Apple releases preview version of Safari browser for web developers

Apple has released a version of its Safari browser for developers. The Safari Technology Preview provides web developers with early access to new elements in the browsers for OS X and iOS.

The Safari Preview can be run separately from the regular Safari browser and also saves all its data separately. However, the browser does sync favorites and history via iCloud when this is enabled. That’s a difference with test versions of Safari, such as Apple released so far. The browser also gets an update every two weeks via the Mac App Store.

In terms of JavaScript, Preview provides support for EcmaScript 6. It also ships with the B3 JavaScript JIT compiler and has an improved IndexedDB implementation for data storage and access. In terms of HTML improvements, the choice was made to include the latest version of Shadow Dom for displaying elements on web pages and how they interact with another application. There is also support for Content Security Policy Level 2.

Also, the browser allows developers to use the most recent versions of Web Inspector and Responsive Design Mode. The latter is used to create websites that work on various devices such as PCs, tablets and smartphones.

Safari Technology Preview is available for everyone to download from Apple’s developer site. The browser only works on devices with OS X 10.11.4 or later. The browser appears in the dock with a purple Safari icon, instead of the classic blue icon.