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Posts tagged with "safari"

Life Web Browser: Yet Another Alternative to Safari?

So many developers have tried to build alternative browsers for the iPhone on top of Webkit. See, Apple gives you the tools to create your own customized browser, and I’m not blaming them for the attempt. I’m blaming them for the experience they failed to achieve, developing alternatives just for the sake of it. And people, the average App Store users, seem to appreciate this trend, perhaps because they’re willing to accept every single alternative some devs give them. Look at the success of Opera Mini for iPhone, and look at how bad it is when you compare it to Apple’s MobileSafari.

What I’m trying to say is, you don’t mess with MobileSafari. Sure you can try to add thousands of features, and you can also promote your app by saying that it does whatever MobileSafari doesn’t. Seriously, it’s fine. But you can’t really think someone won’t notice and eventually talk about your crap. That’s why we usually avoid to talk about these “alternative browsers” on MacStories.

Developers are now realizing that, with 2 million iPads out there, the tablet might indeed be a profitable market for “alternatives”. I won’t go into all the details, but just so you know - this thing has been the top paid iPad app for days. Is it possible to develop a decent alternative to Safari for iPad?

Let’s look for the answer in Life.

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Macworld: Safari 5 Secrets

While they aren’t necessarily secrets, they are rather hidden features of the browsers that casual users might not even discover or need to explore. Though once revealed, they can be incredibly helpful. Macworld has posted four Safari 5 secrets that you might be interested in if you’re wanting the most out of Apple’s new web browser.

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Spotify for Safari: Exactly What I Was Looking For

Ok, I’m quite into this “discover the coolest Safari extensions out there” thing. Developers are coming out with innovative and useful tweaks every day, and we’re here to cover them. But when it’s about Spotify, the beloved music streaming service everyone wants to use somehow, I’m kind of a fanboy. The service is great, the catalogue is huge and the social features are neat.

Most of the time though, I hear about new artists I’ve never heard of while reading news in Safari 5. We Are Scientists have a new album out there? Let me search in Spotify. Wakey Wakey? Let me paste in Spotify real quick. See, it’s all about moving between windows and pasting stuff - boring and slow. Thanks to Johan Brook’s Spotify for Safari I can now do all of this directly from my browser window.

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Dim Safari Reader’s Background

Safari Reader is a really great addition to the latest version of Safari, and it does a pretty job of dimming the background so that you can have a focused reading experience. But sometimes, it’s just not enough – light or cluttered websites still peak through with the utmost disrespect to your eyes. Don’t let those naughty flash ads distract you from reading an Ars Technica epic: we’ve got the goods to get that helpful little background even darker.

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NoMoreiTunes Lets you View iTunes Previews in Peace

iTunes Previews don’t work as they should. If I’m viewing the content in my browser, why do I need to see it again in iTunes? A Safari 5 Extension from developer Florian Pichler (@pichfl) seeks to automatically stop iTunes from opening – a must have for anyone who regularly browses for App Store applications. As Pichler writes,

“NoMoreiTunes is an extension for Safari 5 which disables the script that tries to start iTunes when you visit a link to the iTunes Store. It’s annoying and redundant as there is iTunes Preview for Music and Apps now.”

As movies aren’t blocked, the extension provides users with a button they can use to manually initiate iTunes.

You can download NoMoreiTunes from his website.


Safari Best Contender in HTML5 Performance Test

It’s a safe bet Firefox won’t be getting any awards soon (Mozilla needs to pick up their game), which leaves Google Chrome and Safari to duke it out for a good ol’ fashioned HTML5 performance test. The race was close, but Apple’s Safari 5 now leads over Google Chrome 5. But just barely.

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