Just four weeks after the final version of its Web IE9 browser, Microsoft has posted a preview of IE10 development. Company executives showed a wide range of new Internet features, and demonstrated again the power of hardware acceleration introduced in the current browser.
The demonstration scenario in Microsoft’s MIX11 conference in Las Vegas this week, faced a preview of Google Chrome against IE10. In most cases, IE10 was noticeably faster and smoother than the chrome with a range of HTML5 and CSS3 properties.
During the presentation, Microsoft corporate vice president for Windows Internet Explorer Dean Hachamovitch said HTML5 and emerging web standards like they were making Web applications behave more like native applications. Microsoft’s goal in the recently published IE9 IE10 and the next is to expand and improve that “native” quality for the Web. “The only native to the Web experience today and HTML5 is Windows 7 with IE9” he said.
Not everyone is excited, as comments to the transcript of the speech blogpost Hachamovitch make clear.
The preview IE10, which, as presented to developers today, showed a series of new web standards, including:
Design CSS3 Multi-column – the content can flow from one column to another, while the columns can vary in number depending on the size of the viewport. And pulling the marking of boxes of documents: documents can be more easily presented in different form factors.
CSS3 Network design – networks are a way to create a wide range of different designs, dividing the space for regions of an application, or by defining the relationship between the parts of an HTML-based control.
Gradients CSS3 – are a type of image shows a soft cast different colors used to create shadows on the background images, buttons or other objects on a Web page.
Also on tap is the flexible design support for CSS3 Box, an additional format to display related tables in a Web page, and other emerging web services specifications that was added in the preview after IE10. Microsoft says that the iterative versions come every eight to 12 weeks.
According to Microsoft, what is Web developers who want to Web standards that are native to a particular operating system for optimal performance and consistency. “Native implementations are better for developers, consumers and businesses,” said Hachamovitch. “While the use of cross-platform compatibility layers nonnative makes development easier browser that does not necessarily make a better browser. Browsers that use modern operating systems more directly provide a better experience.”
IE9 does not run on Windows XP, for example. “[B] uilding a new browser version ten years of Windows that comes with Internet Explorer 6 does not make sense to us because of the limitations of its graphics and security architectures,” Hachamovitch said. [See: “Firefox 4 IE9 tops, if you just ignore all Windows XP users.]
“Our focus has been on how to turn the same mark for the delivery of native HTML5 Windows with full hardware acceleration and working closely with standards bodies and the community,” said Hachamovitch.