hendron’sdigest

Apple this week released the beta version of Safari, version 4. I have been using the beta now for almost 3 months, but this “new” version has introduced a lot of design modifications, namely, changes to the interface. I applaud Apple for mucking around with UI: this beta will hopefully provide them with good data about how these decisions pan out for users.

The tabs at the top are the most interesting feature, and while I think that accidently closing the tab is likely to happen, I think the tabs at the top are a sign. I believe the tabs at the top make perfect sense. Not for a desktop computer, but for a touch-screen one.

Hitting the very top of a touch screen, such as the one on the iPhone, is difficult to do. Imagine if Apple were working on a hybrid computer: more powerful than an iPhone, yet handheld, and one that features a larger touch screen.

The tabs at the top might just make sense. Then, there is the case of “zoom,” and a new “text-only” version. Previously, text only was the default. But on iPhone, zooming by a pinching method results in the entire display scaling.

Then another interesting feature is the one where you can view favorites in a 3D style array, as if we were viewing all of your favorite sites across multiple monitors. What better way to choose a site than from an appetizing menu.

While I certainly enjoy the faster load times with this new version of Safari, I have convinced myself it contains features that signal a version for use on a larger touch-screen device, i.e., an OS X-enabled tablet.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Macintosh. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.