Articles tagged Safari.

Adobe released version 10.3 of their Flash Player this week. The key areas of improvement are auto-update notification and security control. Both of these features are welcome additions to the Flash Player for Mac users. Does this new version have any new performance enhancements?

As with the last major release 10.2, it is time to run Flash Player 10.3 through its paces to see if there are any performance improvements for Mac users. The tests below were conducted on the same machine and webpages as our previous tests. The latest versions of Safari and Firefox were used to compare Flash Player 10.2.152 with Flash Player 10.3.181 on the chart below.

One of the main reasons people buy smart phones these days is to browse the web while on the go. Beyond Phone and Mail apps, it is probably the third most used application on the iPhone. It is just as important on the iPad as well.

The built-in browser on the iOS is Mobile Safari. While it is a good browser, it lacks many features its bigger brother Safari for the Mac has. Some of the noticeable features lacking in Mobile Safari include a tabbed interface and the ability to save files. For those who want more than just a basic browser, we look at two alternatives.

Since Chrome's first stable release, it has become the third most poplar browser on the Mac. Because Chrome has rapidly grown in popularity, it is time to compare it with the default browser, Safari.

Both browsers use the same Webkit rendering engine, but does Chrome offer features compelling enough to switch? Time to find out.

The two leading browsers on the Mac are Apple's own Safari and the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser. There are other browsers available for the Mac, including Google's own Chrome, but this test will be between the two market leaders.

During the testing period, Firefox 4 beta 11 and Safari 5.0.3 were used. Although Firefox 4 is still in beta, it is already better than Firefox 3, which Safari clearly beat in past competitions. This test examined eight key areas for browser performance and usability. Now it is time to compare these two browsers.

Adobe released version 10.2 of their Flash Player plugin at the beginning of the month. This latest version adds preliminary support for Stage Video, which is supposed to reduce CPU usage during video playback. In order for Adobe to improve the Flash Player, they need to improve battery life by reducing CPU usage during flash playback. Heavy CPU usage may not be a major factor on desktop computers, but it is on anything using a battery, as it drains the battery quickly. Is this new version any better on the Mac?

Looking at CPU usage will be the way to determine if Adobe Flash has improved or not. The best way to test this new version is to compare it with older versions of the Flash Player and similar sites running HTML5. This test was conducted with Adobe's Flash Player 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2. An Aluminum 24" iMac with 4GB of memory, 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, and running Mac OS X 10.6.6 was used as the test platform. Safari version 5.0.3 and Firefox version 4.0b11 were both used to conduct this test.

Apple may be preparing a massive move that will propel Safari from niche browser to market leader. The move to merge Safari and iTunes into one software solution appears long in the works, which may arrive this fall at Apple's usual iPod special event.

Apple acquired the streaming music services company, lala, for $80 million in December 2009. The purported purposes for such an acquisition was for Apple to spearhead the way towards taking iTunes towards an online service, accessible via any browser, and away from a desktop software solution. That may no longer be the case.

Next year, Apple will be bringing the best iOS features to the Mac in their next OS update codenamed Lion. Apple is taking iOS features like App Store, App Home Screens, Auto Save, Full Screen Apps, and App Resume on Launch and bringing them to the Mac. These features will be modified for the Mac interface and will all be welcome additions to the Mac. It is only fitting for Apple to reciprocate and bring Mac features to the iOS.

The iOS can benefit from Mac features as much as the Mac can benefit from iOS features. Apple will need to modify these features to make them fit the iOS and its users. Apple was successful at bringing copy/paste and multitasking to the iOS, now it is time to bring more of those features. Let's look at the top 5 features that Apple should move to the iOS from the Mac.