As such, new features in Safari have been important to help people view content of all kinds, from text to video. The web browser is the platformĭuring Safari’s 20 years, the web browser became the platform by which most people access content (at least when they’re not using dedicated apps). WebKit is used on all of Apple’s platforms, regardless of whether or not they include Safari: macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Not only does Safari use it to display web pages, but other apps, such as Mail use WebKit to display content, Apple’s App Stores use WebKit, and apps like News, Notes, and Music depend on it.

WebKit has gone on to be an integral element in Apple’s operating systems. Safari was, and still is, based on WebKit, a page rendering framework that was developed from the open source KHTML browser engine. Today, Apple still includes its Safari browser with the latest versions of macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. The first iPad, released in 2010, was based on iPhone OS, and of course included the Safari browser like its smaller cousins. In 2008, Apple released a Windows version of Safari it was later silently discontinued in mid-2012. In 2007, with the arrival of the iPhone (and, months later, the iPod touch), Safari was included with “iPhone OS” (now known as iOS). Later, Safari spread to other operating systems. It offered pop-up blocking, because these nuisances already existed 20 years ago, and it had easy to use bookmarks. The SnapBack feature, that took you back to searches after going down a rabbit hole, was forgotten over time. The first iteration of Safari offered Google searches from the toolbar, something that was new at the time. Following these two are Microsoft Edge and Firefox, both with single-digit market share. Google’s Chrome is by far the most popular browser, with Safari a distant second. All three of the competitors mentioned above have faded away, and new browsers have become standard.

The browser wars have changed a lot in 20 years. (See Apple’s first web page presenting Safari.) The second reason that Apple created Safari was to innovate Apple wanted to make the best browser ever. Jobs compared it to Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Chimera (later renamed Camino), showing that Safari was faster.

At the time, Steve Jobs called Safari, “a turbo browser for Mac OS X.” Apple created Safari for speed, calling it the fastest browser for the Mac. Apple Apple’s Safari Web Browser is 20 Years OldĪpple introduced the Safari web browser 20 years ago, on January 7, 2003.

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