Wired News Benchmarks Show Safari 3 Is Slower Than IE 7, Firefox
Apple CEO Steve Jobs touted Safari 3's speed as one of its most appealing features. But in tests by Wired News, the first public beta of Safari for Windows is actually slower than both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2 when accessing Ajax-intensive web applications.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands days after Apple's June 2007 WWDC keynote, where Steve Jobs framed Safari 3's speed as a headline feature and used the same stage to show the feature-complete Leopard. The Windows port itself is strategic: it puts Apple's browser — and its WebKit engine — in front of users who don't own a Mac, weeks before the confirmed June 29 iPhone launch through AT&T extends the same platform story to phones.
The benchmark result also collides with a long-running Apple–Microsoft disagreement over how fonts should render on screen, one visible symptom of which is Apple's use of sub-pixel rendering in Safari. Analysis circulating around the keynote argued Apple stands to benefit as the winner while Microsoft and Google battle each other; Wired's numbers test how much of that framing survives contact with independent measurement.
First-order effects
- Windows users trying the public beta get a browser that trails Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2 on the Ajax-intensive applications defining the 2007 web-app experience, directly contradicting the speed pitch from Jobs' keynote.
- Mozilla's Firefox team and Microsoft's IE group gain third-party benchmark cover against Apple's 'fastest browser' positioning.
Second-order effects
- Apple is pushed to iterate the Windows beta on a short cycle, because reviews of this build now audit the credibility of its keynote claims, not just the product.
- A Windows Safari forces Apple to compete simultaneously against both incumbent browsers, straining the tidy narrative that Apple profits while Microsoft and Google fight each other.
Third-order effects
- If keynote speed claims keep failing independent Ajax benchmarks, browser launches shift toward third-party testing as the arbiter of performance, raising the cost of marketing-led rollouts.
- A successful cross-platform Safari would give WebKit a Windows installed base — structural groundwork for the web-platform ambitions Apple has tied to the iPhone launch at the end of June.
The trend: As browsers go cross-platform, vendor-claimed speed is being displaced by independently run Ajax benchmarks as the measure that decides perception.