Thank you Steve.

Our friends at Realmac have just launched the latest version of their award winning app for creating beautiful websites in minutes. And we’re very proud to be a part of RapidWeaver 5 – with completely seamless integration of GoSquared’s real-time analytics tools.

If you’ve purchased a copy of Realmac RapidWeaver 5, you’re entitled to sign up to GoSquared for free on the RapidWeaver plan and monitor any websites you may have with up to 10,000 pageviews per month, and a completely ad free interface.

For more information on RapidWeaver 5, head on over to the Realmac site. For more information and support documentation on integrating GoSquared with your RapidWeaver site(s) head on over to our support site.

We’d love your feedback, so feel free to get in touch at any time! Enjoy.

It’s been too long since we gave away anything on Liquidicity, so here’s a few icons we’ve been working on.

Unlike our previous icons, these aren’t vector. Don’t cry yet. They’re pixel perfect and were made using an app I’ve been using and learning for many months now called DrawIt. The main benefit to making icons at the size you need them (not as vectors) is that from the start you can ensure the icons look great and are crystal clear at the size they need to be displayed.

Apple Wired Keyboard

Apple wired keyboard icon – PNG without shadow, PNG with shadow, and original DrawIt file download.

Apple Wireless Keyboard

Apple wireless keyboard icon – PNG without shadow, PNG with shadow, and original DrawIt file download.

Apple MacBook-Style Keyboard

Apple MacBook-style keyboard icon. This product doesn’t actually exist, but we made it anyway. PNG without shadow, PNG with shadow, and original DrawIt file download.

Apple MacBook Pro

Apple MacBook Pro 15″ icon. A whole MacBook Pro, free to download. PNG without shadow, PNG with shadow, and original DrawIt file download.

I’m using DrawIt more and more for interface work on our LiveStats application. I highly recommend the app if you do a lot of user interface design and need your icons, buttons, and other elements to be pixel perfect. Pieter Omvlee is a fantastic developer and provides fantastic support. Something Adobe will never, ever, EVER give.

We hope you like the icons.

It seems pretty clear that the future of Apple (and general human interaction with computers) is touch based.

Apple’s responsible for kickstarting the touch screen revolution with the iPhone, so why would they do anything other than push themselves as far as possible along the trajectory they’ve already begun? When you consider the possibility of Apple building a device that not only sits alongside your iPhone, but replaces your MacBook, the game changes. Whatever Apple’s tablet finally shows up as, I’m pretty sure it’ll be more “this is the end of keyboard and mouse computing as we know it” than “oh it’s a big iPhone”.

Many people seem to assume that the keyboard and mouse are here to stay for the foreseeable future, and one of the main reasons they cite is that you can gain pixel level accuracy with a mouse and cursor. The tablet, if it becomes the MacBook replacement many have suggested, will not rely on finger input alone. Sure you’ll never need anything more than your fingers (on both hands) to use the device, but I think there are a number of scenarios where using a pen or stylus (or whatever you want to call it) could be incredibly useful.

The Tablet is to Production what the iPhone is to Consumption.

Artists may not be the core target audience for the Tablet (or at least that’s what I thought until seeing the invite), but when you consider how many creatives purchase Wacom graphics tablets, and that Wacom can can be the size of company it is through selling graphics tablets alone, this market segment is not insignificant. Perhaps my opinions are swayed being the graphic designer I am, but having a 10″ Tablet that I could draw directly on with a beautiful aluminium pen would make my life considerably better – I could save a fortune on Moleskines.

With regards to text input, I don’t think I should even begin to pretend I have worked out what Apple has decided upon. After 4-10 years of development time, text input on the Tablet could be a completely new concept, or (more likely) a very smart implementation of text input that we’re already at least slightly familiar with. My guess is that we will see handwriting recognition in some form, and if so, likely not see an onscreen keyboard. Just as Apple encouraged the use of the mouse over the keyboard with the first Mac, whatever they perceive as the best method of text input, we will likely end up being forced to use.

As many have already pointed out, text entry on a 10 inch display is not the same as text entry on an iPhone-size display. The iPhone is designed to be used with one hand free, and only rarely requires both hands for efficient use. The Tablet will likely require both hands for operation at most times – one to hold and one to touch the screen when in portrait mode.

The Eyes and Craziness

Apple filed patents a while ago on some very interesting technology for tracking the position and focus of the user’s eyes while using a screen based device.

I know, I know – Apple files hundreds of patents and only a small fraction ever make their way into actual products, but this level of interaction with a device will happen some day. I don’t have anywhere near enough technical expertise to say how possible this is in todays world, but I feel it’s still a few years off. On the other hand, I would have said the iPhone’s multi touch interface was still a few years off until seeing it at MacWorld 2007.

Despite it likely still being several years away, I would still like to share a few thoughts on the possibility of such sci-fi technology in the Tablet.

Perhaps not the most obvious or useful to the user, but advertising and the monitoring of successful ad campaigns could become a completely new science – where actual ad views rather than mere impressions could be targeted. Apple’s recent purchase of the mobile ad firm Quattro indicates their intentions for the advertising market. Apple already has a head start over many others with it’s unique ability to know more information about every one of their customers than any other phone company in the world. Add eye tracking to location, credit card details, and knowledge of each user’s iTunes purchase history and Apple have one heck of a tempting prospect for potential advertisers.

Using the eyes to focus on parts of the screen could unlock a whole new dimension in interface design and interaction Рif anything near this level of technology were in such a device, it would a) be extremely difficult to efficiently develop applications for, and b) require a lot of thought and the invention of new metaphors that would need to be learned by the end user. I like to dream of the possibilities though Рcombine touch and eye tracking: start dragging an item and all you need do is look in the direction of its intended destination and that destination instantly makes its way towards the item; look into the corner of the screen and get an Expos̩ style view of all windows.

But none of this eye tracking stuff will happen soon. I’m just dreaming. It may some day. But there’s no way anything this advanced could be ready for mainstream adoption yet.

Back to the Future of Touch

Stylus operation isn’t out of the question, as I mentioned earlier, and as anyone who has ever attempted to draw on the iPhone will likewise be hoping. However, there’s absolutely no doubt that Multi Touch is going to take a major leap forward upon the introduction of the Tablet.

Two fingers? Pah! The Tablet will recognise the difference between each of your fingers, and when you’re resting your wrists on it while writing and sketching. It will even know some unique hand gestures (no you can’t shut it down by giving it the middle finger) but it will likely be capable of realising your pinky finger is flat against the screen and similar actions that will enable a multitude of advanced functions with the best pointing implement known to man – your fingers.

Another recently aired Apple patent covered the manipulation of 3D objects on a 2D surface. Delving into the possibilities there would almost certainly require a short novel to be written. Or perhaps waiting patiently until next Wednesday will better satisfy our curiosity.

That’s enough of my thoughts though, let’s get down to basics.

Slate: 80%

Pretty sure the Tablet is… well… a Slate of beauty – likely aluminium and glass.

You’ll be able to use it Portrait AND Landscape: 100%

Just incase there was any confusion there…

Folding Book or Laptop with Dual Screens: 10%

Two screens = Too expensive. And fiddly. Really can’t see this happening in any way.

Slide-out keyboard: -10%

How could you even suggest such an atrocity upon humankind?

Outsider – Personal Rocket Ship: 50%

It has been quite a while since Steve gave us a “One more thing…”

Chances we’ll buy one: 95%

We’ll be on the Apple.com Store entering our credit card details before we know it.

Not long to wait now. Bring on Wednesday 27th.

Another little pre-Christmas treat from us at GoSquared – the iMac in all it’s glory, in vector form.

New to GoSquared?

For those of you new to GoSquared – we help people improve their websites. GoSquared real-time web analytics enables you to understand what’s happening on your site right now. We run this blog, on design, technology and marketing to share our thoughts and content with wonderful people like you in the hope that you’ll also try GoSquared.

Get the Adobe Illustrator CS4 File (258KB)

Don’t have Adobe Illustrator? Download the SVG.

Note: Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Pay whatever you want

We put considerable effort into the resources we make. We’re asking anyone who actually gets some use out of these icons and buttons to pay for them, and for the time we spent creating them. We won’t set the price point, so pay whatever you like. Hate them? Don’t pay anything!

Using these icons commercially

If you want to use these icons and buttons commercially (on your company’s website, in client work, in any scenario where you’ll be profiting from the work they’re in) then we kindly request that you donate at least $40 to justify the time and effort we’ve put in to creating them. It wasn’t a small job, and your money goes directly back in to creating more quality design resources.

So Apple’s Media Event (on the memorable date of 09.09.09) is done and dusted, the new iPods are on the shelves of every Apple Store you care to visit, and iTunes 9 is most likely sitting on millions of people’s desktops.

But what’s changed? I’m pleased to say quite a few things, in varying degrees of magnitude. Most of the changes to the iTunes app itself are subtle, but could be good indicators of where Apple’s UI intentions are heading. Then there’s the iTunes Store which has seen its biggest overhaul yet. There’s no shortage of design tweaks to have a look at and learn from.

Changes to the iTunes Application

The Toolbar

iTunes at first glance doesn’t look very different at all, but when we compare 8 and 9 together it’s clear they’ve been paying attention to the details and refining things – the main toolbar is 5 pixels shorter for example. Losing 5 pixels from the height of the toolbar may be overlooked by some as unnecessary , but any attempt to reduce the vertical space used (and often wasted) by toolbars in software is always good to see in this age of increasingly wide displays where vertical space is at a minimum.

The toolbar has also been lightened slightly – the vertical gradient is now more obvious than 8′s darker, flatter bar. I prefer the lighter feeling of 9, and I feel many apps are becoming a little too dark in Leopard, so I hope iTunes 9′s brighter more curvaceous toolbar will be making its way into more apps.

The Buttons

You will notice the playback buttons have also been altered slightly, going from a plain and simple linear gradient in iTunes 8, to a more sophisticated gradient with a subtle blur in 9. The volume slider has a lighter appearance making it clear that pulling the knob to the right will increase volume to its maximum. The speaker icons (that represent up/down volume) have been made lighter, and look more indented now.

The Sidebar

The headings (still in all caps) are ever so slightly darker than in iTunes 8, but that’s probably the most subtle change here, along with the slightly lighter (OK, this is almost unnoticeable now) blue background colour.

Icons

What’s more noticeable are the changes to icons for different content types. Apps – now has a more understandable rounded square surrounding the “Application” symbol. The previous orb was a beautiful little icon, but perhaps it was considered too Vista-esque to represent Apple’s mobile software strategy? Almost all of the icons have had some attention paid to them – the Movies icon is now noticeably shinier, the TV Shows LCD screen looks like it’s been upgraded – with a smaller framed TV, and no longer representing one of the Sony Bravia LCDs. The Audiobook icon is now a more sober shade of brown rather than the old, almost garish, orange. The little person in the Podcast icon is now more central – before he was a little too low in comparison to the surrounding circles.

The iTunes U icon is entirely new – this media type never used to be given such a prominent location – perhaps a sign that Apple has realised how lucrative the educational market can be. Whether they start monetizing some iTunes U content or simply keep using it as another reason to keep users in the iTunes ecosystem remains to be seen. The bell for Ringtones seems to have a slightly different shade of bronze, but changes there are almost non-existent. And finally the Radio icon has been given a much lighter, more detailed look – the radio tower’s metal structure is now clear looking more like the Eiffel Tower. The radio waves have also been coloured blue, ensuring they are visually different to the radio tower structure itself.

Who’d have thought you could analyse something so small in so much detail? Having spent a lot of time working on small icons of similar sizes myself lately, I often find it takes much more time and effort getting something at 15 pixels to make sense than getting something at 256 pixels to look good. It’s great to see Apple have kept focussed on the details.

In our next post we’ll have an in depth look at the vast array of changes made to the iTunes Store.

As what seems like the entire world knows, WWDC is tomorrow.

We are all looking forward to seeing what’s in store for the final version of the 3.0 firmware for the iPhone – we all know it’s going to contain more than what we’ve been shown, but we don’t know what more.

Everyone also, with good reason, expects new iPhone hardware tomorrow. Some expect a new iPhone with a few updates over the existing 3G. Some expect a new iPhone which goes all out to be the best video taking device ever. Some expect a number of new iPhones, right from a tiny “nano” iPhone with 4GB of memory, all the way up to a “pro” iPhone with 32GB memory and every feature a power user could ever need for the next 3 years.

New Hardware

Personally, I think tomorrows announcements will follow Apple’s style over the last 2 years – there will be one new iPhone, and it will introduce new hardware features that will be tempting, but not mind blowing. By this, I mean I think there will be the much rumoured digital compass – that allows, with GPS, for the iPhone to know exactly where you are, and what way you’re facing; there will be a slightly upgraded camera, with a 3.2MP sensor, and (more important to image quality than the average consumer realises) an auto focus lens. I think the 3G will get faster, with AT&T and a number of other carriers upgrading their 3G networks to double their existing speeds.

Better Processor. Better RAM.

The much more noticeable changes to the iPhone hardware will be the core power of the device. If we see a doubling (or more likely, an increase of 50%) of CPU speed, and perhaps a doubling of RAM, the iPhone OS will suddenly feel incredibly fast. I would already argue that the 3.0 firmware, which we have been using for the last month at GoSquared, is far less sluggish than when we were all running 2.2, so these small optimisations, combined with dramatically increased CPU and RAM will pave the way towards improvements on an already very slick mobile OS. In fact, many complaints about the speed of internet access on the iPhone will be addressed by a faster CPU – web page rendering is where most of the bottlenecks occur, not as is a common misconception, at the data transfer point.

That Front Facing Camera

There has been a lot of talk about the next iPhone including a front facing video camera for video chat and for Photo Booth style self mockery. However, I can’t see this happening this year. Apple has filed a ton of patents on video conferencing with the iPhone, between iPhones, and between Macs and iPhones. When Apple finally allow video chat on the iPhone, and they will, it will be fantastic. But I don’t think they’ll do this tomorrow, for a number of reasons. Considering Apple has not even mentioned video to developers, who are building apps for the 3.0 release, and considering not one developer, or any “reliable” source has even so much as hinted at the possibility of video chat capabilities, I have my doubts. Then take into consideration the already overloaded 3G networks of AT&T and others due to the amount of bandwidth-hungry iPhone owners out there, and imagine what an influx of thousands of 2 way video calling iPhone owners would do…

I really would love to be proven wrong on this one – I want video calling on my iPhone. The US market, in fact, doesn’t always notice how commonplace it is in Europe and elsewhere – in the UK, the 2 phones I owned before my iPhone 2G both were capable of video calling. That was FOUR years ago. Yet, in the UK especially, video calling on phones has never taken off as it should have. It will be Apple who get the world speaking face to face on a phone. But to do that will take time. And my gut feeling is we’ll see that next year. Not tomorrow.

Oh, and that “spy shot” above? Gimme a break. The Ui while you’re in a video call will never be as cluttered as that. Expect something as minimal as the current audio call screen, without the large “merge, number keypad, mute, etc” icons overlaid.

A couple of Sketches

I decided to do a few quick sketches of what I reckon the new iPhone may look like based on the rumours that have been circulating. I sketched them on paper because 1) I didn’t have enough time to do anything in Photoshop, 2) I can’t use Maya to save my life, and 3) If I made them look at all realistic I would get at least 5 haters shouting FAKE – PHOTOSHOPPED. So, here are my honest, simple, quick sketches of how very similar the next iPhone may look.

And another, the Leopard style dock, in retrospect, won’t happen.

One More Thing

I know Apple applied for a patent on this last year. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure why – Microsoft (gasp) have had a start screen like this for years. Either way, I want Apple to implement the option for me to see what’s happening today on my Unlock Screen. If not, I may consider jailbreaking.

Hope you like the suggestion, Apple. And I hope we’re pleasantly surprised by the announcements tomorrow. Heck, I haven’t even mentioned Snow Leopard. Although, then again, neither has Apple. Except one very nice banner.

Happy WWDC everyone.

Introducing GoSquared’s latest world changing project – iPhoneFAIL.org. If you’ve ever suffered from a failing iPhone, a stupidly buggy app, or just come across an error that you thought was laughable, you can now share your angst with the rest of the world.

If you have an account with GoSquared (including Liquidicity) then you can sign in and comment with the same username and password etc. We like to make things easy for you.

All in all, we’ll let you check it out for yourselves – we’ve kept things nice and simple so you can just focus what’s important – the FAILs.

Hope you like it,

The GoSquared team.

We’re pleased to bring you our latest icon set, the current (as of March 2009) line of Apple iPods in vector format.

Sure, there are only four icons here, but we’ve put as much effort into these four as we have done for our larger icon sets. We’ve aimed to make them as realistic as possible – from the subtle glare on the iPod touch, right down to the chrome switch on the new iPod shuffle.

As you can see, we’ve recreated the wonderful work of Johnny Ive and his team in Adobe Illustrator for your icon using pleasure. There’s a current (as of March 2009) generation shuffle, nano, classic, and touch ready and waiting to be used. So what are you waiting for?

For those of you new to GoSquared – we help people improve their websites. GoSquared real-time web analytics enables you to understand what’s happening on your site right now. We run this blog, on design, technology and marketing to share our thoughts and content with wonderful people like you in the hope that you’ll also try GoSquared.

Get the Adobe Illustrator CS2 File (1.6MB)

Don’t have Adobe Illustrator? Download the SVG.

We hope you like them and as always you’re free to use them however you wish, as long as that’s OK with Apple. Is that OK with you, Steve?

If you like this and any of our other icon work we always appreciate a link back. If you really like this and our other icons, please consider giving us a little monetary incentive for us to produce another set in the near future. You’ll be glad you did, we promise!

Pay whatever you want

We put considerable effort into the resources we make. We’re asking anyone who actually gets some use out of these icons and buttons to pay for them, and for the time we spent creating them. We won’t set the price point, so pay whatever you like. Hate them? Don’t pay anything!

Using these icons commercially

If you want to use these icons and buttons commercially (on your company’s website, in client work, in any scenario where you’ll be profiting from the work they’re in) then we kindly request that you donate at least $40 to justify the time and effort we’ve put in to creating them. It wasn’t a small job, and your money goes directly back in to creating more quality design resources.

You may also like some of our other icon sets: 64 Vector Arrow Icons, 40 Vector Icons for your Photo Editing App, 85 Vector Window Icons, 40 Vector Icons for Apple Products, and many more.

Apple’s latest version of Safari is out (in beta), with some evolutionary interface changes, and a dramatically faster javascript processing engine. The release of Safari 4 was not anticipated by any of the typical rumour sites, so it came as a surprise to just about everyone. As always, though, it was no surprise to see Apple’s bright and simple marketing pages selling the browser as the best thing since sliced bread.

The Mac maker’s marketing team appear to have had a field day promoting all 150 of the fantastic new features of their latest browser. But is everything they say completely true? Have they pushed the boundaries of honesty with their sensationalist slogans? Taking a look at the list of new features, I started to get a little suspicious. Just about none of the new features listed on Apple’s website are original – most are already out there in other browsers, having already been invented by the likes of Google, Mozilla, and the open source community. Or they’ve actually been features in Safari already, but Apple are drawing more attention to them in this release.

The main new features list promoted by Apple:

• Top sites: suspiciously like Chrome’s “most visited” section on opening a new tab. But of course it’s all shiny and in 3D, which makes meel feel like I’m in the Matrix – so I like that bit.
• CoverFlow: OK, this isn’t currently in any browser, but we got there first!
• Full History Search: this has been around in Opera for a rather long time (since the betas of version 9.5 back in September 2007), and was actually available to some extent in the previous version of Safari – they promoted it as a “new” feature back then.
• Tabs on top: Chrome – did we even need to say? But that said, Opera again had the idea of putting the tabs above the addressbar waaay back in the day. They could at least put the little favicons in the top corner to help easily identify different sites on different tabs – isn’t that the point of a favicon?
• Nitro Engine (Squirrel Fish wasn’t up to scratch for Apple’s Marketing Department): notice how in the performance graphs they’ve subtlely left off Firefox 3.2 and Chrome 2.0 betas, both of which have amazingly fast javascript engines.
• Windows native look and feel: I could go on and on about this for ages, but I won’t. The transparent tabs are really quite ugly (Chrome definitely had the better idea there) and the whole thing with darkening the inactive areas of the title bar really doesn’t do it for me. Plus it’s all misaligned in the Windows 7 beta. But all the same, even in vista, where it does work – I still much prefer chrome for simple native interface feel.


Good one Apple. However, both Safari 4 and Windows 7 are still in beta, so I'll let Apple off for this one.



Seriously, what's going on there? Which would you choose?

• Developer Tools: Is it just me, or hasn’t this been in Safari for a while now? I use the developer tools in Safari 3 all the time (all the time I actually even use Safari that is – Firefox FTW!) I can see they’ve changed the icons from Safari 3 in the web inspector, but other than that can anyone point out to me what they’ve added?

Ok, I won’t go into a huge wealth of detail about all the other features, but here’s a couple more from the 150 features page that were tagged as new which really caught my attention:

• Full page zoom: Unbelievably, the first time I came across this was in IE. I don’t know if it was around before then though.
• Phishing and malware protection: IE again unbelievably.
• Smart address field: Firefox Awesome Bar, and then the Chrome Omnibox.
• Inline Progress Indicator: Firstly, this isn’t new, even for Safari, and more importantly, it looks to me suspiciously like this has been taken out rather than introduced.

Acid 3

And then there’s Acid3. I don’t like being too pedantic about this matter, but the Acid3 test isn’t just about getting a pixel-perfect rendering. To pass the test, the animation has to be smooth as well. I’ve tested the beta on a couple of different platforms and while it produces an absolutely infallable rendering, the animation is by no means smooth. Test 69 continually takes more than 50 attempts to succeed. So when Apple are professing to be the “first browser to pass Acid3″, they are actually wrong in that they’re not the first (Opera betas have passed before this one), and they don’t actually pass the test! What really puzzles me about this matter is that all the WebKit nightly builds for quite a long time now have passed perfectly with a perfectly smooth animation. So have Apple put a 6 month old version of WebKit into “the World’s most innovative browser”? It would appear so.

Toolbar Troubles

The toolbar is only a gripe for the Windows version – it’s slightly different in OS X because the menu bar is separated so a few buttons are differently arranged, but the issue can be summed up very well with a simple screenshot:

Spot the difference anyone?

See what I mean? Just for those of you who don’t recognise it, the top one’s the toolbar from Google Chrome, and the bottom one’s the latest Safari. There’s just the tiniest bit of a similarity there methinks.

The idea of compressing the main menu bar into a couple of dropdown buttons is quite established (first seen in IE7 I believe), but the simple fact that the two toolbars are so alike is what bothers me. Back and forward buttons at the beginning: a standard UI convention that makes perfect sense. Add bookmark button attached to the left side of the address bar: getting a little bit suspicious. Then the address bar is a bit different (as an aside, I think the refresh button is in the wrong place, but maybe that’s aimed at users who have only just got used to the fact that IE decided to put it there too for no reason). The refresh button’s new location is also a result of its placement within Mobile Safari on iPhone. But then there are the two dropdown buttons. Now I know these aren’t there on the mac, but that’s because the menu bar’s already at the top of the screen so there’s no need for them. Still – they’re EXACTLY the same buttons effectively. Come on – they’ve even nicked one of the icons! OK so the actual content of the two dropdowns is slightly different, but the sheer fact that they are both essentially for the same purpose in both browsers shows unquestionable similarity to Chrome.

On the plus side, the installer for the latest beta FINALLY no longer insists on adding an icon to my quick launch, as per the latest Windows 7 guidelines. Many’s the time I’ve got inordinately annoyed by icons appearing after every time I run an Apple Software Update. I appreciate that one Apple.

And of course I love the fact that the wording of their info pages implies that Safari has only 150 features. That’s all. No more. Wouldn’t be much of a browser if that were true.

I think that’s just about enough ranting for now. The point is, these features may not all be entirely original, but I’ll admit bringing them together in one browser makes a pretty good package overall (apart from the Windows interface I don’t really like). Let us know what you think on the matter, especially those of you who, like me, aren’t complete Macheads (like James.)

Update: June 9th 2009
Following yesterday’s launch of the final version of Safari 4, some of my gripes have been fixed.

• Apple have obviously seen the light and put tabs back where they belong. Which is good, because I personally couldn’t see the visual appeal of having them at the top. They basically just looked awful on both the mac and windows versions.
• Along with that, the Windows Native Look and Feel, as they call it, is therefore greatly improved. No more of those silly shadow effects along the title bar.
• The refresh button has now taken on its own special little “Loading” message in a blue box while the page is loading, much better than the pathetic little spinner they had in the beta.
• And a few other things that I can’t quite put my finger on, but which do make the general experience better than it was in beta

However (and sorry for this), there are still a few things that really get up my nose…

• The toolbar’s still the same, a Chrome ripoff. OK, I wasn’t expecting Apple to go and drastically change it from the beta, so I won’t go on. I did enough ranting about that earlier.
• Acid3. Aaahh, good old Acid3. Come on Apple, you’ve been going on about 100% compliance for a while now and you’re just about getting there. But still, although the rendering’s great, the speed still falls down in test 69. Now I know the speed is somewhat hardware-dependent, but I’ve run it on a couple of machines with pretty decent specs, and it still isn’t up to scratch. I’ll just take this opportunity to reiterate that old WebKit nightly builds were coping fine, ages ago. But there you go…
• And maybe I spoke too soon about the installer not putting icons everywhere. Apple Software Update still insists on shoving shortcuts in my desktop and quick launch. I don’t need them! They just clutter everything up! If I wanted shortcuts there, I’d have put them there in the first place on the original install!

And I know this is advertised as a bit of a rant, and well I suppose it is. But in all honesty it is a bit harsh. Safari’s a pretty damn decent browser, truth be told. But I’ll stick with Firefox for now – FireBug just has the edge over Safari’s developer tools for me, at the moment anyway.