HISTORY OF DEV

February 24, 2009

Safari 4 beta released

Apple released SafariApple's web browser — built on WebKit for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. 4 beta on February 24, 2009 with Top Sites, Cover Flow tabs, and improved HTML5The fifth major HTML revision — native audio, video, canvas, and APIs without browser plugins. and CSSCascading Style Sheets — the language for layout, color, and typography on web pages. support.

What it was for

Safari (web browser)SafariApple's web browser — built on WebKit for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. 4 previewed features that defined Apple's browser for years: a new tab bar, developer tools, and Nitro JavaScript engine improvements. It kept SafariApple's web browser — built on WebKit for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. competitive with ChromeGoogle's web browser — built on Chromium and the most widely used browser worldwide. and FirefoxMozilla's open-source browser — championed web standards and challenged Internet Explorer's dominance. during the browser performance wars.

Companies

  • Apple

Why it's here

SafariApple's web browser — built on WebKit for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. 4 set the template for Apple's browser UX before the mobile-first era.

Why it mattered

Nitro JS and HTML5The fifth major HTML revision — native audio, video, canvas, and APIs without browser plugins. push made WebKitApple's open-source browser engine — powers Safari and historically influenced Chrome's fork. a benchmarkA standardized test suite for comparing systems — ImageNet, MLPerf, and SPEC define industry scoreboards. for speed on Mac.

What it solved

SafariApple's web browser — built on WebKit for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. 3 felt dated against ChromeGoogle's web browser — built on Chromium and the most widely used browser worldwide.'s fast release cycle and developer tools.

Media

  • Safari (web browser)
    ImageSafari (web browser)

    Apple, LGPL, via Wikimedia Commons

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