Apple's Safari 4 tops 11 million downloads in 3 days

Apple's Safari 4 Web browser was downloaded more than 11 million times in the first three days of release, the company said Friday. 

And more than 6 million of the downloads came from Windows users. 

Since Safari 4's public beta release in February, Apple has touted the browser as the fastest in the world, when compared with other popular browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer 8. 

According to Apple, Safari 4 tops IE 8 and Firefox by three times or more when loading HTML Web pages. With its Nitro JavaScript engine, the company claims, Safari executes JavaScript almost eight times as fast as IE 8 and more than four times as fast as Firefox. 

Based on the open-source Webkit browser engine, Safari includes HTML 5 support for offline technologies and is the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project's Acid3 test. 

Safari includes several enhancements, such as Top Sites, the ability to search history, Google Suggest, and Full Page Zoom, to make browsing the Web a bit easier. 

Safari is free for download for both Mac and Windows users.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Steve Jobs had liver transplant, Apple CEO

Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave from Apple for the past six months, received a liver transplant in Tennessee two months ago, according to a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal. 

Earlier this year, Apple's CEO was reported to be relocating from California to Tennessee, which has a shorter waiting list for patients seeking organs, the report noted. In January, after Jobs announced that he would step aside from his day-to-day duties for a six-month medical leave of absence, Bloomberg reported that Apple's CEO was considering a liver transplant. In a telephone interview at the time, Jobs refused to comment on his health status. 

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but an Apple representative told the Journal that Jobs "continues to look forward to returning at the end of June, and there's nothing further to say." 

Jobs is expected to return to the helm of Apple this month after nearly six months of medical leave. Jobs announced in January that he would be stepping down temporarily from the chief executive post while recuperating from a hormone imbalance. Some hoped his return to the company would coincide with an appearance at the Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month to announce the new iPhone 3G S, but that did not pan out for Apple faithful. 

Jobs, 54, has been the subject of heated speculation regarding his health since last June's Worldwide Developers Conference, when he appeared to have lost a great deal of weight. At the time, Apple insisted that Jobs' health was a private matter but revealed in early January that Jobs was suffering from a hormone imbalance that was impeding his body's ability to absorb certain proteins. 

In August 2004, Jobs underwent successful surgery to treat a rare form of pancreatic cancer, which sidelined him until September of that year. Much of the speculation over the past year had been over whether that cancer had returned. 

Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, has been running the company during Jobs' absence.