After going through four developer preview builds since it was first announced in March, the beta version of Internet Explorer 9 will be released to the public on September 15.
Only Windows 7 and Windows Vista users will be able to use IE9, however - Windows XP is not supported. This is due to a new hardware acceleration feature of the browser that uses a version of DirectX only available in Windows Vista and Windows 7. You may think no one uses XP anymore, but despite its age 68% of all PC's running Windows still use the operating system. Needless to say, a sizable amount of users won't be able to take advantage of the new browser.
For those running Vista or Windows 7, here's some of the key improvements that will be available in IE 9 according to the Windows Team Blog:
Performance, specifically with JavaScript: We are announcing a new JavaScript engine for IE9 which is designed to make Internet Explorer faster. This new JavaScript engine for IE9 places us faster than the shipping version of Firefox today on Webkit.org’s SunSpider benchmark test.
Standards and Interoperability: We are committed to the ideal of having the same markup (tags, script, and language) work across all the different browsers. This makes it easy for developers to develop their websites. With this commitment, HTML5 is at the center of IE9, and IE9 will include extensive support for DOM, CSS3, SVG standards and XHTML.
GPU-powered HTML5: We believe that HTML5 applications will take advantage of the latest in PC advancements to offer a truly graphically rich and functional experience that customers and developers want them (and expect them) to be. IE9 is the first browser designed to take advantage of modern hardware by shifting from the CPU to the GPU for hardware-accelerated SVG, enhanced JavaScript performance, and GPU-powered HTML5. By moving IE9 to the GPU and taking advantage of the latest Direct2D technology in Windows, webpages will load faster, graphics will be improved and users can take advantage of the modern hardware in their Windows PCs while taking fewer resources from their PC.
No date has been set for the final launch of IE 9, but many sources agree that it will probably be released sometime next spring. In the meantime, you can check out a preview of the new browser here.
Comments
Windows 8 will ship with IE9 or maybe IE9.1. Even if MS are not "tying" IE to Windows, they can't release it fast enough than Windows essentially making them coupled release cycles. In 2012, Vista Home and Ultimate (consumer SKUs) will get support ended and they have no extended support. Which means everyone must be using Windows 7 or Vista Business edition to run IE9 with security patches available for their platform. Nice try Microsoft but this won't make users upgrade to Windows 7. If MS really cared about the web and "same markup everywhere" illusion they are creating, they would develop IE9 for XP as well.
It's a good move. In the meantime, as you clearly articulated, the large number of XP users would be left in the cold and I would bet they have a good reason not to make a fuss of switching the OS any time soon, my TV set is aged as well, but what is most important to me is WHAT is shown on TV, but not the TV itself...
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