People joke that 'Safari seems snappier'. It's funny because Steve said it. Right? That's the way I often see it explained.
So when exactly did he say it?
Google references this MacRumors post where someone says that Steve said it when the iPhone 3G came out. This would have been June 9th 2008 WWDC. I looked for it but as far as I can tell he didn't say it, or at least did not say it on stage at the event. I found Jobs saying of 3G, "it's amazingly zippy", but not "snappy". It was when I noted that MacRumors had a forum post with the title "Safari 3.1 to Bring Performance Boosts ("Snappier")" suggesting the joke was already popular five months prior in February of 2008.
So I stepped back to get a bigger picture. This paper from 2006 had had the quote "Though it’s just an impression, I can say that my system is running much snappier than pre-Macaroni days" suggesting a version of the 'snappier' joke may have existed, though I wasn't sure if it was a generic joke or if people were poking fun at Apple by applying the phrase to all their software.
I did find a comment from January 9th, 2003 of a user named Russ saying "Let Apple provide a lean, snappy, standards-compliant browser for “basic” users" in response to an article titled "Why are Safari and Sherlock two different applications?" Interesting choice of words unless Steve said them two days prior when Safari was released. Reviewing the Safari announcement back in 2003 all I found was a reference to the SnapBack feature. It was innovative and fast but not snappy.
A few more borderline interesting notes:
Thanks.
So when exactly did he say it?
Google references this MacRumors post where someone says that Steve said it when the iPhone 3G came out. This would have been June 9th 2008 WWDC. I looked for it but as far as I can tell he didn't say it, or at least did not say it on stage at the event. I found Jobs saying of 3G, "it's amazingly zippy", but not "snappy". It was when I noted that MacRumors had a forum post with the title "Safari 3.1 to Bring Performance Boosts ("Snappier")" suggesting the joke was already popular five months prior in February of 2008.
So I stepped back to get a bigger picture. This paper from 2006 had had the quote "Though it’s just an impression, I can say that my system is running much snappier than pre-Macaroni days" suggesting a version of the 'snappier' joke may have existed, though I wasn't sure if it was a generic joke or if people were poking fun at Apple by applying the phrase to all their software.
I did find a comment from January 9th, 2003 of a user named Russ saying "Let Apple provide a lean, snappy, standards-compliant browser for “basic” users" in response to an article titled "Why are Safari and Sherlock two different applications?" Interesting choice of words unless Steve said them two days prior when Safari was released. Reviewing the Safari announcement back in 2003 all I found was a reference to the SnapBack feature. It was innovative and fast but not snappy.
A few more borderline interesting notes:
- Scouring the MacRumors archives I did find someone in 2002 joking about making the Finder Snappy. Again, it's unclear if this predates the meme or an extension of it.
- There is a comment from 2001 in the Mozzila forum archives noting "things in Mozilla certainly seem to be snappier".
- The oldest reference to snappy mac software that I have found so far is a description of Timbuktu 5.0 providing "...snappier screen response" in the November 1993 issue of MacUser (Page 83).
Thanks.
