Steve Jobs' Mob has taken its love for HTML5 to the next base, dedicating a page on the Apple site showcasing how brilliant it all is. But the company won't let you take a look unless you're using Apple-built web browser Safari.
Apple has stuck up a range of several demos to show the new features such as CCS3 and Javascript, but as our mate Rupert Goodwins, Editor at ZDNet, pointed out on his Twitter page, you'll need to download Safari 4 to watch them. We then managed to have a play around with the demos for 5 minutes before Safari completely crashed the PC we were using.
Apple said on the site: "Every new Apple mobile device and every new Mac — along with the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser — supports web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript." These web standards, it says, are: "Open, reliable, highly secure, and efficient. They allow web designers and developers to create advanced graphics, typography, animations, and transitions. Standards aren’t add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today."
For an open web model it's curious that Apple is forcing Safari on curious internaughts.
In between Safari crashing on us, we managed to have a little play with the demos and we have to admit we were quite impressed.
The Typography Demo lets users design sites with rich typography without adding image files and we were able to change fonts, text colour and move the text about. We also really like the Audio demo, which lets you insert audio into your Website without extra plug-ins and the Gallery demo is great for showing how easy it can be to just drop galleries into posts with a simple piece of code and HTML 5 to transition is good for vamping up pictures with a range of animations.
That said, Apple's arrogance has drawn certain parallels with the bully boy Microsoft of old. Microsoft frequently tried to force people into using its browser. It didn't work then, and it won't work now for Apple.
You can view the pages in Chrome but the video, audio and 3D stuff won't work.
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may the forced be with you.
This is the same company that fails to integrate a microphone and camera into their Touch Personal Computer (TPC)?
Oh. 'Tis a glarisome mourning that breaks, indeed.
"Not all browsers offer this support. But soon other modern browsers will take advantage of these same web standards".
So they show off that their browser can handle it. What's the problem with that?
Oh, I see, you just wanted a cheap shot at Apple. What, is Farrell on holiday today or something?
I agree. Even Safari on Leopard / PPC can't cope with all the effects. If you click on the last image it gives this:
"This demo requires a browser that supports CSS 3D transforms.
To view this demo, you’ll need Safari on Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Safari on iPhone OS, or the latest WebKit Nightly Build."
"Microsoft frequently tried to force people into using its browser. It didn't work then, and it won't work now for Apple."
Er, what? It worked excellently well for Microsoft -- they managed to kill Netscape, wound Java, foist ActiveX on the world and bring the web's evolution to a standstill for many years. They achieved near total domination of the browser market and while their influence has now decreased, they still have around 60 % market share despite having the worst product.
Apple probably won't have the same success on the desktop, since they don't have the advantage of controlling the most popular platform.