Just to prove that I’m not cranky about everything that came out of the keynote on Monday, I’d like to say that I’m very excited about the release of Safari for Windows!

I think Safari is a very serious contender in these new browser wars. It will be interesting to see whether they take more market share from FireFox or IE. My first thoughts? Safari wins.

My only real misgiving about this is the decision to use Apple’s font-smoothing techniques in Safari on Windows. Joel Spolsky wrote about the differences in great detail, and I’m not entirely convinced that I don’t prefer the Windows smoothing for its legibility. I am certainly convinced that if I like my Mac’s smoothing better, it’s probably mostly out of familiarity, and not a proof that the technology is better.

It seems a bit crude to push an alien font-smoothing technique on a massive pool of new customers. It will certainly make it stand apart from other Windows apps, though.

Michael Tsai spots an especially good contradiction in Steve Jobs’s dismissal of browser apps during his interview with Walt Mossberg last week, followed by his celebration of browser apps in the WWDC keynote on Monday.

Glad I’m not the only one who is in a cranky mood about Apple’s flimsy iPhone SDK spin.

To be clear: It’s (kinda-sorta) OK that iPhone 1.0 doesn’t come with an SDK. What’s annoying is jumping through hoops to try to convince an audience of experienced developers (OK, and press) that web applications are a suitable alternative to a real SDK.

Silence on the matter would have been preferable.

For more on exactly how I feel about this, read Paul Kafasis’s excellent analysis.

Everybody’s wondering whether the lack of confirmation from Apple regarding Flash support for the iPhone means that we won’t be seeing it (at least in the 1.0?).

If it’s true, to me this puts a fuzzy spin on Apple’s commercial claiming that the iPhone’s browser is “just the internet”…

To get an idea for how important Flash is to the internet, try removing the plugins (from /Library/Internet Plug-Ins), relaunch Safari, and see how many errors you get cruising the web.

I suppose the problem could be mitigated somewhat by simply ignoring the Flash content, as opposed to showing an error. But I think the iPhone still needs Flash. Even if it’s only “kinda-sorta” Flash support.

(Note: In case it’s not obvious, the image below is NOT a screen capture or picture from a real iPhone. It’s just my snarky prediction of what iPhone’s reaction to half of the web will be if it doesn’t support Flash.

Last night at the SF Mac Indie party, I met a lot of great people, and put the face to the name of many people I’ve come to know fairly well through the web and email.

I finally got a chance to meet Niall Kennedy, whose takes on technology I’ve learned are just as interesting in person as they are in his regular, detailed blog entries (and podcast!).

I learned from Niall that Marc Andreessen recently started blogging, offering his valuable opinions about the tech industry, informed no doubt by his important role in the early development of the web “experience.”

Among Marc’s earliest entries is one in which he identifies MarsEdit as one of the Killer Mac OS X Apps for 2007. Whoo! This makes me feel proud to be the new caretaker of this awesome application, and I’m sure Brent and Gus probably feel great about it, too. (I’ll have to ask them at Buzz’s party in an hour or so).

If MarsEdit is killer today in 2007 – I can’t wait to read how Marc and others regard it in 2008!