added (not sure i'd use it, i use firefox on xp at work, but it's not a widescreen display so not as practical..) for bookmarks, downloads, etc.. and extensions are sorta possible now. SIMBL and AcidSearch (the latter requires the former to work) allows you to change search engines etc..
 
jeb1138 said:
- Apple would have a much easier time getting webpages and webpage developers to work out-of-the-box with it's built-in browser.

What do y'all think? Is it time for Apple to surf the FireFox wave?
Click to expand...

Nope...they're fine just how it is. There's no problems getting pages to display properly as it is now. Both Safari and Firefox have excellent standards compliance. You'd be surprised just how many of the leading XHTML/CSS designers (a vast majority of whom use Macs) use Safari as their main browser.

Those wanting to see what a sidebar looks like in Safari should look at SAFT.
 
I'm so glad somebody poses this question. And "no" is the definite answer. ;) ... Browsing was a drag on Macs for a long time - before several competitors started to actually do something. Safari was key to faster browsing on the Mac, and I'm glad Firefox and Safari are continuously raising the bar of what browsing on the Mac is and should be like. I would even love Microsoft to return with an Internet Explorer for Mac OS X that'd rock the socks out of the others. Back when they brought IE 5 to Mac OS 9, they had a hell of a product that cast a shadow over every other browser out there... But I guess there's not much to be gained for MS here...
 
No.

Firefox is an inferior Mac app which doesn't take advantage of running on a Mac. Why would Apple want to take three steps backwards? Until Firefox is both Cocoa and stops using QuickDraw for rendering it'll remain an out of date and out of touch application on Macs.

Apple would only be hurting itself by supporting software that ignore the advantages of Mac OS X.

Some day, if Firefox catches up to Safari and/or OmniWeb in it's abilities, Apple could consider it. But now it is absolutely out of the question. It may be the best browser on Linux and Windows, but it is far from that on Macs.
 
What would be the point? It'd take just as much work to get Firefox working like Safari (Quartz instead of QuickDraw etc) as it took to make Safari, for no real benefit to Apple or us as users.

Firefox also starts up slower and looks like butt.
 
RacerX said:
No.

Firefox is an inferior Mac app which doesn't take advantage of running on a Mac. Why would Apple want to take three steps backwards? Until Firefox is both Cocoa and stops using QuickDraw for rendering it'll remain an out of date and out of touch application on Macs.

Apple would only be hurting itself by supporting software that ignore the advantages of Mac OS X.

Some day, if Firefox catches up to Safari and/or OmniWeb in it's abilities, Apple could consider it. But now it is absolutely out of the question. It may be the best browser on Linux and Windows, but it is far from that on Macs.
Click to expand...

I think what the original poster meant was that Firefox would be turned into a full Mac app that takes advantage of Mac technology like Safari, so you would have the benefits of Firefox; extensions and customizability and have the benefits of the Cocoa framework as well.

I like firefox better, the extensions are awesome. I can stop people's annoying GIF animations and drop all the ads off of pages that I don't want to see.
 
HateEternal said:
I like firefox better, the extensions are awesome. I can stop people's annoying GIF animations and drop all the ads off of pages that I don't want to see.
Click to expand...
But I can do all that in OmniWeb now. And I have complete access to all my services.

Does Firefox spell check as you type using the same dictionary that you use for most of your apps? Omniweb does for me.
Does Firefox have access to a thesaurus and dictionary, the same ones you use in most of your other apps? OmniWeb does for me (Nisus Thesaurus and OmniDictionary).
Does Firefox have access to most word processing functions? OmniWeb does for me (via wordservices).
Does Firefox have the ability to grab a site? OmniWeb does for me (via Webgrabber).
Does Firefox have ability the open an FTP site in RBrowser? OmniWeb does for me.
Does Firefox create a new window out of a text field for composition? OmniWeb does for me.

And what extensions are out for Firefox that cover these areas for Mac users?

The point is, using Firefox is such an isolating experience for me because it doesn't interact with my other applications. It may as well be a Classic app for how well it works on Mac OS X.

Just because Firefox is the flavor of the month is not a good reason for Apple to abandon WebCore. I'm sure that Linux and Windows users are completely amazed at it... but on the Mac, it is, at best, a mediocre application. Why, because it doesn't work any better than the Linux and Windows versions. Since when should Mac users be happy with common denominator software. Specially when a small amount of work to make it a good Mac app would yield massive benefits.

System services, it seems like a little thing, but it makes a ton of difference.

The thing is, Firefox doesn't need Apple's help to make all these improvements. They could have just made it a Cocoa app from the start. But they really didn't care enough about Mac users enough to know the difference.

I just don't think that either Apple or Mac users should settle for less... specially when we don't have to.


:confused:
And since when do Mac users fall inline with what Windows users think is cool?

Don't get me wrong here, I know it is (in most ways) a personal preference thing. But the least the Firefox developers could have done was started with Camino for the Mac version.
 
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