Apple revamps Safari with new UI, power-saving features
Apple's not forgetting about Safari with all the changes to OS X Yosemite. The browser has been completely overhauled with power-saving tweaks, new tabs and a privacy mode, among other new features. By far the biggest change, though, is in the UI -- it's got a new flat look that matches the new OS. On top of eliminating the favorites bar (which now pops up when you type in the address field), you get a bird's-eye view of tabs, and can scroll from side to side to select them. There's also a new Spotlight search that gives additional suggestions, as well as those from search engines like Google. Apple also says its latest Safari is standards-compliant and no longer requires video plugins for premium services like Netflix's HTML5 player -- which could net you up to two more hours of battery life when playing video.
Apple further claims that Safari has the fastest JavaScript compiler of any browser on the market (including Chrome and Firefox, it pointed out). Other new tweaks include one-click social sharing, sidebar RSS feeds and power-saving tabbed browsing. There's also new privacy tabs (which can be used alongside regular tabs), and support for DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn't track browsing. Finally, Apple has just announced a new Bing extension for Safari that allows inline translations -- and showed it off by translating a Japanese web page in a couple of seconds.
