Safari 4 Beta Observations
Just some quick notes:
1. It took me two installation attempts to get it to launch, the first time round I got a non-launching application and system beachballed for a couple of minutes.
2. With the software updates required to install the Beta, and my two attempts to install the app, I had to do four restarts of the system. A bit like being transported back in time to Windows XP.
3. The tabs on top are an odd choice, there is no visual seperation between the first tab and the window operations (close, maximise, minimise.) You can only rearrange the active tab, and must do so using the extreme right of the tab, whereas before you could rearrange any tab, from any point of origin therein. The rearrangement of tabs seems like much harder work than before. Visually, I’m also unsure as to whether I like them or not - I’m guessing this is something we’ll see more of in Snow Leopard, and which will potentially be available for application developers of multi-tab interfaces, at which point it’ll probably make more sense. For now, it just feels a bit wrong.
4. Still no option to have a multi-line bookmark bar, which is unfortunate.
5. The lack of a refresh/stop button is perhaps going to take the most getting used to. Safari 4 has inherited at iPhone style progress indicator and refresh button which sit within the location field. The lack of a more obvious indication of loading progress is a notable loss.
6. It feels a little quicker, but not greatly so over Safari 3. Javascript performance is definitely improved, but is certainly not as smooth as the copy on apple.com would suggest.
7. Coverflow history, and the top sites mosaic are all very nice, how often I’ll actually use them, I’m unsure.
8. The Google Search with live results are nice, but I prefer the inquisitor style interface which I used in Safari 3.
9. The toolbar is so lacking in whitespace, that it took me 20 seconds of trying to get the context menu in order to customise the button layout before frustratedly retreating to the ‘View’ menu.
