| Hey folks,
In my former job, I was one of the last people in MacBU to touch the MacIE sources, and was the development lead when we shut down development and announced there would be no Mac IE 6. The reasoning was complex, but came down to the fact that Apple wanted to own an essential piece of their future -- the browser -- and no longer needed us to prop up the platform with our own offering. Ironically, the company that made browsers free as a competitive move became the company that couldn't justify development of a free product once it again came under competition (of a sort).
Astonishingly, MacIE continues to be one of the top downloads for the Macintosh Business Unit, so I can attest that it is still far from obsolete despite having only 14 days left of official support. Usage numbers are steadily dropping, though.
MacIE was quite a product in its day. When I arrived in 2000, folks were still talking about how Apple 'borrowed' the look and feel of Mac IE 5 for its new operating system, Mac OS X. (Ever notice how IE5 looks "kinda" like an Aqua application? That's because the code predates Aqua. The subtle striping in the backgrounds is hand drawn.) It'll be sad to see it drop into the sunset, but I was relieved not to have to maintain the thing -- it was written before anyone much cared about security, and we lived in fear that something major would be found.
jim On Dec 17, 2005, at 9:29 PM, Cortlandt Winters wrote: Hi Don,
I read the announcement when it first came out and I would like to believe that it will make a difference, but I will really only believe it when I see the server logs that say it is so.
I understand how horrible it is, but like a virus, it's out there. And real normal human beings to whom a browser is just an icon that you click on, do seem to use it.
I am also willing to bet that the folk who use these browsers have never received support of any kind from microsoft for any microsoft software that they have ever used and the lack of support will go unnoticed by them.
By what I have seen these are largely elementary, jr high and high schools in poor districts that were once given labs of macintosh computers and still use them. When a computer has a problem they use the software that came with the computer to fix it.
I'm afraid that to believe that IEMac is dead is to believe a bit in engineering by wishfull thinking.
Thanks though.
-Cort
On 12/17/05, Don Hopkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Internet Explorer on the Mac is dead. Support officially ceases some time in 2005 (only a few more days left to get your bug reports and feature requests in!), and in a little more than a month it will no longer even be available for download.
The _javascript_ interpreter in IE for the Mac doesn't even support array.push and many other standard methods. It wasn't ever really a viable _javascript_ development platform, unless you want to bend over backwards to write all your _javascript_ code to avoid the most common standard functions, and work around its many other bugs. (Note: dynamically adding a push method to array is not a viable work around because it breaks iteration over dictionary keys, returning "push" as a key of every dictionary, so you have to write "array[array.size] = val instead of array.push(val), and call global functions to simulate the other missing methods like pop, shift and unshift.) MacIE doesn't have a serious _javascript_ interpreter -- it's just a cruel joke.
There's no reason for anyone to be using IEMac, when Firefox is widely available for free.
Any educational institution still insisting on using MacIE must be so backwards that they also teach intelligent design!
Here it is from the horse's mouth:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/internetexplorer/internetexplorer.aspx?pid=internetexplorer IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER FOR MAC USERS
In June 2003, the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit announced that Internet Explorer for Mac would undergo no further development, and support would cease in 2005. In accordance with published support lifecycle policies, Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and will provide no further security or performance updates.
Additionally, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac will no longer be available for download from Mactopia. It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.
_______________________________________________ Laszlo-dev mailing list |
smime.p7s