Browser Acid Test

[Mel81x]

After the startling display by Safari 4 - Beta on the Acid test website, I decided to go ahead and try out the Safari browser embedded in my iPod's firmware to see where it stood in the rankings. I got a 74/100 which isn't so bad as Internet Explorer RC1 didn't even get that far. My question is this however, I am wondering if more companies creating mobile devices really need to ramp up the way they use these browsers for delivering content. I know that Apple are in talks with Adobe for the inclusion of Flash with the mobile browser they have out now.

I also started wondering what all failed and then I went and looked at it and while I don't think its too bad considering most websites out there aren't still fully using these features, I still think that a mobile user is missing a bit out of the experience. Sure we can say that a mobile user really isn't going to ever experience the full function of a website on a handheld but wouldn't it be nice? I am hoping that Apple brings the Nitro engine to iP(od/hone) so that people running pages with Java on them can experience the speeds that Safari 4 - Beta is giving Desktop users.

Your thoughts/comments?

Acid 3 Test Website - http://acid3.acidtests.org/
Acid 3 Test List - http://www.webstandards.org/action/acid3/
Acid 3 List (Where it fails and why) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid3

[S2_Mac]

My question is this however, I am wondering if more companies creating mobile devices really need to ramp up the way they use these browsers for delivering content.

In the case of Safari, the current beta involves more than just the browser -- Apple is updating the JavaScriptCore and the WebKitCore (along with refreshing the browser's UI, security, featuers, etc.). These updates affect more than just the browser, as WebKit underlies all sorts of connectivity (not just browsing) and Javascript gets more and more usage outside of running scripts in web pages.

You note that "most websites out there aren't still fully using these features", and that's largely true. "Most websites" are old (old!) pages created years ago when "standards" were being hugely ignored by the domoinant browser, Internet Explorer; pages had to be designed for the lowest common denominator (IE). (The alternative was to code pages according to the standards and then employ nasty workarounds for IE; subsequent version of IE broke those workarounds and added new bugs, so onging page maintenance was needed -- for most sites, that was just too much bother/expense.)

But the most-used sites -- the Facebooks, Hulus, GMails, iLounges, etc. -- are taking advantage of the standards, which in turn lets them use AJAX-y goodness, which depends on accurate CSS layouts and fast, accurate Javascript. (FYI, Nitro is WebKit's new JavaScript engine; other than common roots in Sun corp, Java and JavaScript are miles apart.)

And Javascript isn't just for web page scripts anymore. It's also being used for online applications (Google Apps), applications to get you online (Mozilla' UI is provided via Javascript), and offline stuff (GMail offline), and more (JS is being built into PDF apps, office apps, even Flash). So, big improvements to JavaScript and rendering engines (and the underlying connectivity) pay benefits to more uses than just web surfing.

If IE8 actually gets it together and supports the current standards (along with Windows Mobile OS) for layout and ECMAScript (the "real" Javascript), a much bigger Web 2.0 explosion can take place. Even if IE doesn't meet the standards, if it at least fails gracefully that will be a big step forward. (That was one of the purposes when Todd Fahrner first invented Acid1 -- not only to show how well other browsers could handle CSS 1, but to also underscore how gracelessy IE failed. When other browsers failed, you could at least read the content, even if the layout rendering wasn't accurate; with IE you usually got an unreadable blob.)

And, of course, there's the hype factor -- Apple loves to count coup, and claiming "first to pass Acid3" is another feather in the company's hat (or rather, another bullet point in their sales pitch ;-).