Apple Releases Safari Beta 2
Downloads Top 2 Million
CUPERTINO, California-April 14, 2003-Apple today released Safari Beta 2, an
updated beta version of the Safari browser that delivers highly requested
features including tabbed browsing and AutoFill forms. Safari is now the
browser of choice for millions of Mac users with more than two million
downloads since its free public beta release on January 7, 2003. Safari is
the fastest web browser ever created for the Mac, and re-energizes the
browser category in general with innovations like built-in Google search;
SnapBack to instantly return to search results; a completely new way to
name, organize and present bookmarks; and automatic “pop-up” ad blocking.
“Safari is already an incredible success, with more than 2 million
downloads since its launch,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Safari has
brought innovation back to the browser market and now we are making it even
better.”
Building on the innovative features delivered with the first Safari public
beta, Safari Beta 2 popularizes the most convenient way to see and switch
between multiple web pages in a single window by bringing the latest
browser innovation to Safari-tabbed browsing. The new AutoFill feature
makes web form completion incredibly easy by using information from the
Address Book or previous forms to automatically fill in name, street
address, city, zip code, email and other information. The updated beta also
provides the option of automatically filling in user names and passwords,
which are securely stored in the Mac OS X Keychain.
Because protecting personal information on public computers is essential,
Safari Beta 2 introduces the “Reset Safari” option that erases browsing
history, empties the cache, clears the Downloads window, removes cookies,
clears Google search entries and removes any saved names and passwords or
other AutoFill text. Additional Safari Beta 2 features and enhancements
include: easy import of Netscape and Mozilla bookmarks, increased support
for AppleScript, enhanced standards compatibility for improved web browsing
and expanded language support for Japanese, French and German.
Safari is powered by the industry’s best rendering engine based on KHTML,
from KDE’s Konqueror open source project, and Apple continues to contribute
to and work closely with the open source community. Safari related sessions
planned for the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference, June 23-27, in
San Francisco will help developers learn how to factor Safari technology in
to their applications. For more information on conference tracks, exhibits
and registration visit www.apple.com/wwdc.
Pricing & Availability The Safari Beta 2 release is available immediately
for free download at www.apple.com/safari, requires Mac OS X version 10.2
“Jaguar” and is optimized for Mac OS X v10.2.3 or later. Safari Beta 2 is a
compact 3.9MB download and is localized for English, Japanese, French and
German. The final version of Safari will be made available later in 2003.
Mac OS X v10.2 “Jaguar” requires a minimum of 128MB of memory and is
designed to run on the following Apple products: eMac, iMac, iBook, Power
Macintosh G3, Power Mac G4 and any PowerBook introduced after May 1998.