Available for Mac and Windows PCs and introduced as a beta in February of this year, Safari 4 features the Nitro engine which Apple claims runs JavaScript up to 4.5 times faster than Safari 3.<\/p>\n
The company further says that Safari 4 makes browsing more intuitive with new features and support for web standards like HTML 5 and advanced CSS Effects.<\/p>\n
“The successful beta release helped us fine tune Safari 4 into an even better, faster version that customers are going to love,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.<\/p>\n
“Safari is enjoyed by 70 million users worldwide and with its blazing fast speed, innovative features and support for modern web standards, it’s the best browser on any platform.”<\/p>\n
According to Net Applications Apple’s Safari browser currently holds 8.30% of the global web browser market share. This makes Safari the third most popular browser behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer with 65.80% and Firefox with 22.56%.<\/p>\n
Safari has grown its market share from 1.89% in early 2005 to just over 8% this year, partly because of the launch of Safari for Windows in June 2007.<\/p>\n
Apart from the new web browser, Apple also unveiled their latest operating system, Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard will ship as an upgrade for Mac OS X Leopard users in September 2009 for $29.<\/p>\n