Apple posts a new HTML5 demo page -- for Safari only

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Video, News, Adobe, Apple, Google, web 2.0, Browsers

Whether you're on Team Apple or Team Adobe in the whole Flash vs. HTML5 brouhaha, you really can't dispute just how nice some of the new HTML5 and CSS3 features are, and while Microsoft was quick to throw a demo page up to tout IE9's capabilities, Apple for some reason waited until yesterday to post one for Safari.

...And they locked it down with user-agent detection to allow only people using Safari to view the demos. Anybody using something other than Safari to check the page out will be greeted with a box telling them to download Safari the moment they try to view one.

The ironic part is that Apple felt that people using, say, Chrome shouldn't be able to use any of the demos shown on the new HTML5 and Web Standards demo page, while any HTML5-capable browser can play with the demos on Apple's Safari Technology Demo, where all the same demos can be found, along with several others. Using both Chrome 5 and 6, I was able to use every demo except Video, VR, and Movie Trailers (which worked but couldn't load the actual trailer video). All three of those demos needed Safari to load the H.264 successfully.

I'll be the first to admit that Safari's been way ahead of the curve HTML5-wise (it's been able to do just about everything in these demos since last year, including video), but I think it's a bit on the daft side for their marketing team to block Chrome users from trying the demos on the page that's labeled HTML5 and Web Standards. A simple disclaimer saying that Safari may do a bit better would have probably sufficed, and now everyone is going to call them out on it -- like this.

Apple posts a new HTML5 demo page -- for Safari only originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 04 Jun 2010 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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