After yesterday's tumultuous excitement over MobileMe, the iPhone 3G, and Snow Leopard, another unannounced development has slipped under the radar. Today, Apple released an early preview of Safari 4.0 on its Apple Developer Connection website. Just a little over a year since betas of the Safari 3 browser began to become available to the public, its successor promises to begin laying down the foundation of the next iteration of the Mac OS X operating system - Snow Leopard. Like Snow Leopard, Safari 4 is primarily focused on performance enhancements, especially in its underlying WebKit engine, rather than new features and UI changes, scoring an impressive 98% on the Acid 3 test.

Currently, this early preview of Safari 4 is only available to developers and requires Safari 3.1.1 to install the update. As of this morning, it has also been spotted aboard a certain pirate ship docked in a bay.

lol Cool!
I hope it will be improved like faster browsing...

Just as I was about to be a Firefox convert, Apple pulls another rabbit out the hat...

That's fast! I thought it would have been available just as part of Snow Leopard Developer Preview, but as I see it's public for every developer.
98% in acid3 it's impressive, although Safari 3.1.1 + the latest WebKit nightly build gain 100% score.

Sherry Haibara

God !!!

Installed the win version, passed acid 3 100/100

man installing that caused every single application on my computer to unexpectedly quit. good thing it had an uninstall package!!

Any major new UI changes?

Nope, no changes in the UI.


But also, I rule

Ooooh, I got screenied
But isn't that Font Size button new?

No, you can add it to the toolbar in 3.1.

Yeah, I just realised that as soon as I'd clicked 'Add reply' XD

Is there a way in safari for win to open downloads with double click ?

Font size button is there (well not installed in the toolbar as default but available for customization) since first Safari (Jaguar or 10.2 times)

You don't have to rub it in XD

Finally. Safari now has Windows Cleartype font smoothing. Thank the lord.

By the way, you don't need to have a select or premium membership to get this - just register a free ADC developer account and you'll have access to the download at developer.apple.com.

What I would like to see aboard this certain pirate ship docked in a bay, however, is the full Snow Leopard Developer Preview The hunt is on...

What? This is one of the reasons I switched to OSX. Or are you just talking about thw Windows version?

You can use ClearType with Safari 3 (at least with Webkit nightlies), just need to change a setting.

k that last line cranked me up lol

LOL. You guys are soooo creative

Is there a way to install this without having to upgrade to 10.5.3?

If you get the latest webkit nightly build at webkit.org, you basically get all the new features of the Safari 4 preview...

So will this install on Tiger assuming I already have Version 3.1.1 (4525.18)?

i have downloaded it and installed it, i can see no change in speed or performance (yet), ajax and java script systems run normally, the web application thing, i saw some product that does this while back ago (can't remember the name), so is it a rip off? (won't be apples first time) or did they buy him.

any way if i find any thing new i will let you know.

Fluid for webkit and Prism for the gecko engine add SSB functionality. I don't known if you could call it apple ripping them off, it's probably much of the same relationship apple has with webkit.

All you need do is

1. Register for a FREE developer account at https://connect.apple.com

2. Read and Accept Agreement, You must NOT post anything from the ADC on this site or the big wide interweb, otherwise we all get banned!! and Mr Jobs will send out the spank elfs.

3 Then Log In, Then Click On Downloads.

4. Then download the appropriate version for your operating system : Tiger, Leopard or Windows. This preview release is English only.

It is not rocket science

Additionally it is very fast and the new Create Web Application from page is funky ; it will save it as an application ( .app file) with working buttons , independent of safari , i believe just for safari enabled macs (need to research what will happen to pc version)

never mind I set the thing up on my own from reading the instructions.

Follow the step i mentioned above, the following instructions are included with the download:



The File is not generally available, you are given license to test, hence you need to register.

((harsh but thats what they want)) Install at your own risk, from many hours useage, No problems at all..

A reboot for a browser update? Is Apple reading from Micro$oft's playbook now :-(

Thinking that it is because of the update to javascript. The reboot is worth it though.

Safari affects other programs, browsing with iTunes require "Safari engine" AFAIK, so reboot to take the new components in place is required.

QuickTime also requires reboot.

Quicktime shouldn't require a reboot either. They're both APPLICATIONS, not operating system components..

A reboot for Safari 4? Yikes. Hopefully that's just a "preview" and not the real thing.

woahh safari4 is faaast!, and other apps using safari's framework are blazing fast too now.
adium goes smooth like a glow now!!! try to resize a chat window... no more stuttering

did anyone find "Save as web application" useful?

I've installed Safari 4 onto my Hack running Tiger 10.4.11 and all is good

No, Webkit and Quicktime are core OS X components. That's why you need to reboot whenever you update them.

D'oh!! Wow....... sometimes I wonder how these kind of people manage to get OSx86 installed in the first place without the (apparent) slightest bit of knowledge of the Mac OS X system architecture.......

Yes, QuickTime (the application) does not require you to restart, but when Apple updates Quicktime they do not update only the App but a lot of it's components, and some of them are System (core of Mac OS) that other applications use not only QuickTime the app.

Meh.. it's okay, but I'm sticking with FF3...

I installed 4.0 earlier and noticed a difference immediately. Not an "OMG I JUST BURNED A HOLE IN MY ROUTER z0rz" fast, but a definite improvement in page load time. No idea yet on java as I haven't used anything with it yet.

Is there an option for "Close download dialog box after done" sort of thing in this preview version?

No, at least not that I've seen, anyway. The Preferences are pretty much the same as they were in previous versions.