#FF00AA

The thing is, Apple is among the worst developers for Windows that I know (meanwhile, Microsoft’s MacBU work their asses off to make OS X apps that look and feel right). It’s actually happened to me several times to recommend iTunes to someone, help them install it on their computer, and blush in embarrasment when the installer failed for the third time. Not that the software works better once it’s there — there’s that annoying tray icon, and the loads of startup services, and two users can’t even have iTunes running at the same time on the same computer.

The thing is, iTunes is the worst OS X application from Apple, because its interface designers primarily focus on Windows now. I’m not sure whether it was version 6 or 7 that lost the Chapters button, replacing it with a menu that works fine on Windows (it’s just a dozen pixels higher than it used to be) but doesn’t on Mac (because you don’t look at the menubar unless you’re going to use it — plus, it doesn’t show at all if iTunes is not the active app).

The thing is, one of the Mac’s greatest original virtues (and it still is now, even though Apple mistreated it repeatedly from 10.1 to 10.4) is design consistency, almost everyone respecting interface guidelines, etc. And a web browser that’s programmed to look exactly like a Mac app on Windows is a crime against good taste — if it can arguably make some kind of sense for a music player to have a distinctive GUI, the web browser should be one of the most unnoticeable programs on your desktop.

And the thing is, regular Windows users might have some kind of a fantasy of using a Mac, but look at what happens when they just get a tiny slice of OS X in their Windows rather than switch all the way.

From Apple’s point of view, there are several reasons for Safari to be released on Windows. But they’re all bad.

Giving Windows users a taste of the Mac to lure them into switching? I very much doubt that Safari could convince people who weren’t alerady enticed by iTunes. Plus, like I wrote above, Apple’s apps for Windows are pretty much anti-advertisements for the Mac — they should come with a flashing warning: “This works much better on the Mac! Honest!”

An iPhone SDK? Do you really want your iPhone web apps to be designed by Windows users? I’m pretty sure 99% of web developers who have an understanding of good interface design, and are capable of producing apps that won’t look out of place on an iPhone, already have a Mac. As for the remaining 1%, well, that would have been a nice opportunity to push a Mac mini onto their desktops, wouldn’t it?

John Gruber posted that the most likely motivation was that Apple wants its share of Google referrals on Windows, too (the Mozilla Foundation gets quite a nice revenue from people using the browser’s search field), and this interesting discovery (which I verified on my machine) pretty much confirms it: Apple pretty actively wants you to use the search field rather than setting Google or Yahoo as your homepage. Which is kind of harmlessly sneaky.

So, yeah, Safari for Windows might make them some revenue. But then, iLife for Windows would, too. Or iWork (well, no, probably not). Or Final Cut Pro. Or OS X for the PC, for that matter. Where do you draw the line? Apple’s emulated its all interface to Windows for its apps. They’ve reprogrammed Cover Flow to work without CoreWhatever. They even ported OS X’s font rendering engine to include it with Safari. In comparison, recompiling GarageBand or Final Cut Pro for Windows would probably be easier — not to mention removing the hardware verification from the OS X boot sequence. Where do you stop?

I guess the limit right now is at having an excuse from the hardware side of the business (the iPhone). But it’s just that: an excuse.

Meanwhile, I’m quite liking Safari 3 for Mac. When Steve demonstrated the visual find-as-you-type functionality (or maybe it was only on the Leopard pages) I knew I wanted it. Well, it works as advertised and I don’t want to live without it ever again.

(Don’t tell me “Firefox has been doing it for ages,” it hasn’t. I’m not talking about inline find per se, but the way search results are very prominently highlighted on the page. It’s a simple thing, but such a huge improvement.)

I don’t care much about reordering tabs and dragging them in and out, but maybe that’s just a matter of getting used to them — or maybe I’ve just gotten used to not using Safari’s tabs too much because it makes the browser unstable and then you lose all your open pages. (Although Safari 3’s “Reopen All Windows from Last Session” seems to work even after a crash.)

And it’s only slightly more crash-prone than Safari 2.