Apple today released a beta version of their upcoming Safari 4 Web Browser. The new version offers a host of improvements over Safari 3, aswell as some very tasty new features. Safari 4 uses the latest JavaScript engine, dubbed ‘Nitro’. It is said to render JavaScripts 4.2x faster than the previous Safari.

Here is a full rundown of the latest features in Safari 4 beta.

- Top Sites, a display of frequently visited pages in a stunning wall of previews so users can jump to their favorite sites with a single click;
- Full History Search, where users search through titles, web addresses and the complete text of recently viewed pages to easily return to sites they’ve seen before;
- Cover Flow, to make searching web history or bookmarks as fun and easy as paging through album art in iTunes;
- Tabs on Top, for better tabbed browsing with easy drag-and-drop tab management tools and an intuitive button for opening new ones;
- Smart Address Field, that automatically completes web addresses by displaying an easy-to-read list of suggestions from Top Sites, bookmarks and browsing history;
- Smart Search Field, where users fine-tune searches with recommendations from Google Suggest or a list of recent searches;
- Full Page Zoom, for a closer look at any website without degrading the quality of the site’s layout and text;
- Developer Tools - built-in web developer tools to debug, tweak and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility; and
- Windows-native look in Safari for Windows, that uses standard Windows font rendering and native title bar, borders and toolbars so Safari fits the look and feel of other Windows XP and Windows Vista applications.

I will post my impressions of the Safari beta once I have had time to use it, needless to say most of the scripts people use will be broken for a couple of days. Also, I find it interesting that Apple have decided to go with the native OS look for the XP and Vista versions? I didn’t think they would lower themselves to that level! All for the sake of market share I guess. Anyway, get downloading!

Download Safari 4 beta

Apple released their seventh security fix of 2008 tonight. The update is recommended for all users of Mac OS X. For more information about the update you should visit here. It weighs in at 31.1MB and as usual for an update of this nature, requires a restart.

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Unknown to me, Facebook have released their latest update for the iPhone. The App Store on my phone didn’t notify me of this update at all and it wasn’t until I synched my phone tonight that iTunes told me there were three updates to download. So Facebook 2.0.. well it adds loads of things to be fair, it finally takes it past the old Web App in terms of features.

Facebook 2.0 takes it to the next level

* Notifications view
* News Feed view
* Comment on Status messages
* Accept Friend requests
* Photo Tagging
* Photo Captioning
* Post Photos on Walls
* Inbox Search
* Message attachments

Above all the app is supposedly quicker, and far more stable, especially if you have a huge amount of friends.