You may probably know Apple has released Safari 4 Beta for public testing. Advertised as the world’s fastest browser, Safari 4 brings a number of innovations and eye-candy features, as well as speed boost. I have installed Safari on both Mac and Windows machines. From my initial test, it’s wicked fast especially compared to the old IE7. On top of the performance boost, Apple packs Safari 4 with a number of enhancements. Let’s see if any of the major features will be bundled in the iPhone’s Safari browser (this is just my blind-guess):

Top Site

If you have used Google’s Chrome browser before, Top Sites looks familiar to you. Once you launch Safari, it shows a preview of your favourite websites in thumbnail images. Click on any thumbnail image and Safari will “zoom” to your favourite website instantly. Safari tracks your usage pattern to determine the top sites. If you don’t like the favourite websites that Safari generates for you, you can edit them manually.

Will this appear on iPhone’s Safari?
Not likely due to the limited screen size.

Search History & Cover Flow

Apple tries to bring the seamless user experience when using its products. First, we have cover flow in iTunes. Next, cover flow is used in iPod and iPhone. Now, it also appears in Safari 4. When you go to the browser history or your bookmarks, you can flip through the cached web pages in Cover Flow style. I found this highly-visual way of browsing history is pretty useful and efficient. Safari 4 also offers you full-text search for the history. Just tap in any word or phrase in search history text field, Safari will bring you all the cached web pages that matches the keyword. In fact, the search results will include anything that was on a page you visited, even photo captions.

Will this appear on iPhone’s Safari?
Probably.

Tabs on Top

Another feature that probably Apple steals from Google Chrome. Now Safari takes tabbed browsing to the very top of the browser window that intends to provide more room for web surfing. For those who haven’t used Google Chrome, you may find this feature disconcerting and take time to get used to. For me, I really enjoy this change and find it pretty great as it offers me more room for reading.

Will this appear on iPhone’s Safari?
I don’t think so.

Performance Boost – The Nitro Engine

Advertised as the world’s fastest browser, Safari delivers stunning performance by using the new Nitro Engine. It’s claimed that Safari executes Javascritp up to 30 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and more than 3 times faster than Firefox 3. In terms of HTML rendering performance, Safari 4 loads web pages 3 times faster than Internet Explorer 7 and almost 3 times faster than Firefox 3.

I haven’t run any scientific tests to test Safari’s performance. But my subjective experience, it’s really fast.

Will this appear on iPhone’s Safari?
Very likely.

Safari 4 is available for both Mac and Windows platform. If you want to try out alternative browsers, go ahead and download it.

Will Apple bundle any new features in Safari 4 in the next firmware update? Let’s wait and see.

[images via Apple]

 Share with Your Friends

What's Next?

If you find the post is useful, subscribe to Simon Blog using RSS or Email to get free iPhone updates. Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter or join us on Facebook.

Related Post you'll like:

• Opera Mini for iPhone: It’s Very Very Fast!
• Boost Your iPhone Volume with Volume Boost
• Save Web Page and Read It Later on iPhone
• Simon Blog is now optimized for iPhone with iWPhone
• VanillaSurf for iPhone Offers File Download and Full Screen Web Browsing

Sign up and Download Free iPhone Guide

Name Email

Send

Tagged as: apple, iPhone, safari