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 Stephen Withers turns his gaze on the world of Apple, with
detours into other aspects of IT and communications as they catch his
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Technology news and Jobs 
Our Blogs Core Dump Apple tweaking Safari for iPhone 2.2 software
Our Blogs Core Dump Apple tweaking Safari for iPhone 2.2 software | Apple tweaking Safari for iPhone 2.2 software |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Monday, 29 September 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2       
The relationship between Apple and Google has always been - how shall we put it - interesting, what with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, having a seat on Apple's board, and with Google actively developing its own mobile phone platform while being the first company to create iPhone apps outside Apple. Given the latest moves to make Google's association with the iPhone's web search more prominent in the forthcoming version of Safari - it even shows Google's name - it leaves you wondering just how much of an impact the G1 and Android has had between the two companies. News of the Safari changes comes through leaks said to emanate from developers who have received prerelease copies of version 2.2 of the iPhone software, with screenshots showing that the magnifying glass icon next to the URL box in Safari has been dropped in favour of a separate Google box, much like the desktop version of Apple's browser. To make room for the new field, Apple has also moved the page refresh icon into the URL box. What's the motivation? Usability and revenue are the two most obvious possibilities. Even though a magnifying glass is used elsewhere for to symbolise search - notably by Mac OS X's Spotlight desktop search system - the relationship is not obvious, especially as it is also used to represent the zoom function (eg, when the desktop version of Safari displays a PDF file). Locating a search box next to the URL field is consistent with other browsers, including Firefox. One of the problems with this arrangement on a desktop browser is that it can be surprisingly easy to hit the tab key inadvertently and end up searching for (say) www.apple.com rather than going directly to the page. This, I've long suspected, is the reason why domain names so often show up in the lists of most common search terms generated by companies such as Hitwise. What's missing from 2.2? See page 2. |
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