"William M. Smith" <mecklists[at]REMOVETHIS.mn.rr.com> wrote in message news:<BB449D9B.1053B%mecklists[at]REMOVETHIS.mn.rr.com>...
> On 7/23/03 12:21 PM, "Alberto Cristancho" <acristancho[at]toda.net> wrote:
>
> > I've heard rumors that Microsoft will stop supporting development of
> > Internet Explorer for the Mac in the near future. I would guess that
> > this is due in part to Apple's new browser, Safari, which directly
> > competes with IE. There are many websites that are "optimized" for IE,
> > and not having IE as an option for the Mac OS could have significant
> > repercussions. Does anyone care to elaborate on this topic? I'm
> > interested in finding out accurate information regarding what we can
> > expect and what options are available.
>
> Hi Alberto!
>
> Here's my two cents...
>
> The death of Mac IE is only an evolution, not a catastrophe. And like
> Darwin's theory of evolution, those who don't evolve will die out.
>
> Sites aren't necessarily optimized for one browser over another (although
> some say they are).
>
> They are simply tested in the most common one or two browsers available. And
> quite often, they are tested with the most common browsers only on the
> platform on which they've been built (Mac or Windows).
>
> When I've tested projects, I've included:
>
> IE for Mac and Windows
> Netscape for Mac and Windows
> Mozilla
> Opera
> Safari
> AOL (since a broad base of Internet users don't know anything else)
>
> This isn't everything, but from these I can find the least common
> denominators that will work well for all of them and making the HTML work
> with all of them is just a matter of tweaking, not major rewriting.
>
> I've seen several commercial websites (such as http://www.wellsfargo.com)
> adapt their sites to work with Safari when their sites wouldn't initially
> support Safari. This is smart business for them. They recognize the
> evolution and are reacting.
>
> Users creating homepages do so mostly in ignorance of whether or not their
> pages will display properly to most people. I would dare say most don't care
> so long as they and their closest relations can read the pages. No big deal.
> They've appealed to their total audience.
>
> I speculate that any sites worth visiting (and who want you to continue to
> visit) will adapt or die long before the Mac community sees the last of its
> days. I'll miss IE because I thought it was and excellent browser, but
> another will eventually take its place. Apple is betting it will be Safari.
>
> bill
I agree with you to some point but in practice we all have to
understand that fewer and fewer organizations are even considering
apple os in both www development and also evolving software
development...
"I speculate that any sites worth visiting (and who want you to
continue to
visit) will adapt or die long before the Mac community sees the last
of its
days". I would like to believe this but in practice large corporations
are not exactly falling over themselves to provide for apple
users:example is verizon wireless.com ( see my post ). Look at Adobe..
they started with apple and only provided apps for the mac... Recently
it provided the latest Acrobat version to windows way before Apple..
just in the last several months has Acrobat 6.0 come out for osx. Over
the last 15 years I have been an apple person but am now wondering
about the advantage... I feel that for myself os x has created more
problems than it solved and is now feeling like MS anyway... Mac os is
no longer the leader in performance in the 2/d and 3/d design
profession... so other than being able to download mp3 to my ipod.. so
what.. I dislike MS very much but life is short and a computer is only
a tool... not a religious icon.