14 DAY TRIAL // Apple recently announced that Safari for Windows topped a million downloads in 48 hours. While there can be no doubt that a chuck of those downloads are Mac users downloading Safari for use on their PC at work or their virtual machine, there is at least one group of people for which Safari offers what no other Windows browser does, proper display of images.
Safari for Windows lets users view color-managed images properly, where the other browsers do not. It will properly display images with embedded ICC profiles, just like the Mac version does. While this is very important for photographers both amateur and professional, and anybody else that needs quality publishing on the web, it is nothing to scoff at for the average user. You might not think that there can be a big difference between the ways the images are displayed, but you would be very mistaken. This web page clearly shows what a big difference a browser that properly interprets embedded ICC profiles makes. In Windows, neither Firefox nor Internet Explorer manages to properly display the images, while Safari renders them perfectly.
Apple's Windows version of Safari has had a mixed reception. On one hand, many have praised it, but on the other just as many have turned it aside due to the many bugs and crashes that it experiences. iTunes for Windows is a clear indication that Apple is able to port its programs and have them function perfectly across all the flavors of Windows and hardware out there in the PC world. As such there can be little doubt that Safari will eventually be as stable and functional as it is on the Mac. The current beta still needs a lot of work, and Apple probably would not have released it as it is, were it not for the fact that they need it to be out there when the iPhone launches.