Today, if you write the date down in the American date form is 03.14, or as its also known as “Pi Day” as the date is the same as the beginning of Pi. However, today should also have the similarly geeky name of “IE Day” for it is the day that Microsoft release its latest and greatest version of Internet Explorer. Therefore I have combined Pi Day and IE Day and unsurprisingly come up with PIE Day, though sadly I have no pies to eat.
If you aren’t excited by Internet Explorer 9 being released then you should be. Even if you don’t use or like IE you should be excited. IE9 brings with some market leading features that are set to shape future browsers from all companies in the coming years and are currently not rivalled by any other browser.
Probably the most stunning feature of IE9 is its hardware acceleration which is not just noticeable but impressive, I’m sure you’ve no doubt seen many demos of the hardware acceleration if you haven’t experienced it yourself so I shan’t bore you with it. Along with the hardware acceleration is a much improved support of many web standards, including many of the most popular HTML5 features. Microsoft have also improved their JavaScript engine hugely making it far quicker. Sites now render far quicker than any previous version of IE and quicker than nearly every other browser and appear how the developer wanted them too.
However, for me the best of IE9 are its new appearance and integration with Windows 7. When I first saw pictures of IE9 I was fairly against it but I have now come to like the design, allowing me much more viewing space for the websites I am browsing and not having such an obvious and distracting “chrome” around the site. IE9 integrates very well with Windows 7 blurring the distinction between web apps and local apps. I have several websites pinned to my taskbar and often use their Jumplist links and preview controls, such as play/pause when watching a program on the BBC iPlayer.
With IE9’s launch Microsoft are touting some impressive figures such as 40 million people have already downloaded IE9 in beta or Release Candidate form before the browser has even been officially launched. More then 250 of the world’s top websites have added features to their sites to take advantage of the new capabilities within IE9 meaning that over 1 billion people have access to the features. Microsoft has also partnered up with some of these sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, WordPress, etc., etc., to bring create some impressive sites.
In the UK Microsoft has partnered up with many companies and has several “launch sites” – Sky, Film4oD, BMW, ESPN, Gorillaz, MSN, National Rail Enquiries, Never Mind The Bullets and Rough Guides. I’ve had a quick look at these sites and there’s certainly some interesting features on those sites.
I’ve not yet had a chance to play with the final release of IE9 but if the beta and Release Candidate are anything to go by this will be a very fast, standards compliant browser that lets the sites “shine”. With so many new features baked in (pun intended) what’s not to look forward.
Microsoft will be announcing IE9 at SXSW later today at 5:30 PM PDT (12:30 PM GMT) and the event will be live streamed. The browser will be available for download at ridiculous o’clock (9PM PDT, 4AM GMT). I expect that the HTML5 version of Bing will be demoed during the announcement with people able to preview the new version shortly after. The company has also released a new video Year of Internet Explorer 9 which I quite liked.
Are you excited? I am…now where’s that pie.
