This reads like a political attack ad. So many half-truths in here.<p>Just an example: they claim that Chrome "dropped support on Windows XP for functionality that [IE Team] think is fundamental to performance." Linking to this blog post: <a href="http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/02/dev-channel-update_28.html" rel="nofollow">http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/02/dev-channel...</a><p>The reality is that Chrome disabled it temporarily on the dev channel due to crashing, and in fact brought it back for v11: <a href="http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975</a><p>Microsoft doesn't even acknowledge the fact that they don't even have a version of IE10, or even 9, for Windows XP!<p>Is this really what the browser wars are going to come to? Lies and marketing? I thought we were over that.
<i>The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9.</i><p>I'm leery of the word "native" in this context. It strikes me as a marketing phrase with little or no actual meaning. They're trying to sell me on the idea that my HTML5 experience will somehow be better because it uses code provided by Windows itself rather than by some intermediary library. But what is that windows code, if not a library of code?
In discussing why IE9+ will not be available for XP, they write:<p><i>Others have dropped support on Windows XP for functionality that we think is fundamental to performance.</i><p>This is completely disingenuous. What they are actually referring to (and link to) is Google disabling GPU acceleration and WebGL on XP starting in Chrome 10.0.648.114 due to stability issues. Importantly, Google intends Chrome 11 to re-enable these features on XP for known-good drivers. Here is the relevant ticket:<p><a href="http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=72975</a><p>The thing is, I actually agree with Microsoft's decision to not support XP. XP, like IE6, is a fundamentally flawed platform and the sooner people move off of it, the better. I just wish they'd make the argument honestly.
1. All this talk about 'Native' is basically propaganda. There is no such thing. All modern browsers generate native code when running JavaScript, and most use GPU acceleration to render content (for example, Firefox uses Direct2D, exactly the same as IE9). IE9 and 10 are not more 'native' than other browsers.<p>2. I am impressed by the work on implementing new standards - kudos to Microsoft. But I did not see anything about WebGL, which is a very important standard that is already implemented in Firefox, Chrome, Safari and (soon, or already) Opera.
Criticizing Firefox for not rendering something correctly seems like throwing bricks in a glass house.<p>Also, I didn't see a Javascript benchmark in there.
IE9 renders nice and quickly but in contrast to their claims of speed, I've found their DOM manipulation to significantly underperform in contrast to the other browsers. Firefox 4 and Chrome 10+ are able to create and insert large numbers of new elements at the same time significantly faster than IE9, while IE9 stutters and lags under the same conditions.
It's good that they will keep working on IE, but since they will only release these "previews" for a year, that means new features will always be way earlier in Chrome and Firefox (soon) with their fast release cycles. IE10 will launch with features that Chrome and Firefox will have 10 months before.
Going to <a href="http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/" rel="nofollow">http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/</a> on Chrome (dev-channel) shows a little banner with the following message,<p>"Cool, you're using a Chrome 12 nightly build!
Don't forget to enable your partial hardware acceleration in the about:flags thingy..."<p>Seems like they're actually worried about Chrome, since Firefox and Safari don't have any similar messages.
It's good that Microsoft is viewing integration into it's OS stack as a way to squeeze out performance but if that also doesn't translate into an accelerated ship schedule then who cares.<p>One year is an eternity.
FTA: "... CSS3 Multi-column Layout (link), CSS3 Grid Layout (link) and CSS3 Flexible Box Layout (link), CSS3 Gradients (link), and ES5 Strict Mode in action. We also demonstrated additional standards support (like CSS3 Transitions (link) and CSS3 3D Transforms (link)) that will be available in subsequent platform previews of IE10, which we will update every 8-12 weeks."<p>Oh, hell yes! CSS gradients and animations/transforms? Christmas came early this year. This version can't come soon enough.
When will I be able to use the latest CSS and HTML features without vendor tags in any browser? I'm tired of -wekbit -moz -o and -ms.<p>I won't count any of them as supporting stuff until it works without vendor extensions, and I can finally stop saying things in quadruplicate.
You'd think the 'best native support' would have WebGL.<p>Oh well, I just hope the History API makes it soon so we can stop abusing #anchors in a few years ..
Going by the rest of the article, I'm assuming by native HTML5 they mean hardware accelerated compositing? Good for them if so, but 'native' is definitely the wrong word to use, and the development channel of Chrome has supported hardware accelerated compositing for quite some time.<p><a href="https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/design-documents/gpu-accelerated-compositing-in-chrome" rel="nofollow">https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/desig...</a><p>Can even try it out in the current stable channel if you enable it:
about:flags<p>IE10 and WebGL is the big question for me, which will be interesting to see pan out given their obviously conflicting position with OpenGL.
FlexBox, transitions, gradients, and 3D transforms... glad to see progress continuing to be made -- and they were demoing it on an ARM processor. Cool.
I'm not a regular Windows user, but it seems like many even more tech savvy users continually fall for this same cycle of BS from MS. The users frustrated with IE 7 were excited about how much better IE 8 would be. It turned out, IE 8 had many of the same rendering weirdness that IE 7 had. Then came IE 9 to save the day. Only it doesn't do nearly as well supporting HTML 5 features as Chrome, Safari and Firefox.<p>So now here comes IE 10, and what's the pitch? It's gonna be damn fast. Who gives shit? Chrome and Safari are blazing fast AND you don't have to through all kinds of hacks, and html5.js at them as they work perfectly as is, with nearly ALL of the HTML 5 specifications.
"Our legal terms have changed since your last visit. By agreeing to the legal terms and requirements, you can continue making contributions to MSDN. Your profile is linked to from all contributions that you make, so others can learn more about you. It also shows your recent social activity and your medals/points."<p>I have to agree to this to read an article? No thanks.
I posted this on their comments: "Please, Microsoft, don't try to confuse people by hijacking the word "native". An HTML 5 application does not run on a magical HTML 5 CPU, even in IE9 and IE10. Being single platform may allow you to develop IE faster but it is not an advantage for the user."
Is that Rob Mauceri speaking in the Video? I saw him at a round table at the Web 2.0 Expo last month and Douglas Crockford and Alex Russell tore him a new ass about Ecma Script 5 strict mode. Looks like he got out of the building alive and actually listened. Cool
Native is to browsers as Open is to Mobile OS. That is a great catchy phrase that will get the tech blogs lots of page views while the fans argue about whose definition is more correct.
IE in a nutshell: <a href="http://i56.tinypic.com/311s410.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://i56.tinypic.com/311s410.jpg</a><p>The damage has been done. The legacy of IE won't be fixed with a new version number.
<i>IE10 Platform Preview 1, available for download today is the first step...</i><p><i>The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9.</i>
I am liking the pugnacious tone. I suspect that with IE9 shipped, they feel they've earned the right to make a forceful argument on how browser development should happen.<p>"<i>Hey kid. Releasing a new version every few weeks ain't professional.</i>"