jonasbn, ask and gnat mentioned Apple's new Safari browser earlier today. I've used it for most of the afternoon, and I like it. Don't get me wrong -- the lack of tabs is a serious oversight. But Apple did a few things right.
First, the brushed metal doesn't bother me, even though it violates Apple's user interface guidelines on when to use brushed metal. :-) The interface is crisp, clean and devoid of doodads that no one uses anymore. (Interestingly, the status bar is turned off by default, but of course I turned it back on.)
There is no browser icon animation to signify that a page is loading. It took me a while to miss it, when I realized that it really is a useless piece of fluff (as is the wait bar in the status bar). Instead, the entire URL bar is a wait bar. Neat effect, but it needs some work. Perhaps I just need to get used to it...
There's no way to configure the search box to use a search engine besides Google. Let's face it -- that's what everyone is going to be using anyway. +1 for cutting to the chase.
Of course the text rendering is simply beautiful. I might switch my default font to Lucida Grande in my other browsers because it just looks so nice. -1 for defaulting to a 14pt font -- that is simply too large.
I don't think I've used a bookmark in about 4 years now. They're generally pointless, hard to find and broken by the time you do find them again. Nevertheless, the way Apple has rethought bookmarks is interesting. They're not an add-on feature, a "sidebar" doodad, but an integrated part of the browser. Clicking the little book icon in the bookmark bar turns the browser window into a bookmark manager. Also, it's nice to have the opportunity to rename every bookmark before it's added, but that would probably annoy me over time. (Dragging a link to the bookmark bar works without the annoying dialog sheet.)
Perhaps the most interesting feature that Apple thought about is downloading. I prefer individual windows to show the progress of a download, but I'm old school I guess. Safari uses a single download center (pioneered on IE for the Mac, IIRC). But that's not the interesting part. Many Mac files are stored on the web in a .bin format that's needed just for transfers. So Safari transparently translates a .dmg.bin file to a .dmg file before magically opening it. (There is no dialog to ask you if you want to open it or not -- files are always opened, unless there's no association set up for the file type). This is a small feature, but it gets rid of a constant annoyance -- removing .dmg.bin files once Stuffit has converted them to .dmg files.
Apple also thought about the whole issue of user feedback. The bug button on the main toolbar will report bugs rendering the current page. Really great when you want to help the developers figure out why a specific web page is misrendering or crashing the browser. Of course I want to send general feedback (like the lack of tabs is a serious bug), but the design of this window makes me hesitate a second before sending feedback. Another plus.
All in all, it's a much better browser than what it will eventually replace: IE/mac. :-)
