OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD. If you’re like me, and have been waiting for Safari 4 to be released since Firefox 3, then you had a very, very pleasant surprise upon waking. It’s not exactly Safari 4, though, it’s a beta, but it’s certainly better than nothing. The beta has its pros and its cons, like any browser, but I really think that Apple has minimized the cons better than anyone else, and strung it all together to look incredible in a way only Apple can.
First of all, the biggest and best addition is Top Sites. This may look familiar to some; there are similar features in Opera (Speed Dial) and Chrome. But Top Sites takes these features and greatly improves upon them, as well as adding serious aesthetics in the process. If you’ve used Safari’s History Flow before, it looks a bit like that. The background is black, and there are rectangles containing sites, angled panoramically and reflected below them. As you hover over the sites, each is outlined with a blue border and glow. On the bottom-left, there’s an Edit button, in the middle is the title and address of the site you’re currently hovering over, and on the bottom-right is a search box for history. Clicking Edit changes a few things; on the top-left corner of each site is an X and a pin. The X is to take the site off Top Sites, and the pin is to stick that site there permanently. If you leave a site unstuck, it will change according to your most visited sites. Also in Edit, you have 3 different size options (small, medium, large) that change the size of your Top Sites, allowing more or fewer of them. Small has 24, medium 12, and large 6. Top Sites can be set as the homepage (in preferences), and/or appear when you open new tabs and windows. It can be accessed by either the Top Sites icon (next to the bookmarks icon), or by pressing Command+Shift+1.
Though Top Sites adds much ease to one’s internet experience, there are a few issues I have with it. First, you can’t add an individual site to your top sites for some reason. You have to visit it a lot and hope that it ends up there, I suppose. It’d be nice if you could click Edit, type an address in the bar, and hit the + icon to the left of the address, to insert a site into Top Sites. Or even better, just drag the favicon into it. Another problem, though I’m betting this is just a beta issue, is that sometimes when you change sizes, it can reduce your amount of top sites. I switched from small to large, then back, and ended up with only 6 of my previous 14. After restarting Safari they came back, though. Something else that irked me a bit is the fact that you can click the Top Sites icon to bring it up, but you can’t click it again to make it go away, like with bookmarks. Last, one time when I clicked the Top Sites icon, Safari crashed. But just once.
Perhaps my favorite part of Top Sites is that it sticks a big white asterisk in the top-right corner of the site if it’s been updated since you last viewed it. This will save so much time while browsing, considering I’ll know what to look at to see what’s new, rather than just guessing and checking each site.
Clicking the History search box in Top Sites starts History Flow. It’s mostly the same as it used to be, but it’s bigger, and searching is more efficient. You can search through any word on any site you’ve visited, making it extremely easy to find anything you’re unclear about, or need to revisit. To close it, click the x in the search bar, or click anywhere in the background, and you’re taken back to Top Sites.
Tabbed browsing is different from Safari 3; Safari 4 has adopted Chrome style tabs, which can be found above the address bar. I didn’t like this in Chrome, and I was hesitant to like it in Safari, but it has pretty much grown on me by now. It’s good because it doesn’t take up any extra screen space like the old tab bar did, it just takes the place of the title bar. If you only have a tab or two open, they’ll both be enormous, like in Firefox, which is something I’m not too big on. I liked it better when each tab was a specific size, regardless of the amount (to a certain point, obviously). I’ll have to get used to it. I do like how none of the tabs have the x to close it unless you mouse over it, though.
The Google search bar in the top-right has been beefed up, displaying recent searches, bookmarks, suggestions, and even a “find (search item) on page” option. This ALMOST makes plugins like GLIMS and Inquisitor obsolete, which is almost unfortunate. I say almost because it still doesn’t display the top 3 or 4 results for the text you’ve entered, and you still can’t move through tabs with any keys.
The address bar has also gained some functionality in an attempt to match Firefox’s Awesomebar. In fact, I’m pretty sure Apple would not be remiss in calling it the Awesomerbar. Not only does it search through recently visited sites, it searches through your history and bookmarks, as well. The only thing it doesn’t do is double as a search bar.
One major step forward for developers that use Safari (they’re few, I know), and maybe a motivation for more to develop in Safari, is the fact that you can search input fields now. Which means you can search code. Fantastic.
One critical thing that it’s missing is the Safari loading bar, which is replaced with the spinning circle, to the right of the address where the refresh button is. I’d be very grateful if there was an option to change that.
So far, Safari 4 beta has lived up to and surpassed my expectations. For a beta it’s extremely stable. In fact, the only problems I’ve had so far are the two Top Sites issues I mentioned earlier, and both of them were very minimal, and unrepeatable as of yet. My only complaint about the aesthetics is that they didn’t go far enough forward with the marble theme, only used in Top Sites and History Flow, so far. As far as functionality goes, Safari 4 makes the internet more fun, and incredibly more efficient to browse. It’s much snappier, loads pages faster, and renders images much more quickly than any browser I’ve ever used. Having Cover Flow for history AND bookmarks is just gravy, and Top Sites has completely changed the way I browse. For a full list of all 150 new features in Safari 4, visit Apple’s site. It’s a cool read. With all these improvements and new features added on to what I already considered to be the best browser, it’s just extra icing on the cake.
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