Pinkerton Complains, Safari Continues Lead
posted on february 4, 2004, tag: software
In this latest entry, Mike Pinkerton complains that Apple is spreading "propaganda" with it's most recent performance comparison on the Safari page. He writes:
[The chart] compares it to Camino 0.7 and Netscape 7.0.2. Both of these products are more than a year old and are based off of Mozilla 1.0. Why not compare to Netscape 7.1? Because those numbers don't look as good.
I'd just like to point out a few things. One, Camino 0.7 is still the latest official release of Camino. Yes, it's more than a year old. Doesn't that say more about the development of Camino than about Apple spreading propaganda? Two, is Apple supposed to release comparisons based on nightlies? That's preposterous, and it will never happen. Three, stop fucking complaining about Apple and Safari. Please. We're all begging you. We get it—you're still pissed off about Safari. That's fine. But spend less time complaining and more time working if you want Camino to be on par with Safari. Or, maybe, just release more frequently than every 365 days.
I will admit, however, that listing Netscape 7.02 is strange. Netscape 7.1 was released quite a while ago and should definitely have been used for the product comparison. But the Camino version used was accurate. If you want them to test against 0.8—release it.
As far as Safari goes—1.2 is fantastic. The browser is getting better and better with each release, comparison chart or not. I used to use Camino as my primary browser, but I changed to Safari a long while back due to the slow progress of Camino. Don't get me wrong—I am still interested in using the browser. I'm not interested, however, in painfully slow development cycles and bitching and moaning.
Update: Pink has since updated his entry to clarify that he's mostly concerned with Apple testing against NS 7.0.2, which renders most of my complaint here moot. None the less, for archival purposes it will remain unedited.
Comments
There are 5 comments, comments are closed
Nigel Goodfellow on 02/04/2004:
Camino is great software, but yea- very very sow development. I use Safari as well- It just runs smoother, it seems. The only thing I reallyuse Camino for is browser checks to make sure my stuff looks alright in everything. As for Apple using the older version of Netscape7- It's really unprofessional of them. It seems Apple is doing a lot to piss people off these days. :(
Pink on 02/04/2004:
Mostly i was complaining about them not comparing it to NSCP 7.1, which is MUCH faster than 7.02. Sure, i expect them to compare to camino0.7, but the netscape comparison is just wrong.
—Pink
Garrett on 02/04/2004:
Pink—that's a fair point, although from your entry it sounded just as much about Camino as it was about NS. I see that you've updated your entry to reflect this clarification, so I've updated mine to do the same.
Thanks for your reply.
Steven Garrity on 02/04/2004:
I've been impressed with the progress in Safari too - Apple was smart to hire Dave Hyatt.
The 0.8 release of Firebird coming next monday (Feb 9th) is a big improvement on OS X - it has a new OS X theme, and all around goodness. No shortage of development activity there.
AmbitiousLemon on 02/05/2004:
safari has made great leaps, however, it is by no means the fastest browser available — not by a long shot. It has many strong points, but speed is not one of them and it is dishonest of Apple to portray things as they have.
I use Camino (recent nightlies) and although there has been no release since .7 I still find the camino nightlies to be faster and of better quality than safari. I develop websites and the majority of my rendering problems are still with Safari and no other browser.
The Camino project may have stalled for awhile but recent progress has been very encouraging. It is also interesting to note that the major camino bugs at present are all bugs in OSX introduced with panther. Why hasn't Apple released software updates to fix these? From Pink's blog:
"I'm trying my best to get Apple to fix the rendering regressions they introduced in Panther. One of the bugs is fixed, but not scheduled for any software update. On the other, we're still working with them. Unfortuantely, even if they get fixed, if they don't ship them it's Camino that gets the black eye."
Seems clear to me which development group is working for the best interests of the mac community.