Apple has released the first version of its browser, Safari, for the Windows operating system.
Safari 3.1, which was launched on Tuesday, will run on Windows XP or Vista and, of course, Mac OSX. Apple released a beta for the Windows-supporting version in June last year.
Apple has claimed that the browser is the fastest available for Windows. In a Tuesday statement, Cupertino said it "loads web pages 1.9 times faster than [Internet Explorer] 7 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2 [and] runs JavaScript up to six times faster than other browsers".
"Safari 3.1 for Mac and Windows is blazingly fast, easy to use and features an elegant user interface," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, on Tuesday.
According to Apple, Safari 3.1 is the "first browser to support the new video and audio tags in HTML 5 and the first to support CSS animations". The browser is free to download.
Talkback
Microsoft used to have an Internet Explorer version for Mac, but since IE6 they've decided it isn't worth it. In a reversal, its now Apple trying to lure IE users.
But how will Apple benefit from any audience it manages to capture? It's very hard to make money from browsers, so i don't think that's their goal. Maybe the hope with Safiri is to impress people enough that they'd be tempted to try out Macs!