Microsoft IE7 Beta Release Interview on Geek News Central 2006-01-31 #142 this Interview took place with a Microsoft IE7 Product Manager on the release of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2. I spent 20 minutes talking with Margaret Cobb about the the IE7 beta released today, we cover a lot of the product changes and security enhancements. This release is targeted at developers but my bet is that a lot of people will be running the IE7 Beta tonight. Impression and thoughts below.
Help the Geek out by taking five minutes to answer our latest survey
[Save $10 on any order of $50 or more at GoDaddy.com!]
Show us where you listen to the show!
My feeling is about the same as it was when I left the Consumer Electronic Show, in that it is obvious Microsoft is into RSS significantly, but their continues to be no indication when RSS enclosure support (aka podcasting support) is going to be introduced. Which sort of tells me that the IE7 team and the Windows Media Player team may not be talking to one another as I don’t think from numerous conversations that the IE7 has any plans what so ever to support enclosures. Obviously the Windows Media Player could be changed to download subscribed shows but that does not make sense to me?
Update: See the comments IE7 Does support downloading enclosures which is really good news! It’s odd that the program manager did not now that info but she did say she would get back to me :)
With the Windows Media Player 11 team having podcasting integration as a priority, I am sure everyone is sworn to secrecy on when and if they will be introducing enclosure support in IE7 to allow seamless integration with Windows Media Player seems as a no brainier to me. I already know that they have a dedicated Podcast person on the WMP development team, e-mails sent to him though continue to not be answered though.
With IE7 RSS aware or as the Microsoft team says Feeds aware, it is nice that it will detect sites that are RSS enabled, IE7 has a built in feed reader that will allow you to subscribe to feeds, then browse the data directly in the browser, this should help the masses get connected to RSS enabled sites. Think of the value of having your feed included in a default load of IE7, hey Scoble how do I get on that list.
I do think the IE7 team has spent a great deal of time addressing security, they have made IE7 more proactive on the security front especially with ActiveX applications in default installations turning most ActiveX functions off. With Phishing being such a big issue, the development team has focused on ensuring people are made aware when they are on a site that is suspected of phishing activity, and are actually blocked from entering known sites completely.
I do like the Tab Groups feature this is for people that may surf a subset of sites each day versus subscribing to their RSS feeds. In addition to standard tab browsing, one feature allows you to view multiple websites in one windows will help those of you that use search engines heavily, in that you will be able to close sites easily that are not important
Developers may not be 100% satisfied as they are close but not 100% CSS compliant, they have added more Ajax support I just hope all of my favorite programmers get busy and start writing RSS applications as plug-ins for the revamped browser.
Their is a point I did not bring up though is that it has to be recognized that other browsers have many of the IE7 features it will be curious to see if Internet Explorer Version 7 gains back some of the lost ground when it is officially launched that it has given up to Firefox and other browsers.
Lots more information in the interview enjoy, comments sent to the voice mail hot line get priority play 619-342-7365
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Blubrry | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More
Todd Cochrane at Geek News Central has a nice 20-minute audio interview with Margaret Cobb, one of the product managers for Microsoft’s upcoming Internet Explorer 7, to be included with the Windows Vista operating system update planned for later this year.