Oh, Safari…

When it comes to web browsers, Safari is… OK. I’ve used it as my primary browser on my Mac several times over the years, and it does a great job overall. But I can’t help but get the feeling that Apple isn’t that invested in it, other than as a pawn to play against Google’s Chrome.

Reading this recent post by Jeff Johnson on bugs in Safari doesn’t inspire confidence. And it annoys me because I think that Apple do care about the web — it’s just that they only seem to care as long as it doesn’t threaten their App Store.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Browsers build by purveyors of operating systems always seem to suffer from this conflict of interest, as Microsoft proved with Internet Explorer back in the 1990s and 2000s. Google have just taken it to the extreme with Chrome OS, of course — let’s face it, the OS is just there to get people (and their data) into Google’s clutches.