Apple announces new Windows browser, Safari

12 June 2007

Apple has launched Safari, its own version of a web browser for Windows that will compete head to head with Microsoft's Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox.

Speaking at a developer's conference for Apple products in San Francisco, California Steve Jobs, chief executive, Apple Inc, said that Safari was "the fastest browser on Windows", that was twice as fast as the Internet Explorer.

A test version of Safari 3 for Windows XP, Vista and Apple Macs running OSX, is available for download from the Apple website. With Safari, Apple hopes to replicate the success of iTunes, which has proved enormously popular on both Macs and Windows machines.

"We think Windows users are going to be really impressed when they see how fast and intuitive web browsing can be with Safari," said Jobs.

He said his company wanted to dream big and expand its 4.9-per cent market share Safari enjoys. Jobs also used the conference to showcase new features of its forthcoming operating system (OS) for Macs, called Leopard.

He said the OS has 300 new features of which he demonstrated 10, including a new organisational system for the desktop called "stacks" and a new folder system which lets users browse files and applications visually.