So what do you need to know? It’s fast, it’s very standards compliant (no really!), it does whizzy stuff with graphics acceleration (the fish), it’s got integration with Windows that no other browser does as well but the most important thing is that it makes YOUR website the star. Go get the IE9 Beta.
Standards, standards, standards
There’s been lots of buzz around the platform previews of Internet Explorer 9 including showing off just how fast we can animate things with canvas tags and the power of the GPU. We won’t rehash the importance of this but it means you can start to make your website even more immersive. The strict adoption of standards means that that the code you write for your site will work across browsers and platforms simply and HTML5 support is a corner stone of this.
With HTML5 you could do cool stuff like animate fish or give your users a psycotrophic experience or you could make an application that your users never want to leave. That same experience will work in Chrome and Firefox and in Safari too, so you only code once. Top Gear have done some awesome HTML 5 work on their cool wall. But personally I love the Rough Guides site (I can’t believe it’s not Flash or Silverlight!)
Content, content, content
Your content rules, you know that! Of course we’ve made it simple – like 4 meta tag simple – to give your users an even better experience of your content on Windows. Those 4 tags will essentially take your website and turn it into a near-native Windows application. You can take this further with some snazzy java script, just like Gorillaz or Facebook.
Fast, fast, fast (get out the way!)
Everyone’s been crying out for fast in browsers for years and we’ve been a bit behind (ahem) but IE 9 Beta is real world fast. The Chakra JavaScript engine is a phenomenal improvement but it’s not the only thing that makes the experience faster. The browsing workflow has been streamlined getting the browser out of your way, for example notifications now appear at the bottom of the screen. It’s amazing to me how much of an impact this has. No longer do I stop at an unnatural point to deal with some message about saving a password.
That same streamlining is true of the general look of the browser and again that’s great for those running websites, the user concentrates on the site not the browser.
The other cool thing for the dev is the developer tools which includes funky tools to tell you what is being slow about your site. Is it the massive graphics or the dire connection to the server under Bobs desk with the videos on?
Watch out for our IE 9 beta posts over the next few days where we’ll explore more. But for now, check out my one minute videos on IE 9 Beta or download the IE9 Beta here or visit http://beautyoftheweb.com .
