This issue is important to Mac users because like it or not many sites continue to use IE as the standard for building their web sites. If you want to create a web site - or more importantly web application - that includes more advanced features like menu systems, JavaScript driven controls, etc. then the coming release of IE 8 could have a dramatic impact on how you construct your site. Joel gives a great background to the whole issue.
As I am currently in the process of building a web based application for public use it has a huge impact on me. Should I compromise the application’s UI because I can’t get the flexible data presentation grid that works everywhere?
DIV based windows within a web application can dramatically improve the quality of the user experience, but if they look like crap or don’t even appear they are going to kill the user experience anyway. JavaScript event handlers are critical to improving the reaction time for the application but will suck it if they don’t work as intended.
I could build a Flash based interface but there are a large number of browsers in corporate environments that block Flash and it doesn’t appear Flash will be an option on the iPhone any time soon. That’s a market that I would like my application to be able to run in.
I know I’m going to support IE7, Firefox and Safari - which in itself is a huge amount of work, but is IE8 going to throw a wrench in that plan? The appeal to building web based applications over client based applications is that users don’t have to download anything and you can build them to work on virtually any OS that has a good web browser. The definition of a "good web browser" is already suspect - with IE8 it may be nearly impossible.
I heard that IE8 had a “compatibility mode” toggle which would make it comply with web standards. However, I think this has to be switched “on” instead of being on by default. Do you see this as having potential impact?
Yes, it will. This is really a function of what is going to happen as the vast majority of people on the web that are already running Internet Explorer upgrade and find that certain web sites work and others do not. Something that worked fine in IE7 will, in the default mode MS is considering using, not even render properly. The vast majority of web site “hits” come from non-technical users that are simply browsing for information or shopping online. If they come to a site that doesn’t render properly the normal behavior is to hit the back button and try someplace else. It’s just the nature of people.
Time will tell on this one. Because of their market share Microsoft and IE will have a pretty huge impact on how people browse the web, whether we like it or not.