Microsoft will cease support for the Mac version of Internet Explorer from December 31 and stop development of the program, the company says on its website. No further security or enhancement updates will be provided.
MS is virtually copying Apple (especially noticeble in Vista’s GUI) and this move is like MS saying “I’m not shooting myself in the foot to support a competitor”.
Ok, I don’t know where everyone keeps drawing these connections beween Aero and Aqua, but they are not the same at all.
People did the same thing with Luna, presumeably because it has the blue bar (which Windows has always had a blue varient, since 98) and it’s not even close to the same color or tone at all.
Ok, I don’t know where everyone keeps drawing these connections beween Aero and Aqua, but they are not the same at all.
Apple has Aqua, Microsoft had to have it’s own cool theme called Aero. It’s a simple comparison.
People did the same thing with Luna
Did they? I can’t remember anyone doing that because everyone has mostly agreed that Luna sucks ass. Microsoft realised that and had to do something about it.
No, its the old ‘we had it first, and obviously everyone else copied’ – which is a broken record.
The idea of offloading GUI rendering to a GPU is hardly a new concept, like many IT things, it has been on the technology books for years, and it is just recently that the hardware, software and requirements have all married up at the same point.
that’s a great news! finally, users on MacOS will be using only compliant browsers such as Mozilla or Safari, dumping that MS piece of crap. i’m talking as a developer, and this fact saves me a lot of work wasted on trying to make pages render “correctly” on IE for Mac.
Because Apple will soon be running on Intel hardware, I think Microsoft is relying on Virtual PC or some other Windows layer similar to what Apple did with X11, that with a license key for windows, will allow you to pull up Windows applications (IE,office) natively. Microsoft doesnt care what hardware you are running on as long as you pay for the license.
Now if only the windows version of IE would learn a lesson from its Mac brother and dissappear too.
I don’t have anything against old browsers or browsers without many features. There’s no problem if they give a rats ass about CSS. However what I can’t stand is if they know nothing about it but *think* they would understand that code and then render some crap which you couldn’t imagine in your worst dreams.
Since Mac has a sizeable, and vocal, and money spending market share, this is good. I hope that this means that there is more than one browser to support. This will, I hope, mean that people will start building pages to be standards compliant so everyone can render them rather than making IE specific pages.
Competition is good for everyone, and this is a step toward competition.
..I’m surprised it took this long. MS has always justified their tight integration of IE with Windows by saying that the webbrowser is an extension of the OS itself. So they’re kind of talkng out of both sides of their mouth by developing for another platform.
Of course trolls can find all sorts of alterior motives.
Go to an Apple store, get in front of one of the Macs and try to lauch IE. You won’t be able to, because it’s not there. IE is not part of the default install for Tiger. The only way you would have IE on Tiger is if you upgraded from Panther, or if you dug around on the OS X CD to find it. So please tell me why MS discontinuing IE for Mac is important at all?
IE on the mac, i grant you, is now behind the times. But some people were comfortable with it and lets not forget it had some industry leading compatability when it first came out (compliant CSS1, HTML4, PNG1 with FULL 8-bit alpha transparency)
Come on, people. MS never really needed to make IE available for Mac in the first place. But they did. Nowadays IE is hardly used on the mac anymore so they discontinue it. Big Deal. Just think (for arguments sake- what I’m about to say is the unthinkable) if MS ever made a freely available and supported version of IE for linux. How many (millions maybe?)linux users would be using it? I know I would at least try it out. And think if they did this 1 or 2 years ago, I doubt mozilla/firefox would have had as much of an impact as it has had. Think about it.
Because in theory IE:Mac was in active maintenance (and is until the end of the month) meaning that support calls for it would be accepted by Microsoft and any urgently required patches developed and issued.
I suspect that in practice, its’ probably been well over a year since there was any sort of support or patching requirement for IE:Mac. Now is an opportune time for Microsoft to finally put it to bed.
Also, this marks the end of an era… sort of. Communicator started out as a well-integrated, well-designed package, that got worse with each passing point release. Netscape’s losses were Microsoft’s gains, as they offered IE/OE for Mac version 4 that were faster, lighter, and after a few point releases better. Ahh, the heady days of the browser wars… bad for standards, but good for nostalgia 😉
IE 5 was one of the first applications to try to capitalise on the “Aqua” look and feel (even though it was an OS 8/9 application initially), but started losing out badly after Mac OS X came out when put next to browsers like OmniWeb that showed up its’ “faux” nativeness. Safari was its’ death knell, as Apple moved to counter one of the main Windows user migration complaints about having only slow browsers to choose from. And with IE 5 not being included in the Tiger install, and now this, the last nails are being driven into the coffin.
Having IE on the Mac was always a bit of a symbolic gesture, because the rendering engine was different than that of IE on Windows and they never did both have the same capabilities. What was at the time a very important consideration is not so much now, with most developers now trying their best to adhere to w3c specs and adapt only as required to the “different” ways that IE and older Navigator versions do things.
OE of course lives on as Entourage:Mac in the latest versions of Office, and that’s the real battleground now. It’s ironic that the browser choice wars have concluded before the office suite choice wars have even started.
I don’t recall any browser being more standard than another without the use of non-standard tests. Having the option of using IE may have made the transition to MAC easy for some along with Microsoft Office support. If Microsoft were to pull Office, would that be applauded in support of NeoOffice/OpenOffice?
oh noez! how will mac users survive now?
…You wonder why.
MS is virtually copying Apple (especially noticeble in Vista’s GUI) and this move is like MS saying “I’m not shooting myself in the foot to support a competitor”.
Ok, I don’t know where everyone keeps drawing these connections beween Aero and Aqua, but they are not the same at all.
People did the same thing with Luna, presumeably because it has the blue bar (which Windows has always had a blue varient, since 98) and it’s not even close to the same color or tone at all.
Ok, I don’t know where everyone keeps drawing these connections beween Aero and Aqua, but they are not the same at all.
Trolling, ignorance and zealots… in that order
Ok, I don’t know where everyone keeps drawing these connections beween Aero and Aqua, but they are not the same at all.
Apple has Aqua, Microsoft had to have it’s own cool theme called Aero. It’s a simple comparison.
People did the same thing with Luna
Did they? I can’t remember anyone doing that because everyone has mostly agreed that Luna sucks ass. Microsoft realised that and had to do something about it.
So you are saying they are similar because they have name? All Windows interface designs have had specific names.
Is it because they both start with an A?
No, its the old ‘we had it first, and obviously everyone else copied’ – which is a broken record.
The idea of offloading GUI rendering to a GPU is hardly a new concept, like many IT things, it has been on the technology books for years, and it is just recently that the hardware, software and requirements have all married up at the same point.
Actually Aero is closer to a copy of KDE’s Crystal theme not OS X. Here check it out.
http://www.kde-look.org/content/preview.php?preview=1&id=16438&file…
It’s not even remotely similar!
Do you say this because of the transparency?
You are right. Aqua is really cool and Aero isn’t cool at all.
that’s a great news! finally, users on MacOS will be using only compliant browsers such as Mozilla or Safari, dumping that MS piece of crap. i’m talking as a developer, and this fact saves me a lot of work wasted on trying to make pages render “correctly” on IE for Mac.
So true, so true
No more crappy browsers on mac…
I used a pc for several years, & unless a page I was on needed it which was rare I never used it.
Well, that’s one OS down….. ONE MORE to go..
OS != Browser
Does anyone know (or can point to some reliable sources), how many Mac users are using IE? Is it 10%, 1% or almost nobody?
(see subject)
Because Apple will soon be running on Intel hardware, I think Microsoft is relying on Virtual PC or some other Windows layer similar to what Apple did with X11, that with a license key for windows, will allow you to pull up Windows applications (IE,office) natively. Microsoft doesnt care what hardware you are running on as long as you pay for the license.
Now if only the windows version of IE would learn a lesson from its Mac brother and dissappear too.
I don’t have anything against old browsers or browsers without many features. There’s no problem if they give a rats ass about CSS. However what I can’t stand is if they know nothing about it but *think* they would understand that code and then render some crap which you couldn’t imagine in your worst dreams.
From what I found checking statistics around, there’s virtually no more IE/mac users around.
Unforuntatly I can’t find the source now, but I think it was somewhere in wikipedia. How much you believe it is up to you
Diego
http://darrel.knutson.com/mac/www/browsers.html
too bad shiira always crashes for me
Since Mac has a sizeable, and vocal, and money spending market share, this is good. I hope that this means that there is more than one browser to support. This will, I hope, mean that people will start building pages to be standards compliant so everyone can render them rather than making IE specific pages.
Competition is good for everyone, and this is a step toward competition.
i fired it up once by mistake… i mean really.. there is not one current mac osx user who gives a hoot
—n. T. —-
..I’m surprised it took this long. MS has always justified their tight integration of IE with Windows by saying that the webbrowser is an extension of the OS itself. So they’re kind of talkng out of both sides of their mouth by developing for another platform.
Of course trolls can find all sorts of alterior motives.
Good riddence is all I can say. It’s the least used (never) item that I used on my Mac to date.
about bloody time
Go to an Apple store, get in front of one of the Macs and try to lauch IE. You won’t be able to, because it’s not there. IE is not part of the default install for Tiger. The only way you would have IE on Tiger is if you upgraded from Panther, or if you dug around on the OS X CD to find it. So please tell me why MS discontinuing IE for Mac is important at all?
So please tell me why MS discontinuing IE for Mac is important at all?
———————————————————-
Useful for certain sites that have there web pages useable by IE only
What enhancements. Ever better…What security?
IE on the mac, i grant you, is now behind the times. But some people were comfortable with it and lets not forget it had some industry leading compatability when it first came out (compliant CSS1, HTML4, PNG1 with FULL 8-bit alpha transparency)
Come on, people. MS never really needed to make IE available for Mac in the first place. But they did. Nowadays IE is hardly used on the mac anymore so they discontinue it. Big Deal. Just think (for arguments sake- what I’m about to say is the unthinkable) if MS ever made a freely available and supported version of IE for linux. How many (millions maybe?)linux users would be using it? I know I would at least try it out. And think if they did this 1 or 2 years ago, I doubt mozilla/firefox would have had as much of an impact as it has had. Think about it.
Microsoft stopped supporing the browser several years ago, why was this posted as news now?
Because in theory IE:Mac was in active maintenance (and is until the end of the month) meaning that support calls for it would be accepted by Microsoft and any urgently required patches developed and issued.
I suspect that in practice, its’ probably been well over a year since there was any sort of support or patching requirement for IE:Mac. Now is an opportune time for Microsoft to finally put it to bed.
Also, this marks the end of an era… sort of. Communicator started out as a well-integrated, well-designed package, that got worse with each passing point release. Netscape’s losses were Microsoft’s gains, as they offered IE/OE for Mac version 4 that were faster, lighter, and after a few point releases better. Ahh, the heady days of the browser wars… bad for standards, but good for nostalgia 😉
IE 5 was one of the first applications to try to capitalise on the “Aqua” look and feel (even though it was an OS 8/9 application initially), but started losing out badly after Mac OS X came out when put next to browsers like OmniWeb that showed up its’ “faux” nativeness. Safari was its’ death knell, as Apple moved to counter one of the main Windows user migration complaints about having only slow browsers to choose from. And with IE 5 not being included in the Tiger install, and now this, the last nails are being driven into the coffin.
Having IE on the Mac was always a bit of a symbolic gesture, because the rendering engine was different than that of IE on Windows and they never did both have the same capabilities. What was at the time a very important consideration is not so much now, with most developers now trying their best to adhere to w3c specs and adapt only as required to the “different” ways that IE and older Navigator versions do things.
OE of course lives on as Entourage:Mac in the latest versions of Office, and that’s the real battleground now. It’s ironic that the browser choice wars have concluded before the office suite choice wars have even started.
Anyway, farewell IE:Mac!
I don’t recall any browser being more standard than another without the use of non-standard tests. Having the option of using IE may have made the transition to MAC easy for some along with Microsoft Office support. If Microsoft were to pull Office, would that be applauded in support of NeoOffice/OpenOffice?
Good Riddance!