Apple unveils beta of Safari for Windows

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In a surprise announcement during the keynote address at its Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco today, Apple has released a public beta of its Safari web browser that runs on Windows-based PCs.

Apple chief executive Steve said during his keynote speech that the company had created a version of Safari to run on Windows in order to gain further share in the market for browsers and establish Safari as a real force in the PC-dominated web browser world.

The beta version of its new Safari browser for Windows will run on PCs using Windows XP and the recently launched Windows Vista, and is available for download from the Apple web site now.

Jobs cited industry market data showing that Safari, which currently runs on the MacOS operating system, has 4.9 per cent of the overall global browser market. Microsoft's Internet Explorer has around 78 per cent, while Firefox has around 15 per cent.

"We would love for Safari's market share to grow substantially," Jobs said during a presentation that focused on new features in Apple's upcoming operating system software, codenamed Leopard, which is due for release in October following a last-minute delay to allow developers to finish the software for the iPhone mobile phone/iPod hybrid.

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