RSSMicrosoft Nixes Internet Explorer for Mac
By Nate Mook | Published June 13, 2003, 9:29 PM
Citing competition from Apple's own Safari browser, currently in beta testing, Microsoft announced it would cease future development of Internet Explorer for Mac OS X. Redmond says it will continue to support the browser and is expected to issue a security and performance update shortly, but IE 5 will be the last release for Mac users.
While IE 5 was the primary browser for Mac OS X upon its release in 2000, rivals such as the Gecko-based Camino and Safari have far surpassed IE in terms of features and speed. Microsoft claims Apple has better resources to create a browser because they control the underlying operating system.
Apple first unveiled Safari last January at Macworld. Safari utilizes the KHTML rendering engine from KDE's Konqueror Web browser and sports Apple's brushed metal theme. While Safari is presently in its beta stages, Apple is expected to release the final version 1.0 shortly.
Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit will instead focus all of its efforts on the next release of Office for Mac OS X. The company is also working to complete an update to Virtual PC for Mac, the application it acquired from Connectix earlier this year.
Although company representatives said nobody was laid off as part of the decision, Jimmy Grewal, product manager for IE for Mac, announced his intentions to leave Microsoft. "It's time for a change," Grewal wrote on his personal Web site. "With the end of development of Mac Internet Explorer, I will be leaving Microsoft and moving on to pursue other interests."
Didn't Opera announce they're not developing for the Mac any longer also? Hope Macs aren't getting pushed to the fringes like Amiga ten years ago.
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|if opera stopped developing in general i wouldn't loose too much sleep. one less fringe browser that (according to my latest webtrends) had only 0.11% percent of my traffic so far in 2003.
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|Perhaps Apple will push development cycles a bit harder. Safari has a lot of pluses, but its hardly ready for the masses.
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|I don't use Macs under almost any condition, however, this news along with recent talks by Microsoft of ceasing to support a standalone IE (requiring anyone who wants an upgrade to upgrade their OS) is just downright silly. I won't tolerate that behavior from any company. I will start developing more often for Mozilla from now on.
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|It seems to me that you should have been doing that all along...
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|i agree kind a, but in reality there's not too much different between IE 5.5+, Mozilla, NS7, and Safari. yeah there's VBS in IE/Win but very few people should even consider using that. between the IE/NS/W3 JS DOM there's some pretty large splits but doing a JS browser check allows you to compensate. using CSS you can pretty much make the browsers behave the same way and as long as you follow (as best you can) the XHTML guidelines you shouldn't have an problems. just don't get me started on interpretation of whitespace in html code.
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|Go Mozilla Firebird and Camino. Your moment has arrived. Maybe the devlopers of Mac IE should move on and help develop Mozilla based browsers.
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|With this even more sites will become Mozilla / konqueror friendly.
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|Why, who uses Macs anyway???
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|me :)
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|This my 1st post here, I think this news is really bad for Mac people. If MS stops developing for the Mac, things will get a little troubled. I love the Apple hardware, they have some amazing engineers, why are they beating a dead horse with this silly Os X stuff?
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|Microsoft is just stopping development of Interenet Explorer for the Macintosh--they're not stopping development (of all their Mac products) completely, at least not according to this article, even though their legal requirment to expired.
This can be either good or bad: we could see "alternative" browser use (Netscape, Opera, etc., and now Safari) increase, or we could see an amount of Mac users stuck on IE 5/Mac for a while--but that wouldn't be too bad, since it is a good browser (and it's "forwards-compatible" in that it won't try to understand CSS is doesn't). I wish I could say the same for Windows, but hopefully its users--or manufacturers--will see the light of Microsoft holds to its words (of not making any future standalone IE versions for Windows) that it has since tried to reconcile. But this could also mean we'll have lots of people stuck on IE 6 or 5 for a while to come...
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|I would have to disagree. I think the opposite will end up happening. People will be forced to use IE or be S.O.L. Most places don't code for anything except for IE. If something else works, it's by accident. They flat out don't care. They feel like if they're meeting the needs of 90% of their customers, they're fine with that. Macs don't have a large enough user-base to influence anything. It's sad, but true. The fact that I run Linux on my desktop probably puts me at even more of a disadvantage for such things than a Mac person.
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|Usally when I run into an IE only site I send them a nice letter about how they must not be interested in my money, and clue them into which of their competitors will get it instead. It probably doesn't matter, but hey maybe one of them will get the hint.
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|More than half of the graphics arts and digital photographers in the united states.
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|I already shy away from IE for OSX. I have been using Netscape and It blows IE out of the water.
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|NS7 is pretty good, but i would still pick safari over it. it's just much cleaner although it still needs some work.
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|Only ignorant jackasses who can't tell a real PC from a fake ...
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|IMHO Opera 6.0x for OSX has some problems saving window locations and preferences, but is quite a good browser. Netscape is too bloated. Mozilla is pretty good. Camino rocks except for the sites that are IE centric e.g. Hotmail. For those I default to Safari. IE for OSX or 8/9 has always had weak interface design and responsiveness. Ultimately whatever the platform I useually use at least two browsers to get things done. On Windows it's IE and Firebird.
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