A beta of Safari 4 was recently released from Apple. Great, a new browser! Let's look at its features, shall we? (mirror)

The page's title is:

Leading the way with innovation.

Let's see if Safari's new features are so iNnovative, and if they'll let me "See the web in a whole new way", like the Safari download page claims.

Feature	iNnovation
Accessibility: ARIA Support. Safari supports Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA). The ARIA standard helps web developers make dynamic web content more accessible for people with disabilities. With ARIA, sites taking advantage of advanced technologies like AJAX and JavaScript can now easily interoperate with assistive technologies.	Firefox: WAI-ARIA support since version 3.
Accessibility: Full-Page Zoom. Zoom in or out on web content using keyboard shortcuts, Multi-Touch gestures, or the Zoom toolbar button for more comfortable reading. Images and graphics scale up while your text remains razor sharp, keeping the web page layout consistent as you zoom. To add the Zoom button to your toolbar, simply choose Customize toolbar from the View menu and drag the button onto your toolbar.	Firefox: Full page zoom since version 3, available with an add-on since version 2.
Advanced Web Technologies: CSS Effects. Pioneered by Safari, CSS effects help developers add polish to websites by stylizing images and photos with eye-catching gradients, precise masks, and stunning reflections that require only a few lines of code.	Yes, this is iNnovation. Not a standard, but it goes directly in the direction of everything Apple-y: shininess, at all costs. Yes, it is good feature, and it will hopefully pave the way for a prettier web.
Advanced Web Technologies: CSS Canvas. Using CSS Canvas, web designers can position canvas elements anywhere an image can be placed using CSS. Safari is the first web browser to support CSS Canvas.	Once again, good stuff. Basically allows canvases to be used as CSS backgrounds. More info here. This was possible before, but not as elegantly.
Advanced Web Technologies: HTML 5 Offline Support. Web developers can now create applications that you can use even when you don't have access to the Internet. Thanks to HTML 5 offline support, designers can build web applications that store themselves on your computer, where you have immediate access to them. Along with the application, web developers can also choose to store the application's data on your system, so you always have the information you need. Applications and data can be stored in a traditional SQL-like database serving as an application cache or as a "super cookie," which stores data in the familiar cookie format.	Firefox: Has been available since version 3.1. Yes, Firefox 3.1 only a beta at the moment, but so is Safari 4, remember?
Advanced Web Technologies: Acid 3 Compliance. Safari is the first — and only — web browser to pass Acid 3. Acid 3 tests a browser's ability to fully render pages using the web standards used to build dynamic, next-generation websites, including CSS, JavaScript, XML, and SVG.	Opera: Already 100/100 since version 10.0. So, this "feature" is an Apple lie. Apple-lie. Apply. Get it? No? Whatever.
Advanced Web Technologies: Nitro JavaScript Engine. Safari 4 introduces the Nitro JavaScript engine, an advanced bytecode JavaScript engine that makes web browsing even faster. In fact, Safari 4 executes JavaScript up to 6 times faster than Internet Explorer 8 and up to 4 times faster than Firefox 3.1.	Chrome is faster thanks to V8's radness.
Advanced Web Technologies: Speculative Loading. Safari loads the documents, scripts, and style information required to view a web page ahead of time, so they're ready when you need them.	Sorry, but I suppose I don't get what this one is about. I mean, resources like scripts and style should be (and are) loaded ahead of time before the webpage is displayed in most browsers already. It's like, a basic feature that even Internet Exploder 5 had. Or perhaps they mean prefetching, which Firefox had since version 1, or 0.something. Or if this is some other feature, please enlighten me in the comments.
Bookmarks: Cover Flow. Using Cover Flow, you can flip through websites as easily as you flip through album art in iTunes. Cover Flow displays your bookmarks and history as large graphical previews, so you can pick out a website instantly.	Firefox: Has been available as an add-on (thankfully, because I'd hate to have Cover Flow by default) since version 3. Besides, this is not really innovative, as Apple says itself that the feature is from iTunes.
Bookmarks: History View. Take a closer look at your browsing history in the History view. Search for previously visited sites, drag web pages to your bookmarks, and clear individual items. Safari displays your history using Cover Flow, so you can flip through your search results as easily as you flip through iTunes album art.	Has been in all browsers since the dawn of time. Cover Flow is not in other browsers, however. Personally, I'd hate skimming through my history with Cover Flow, but I guess that's a matter of opinion.
Browsing and Navigation: Top Sites. Safari automatically identifies your favorite sites and displays them as a wall of stunning graphical previews. To visit one of your top sites, just click any of the previews. As you browse, Safari identifies the websites you're most interested in based on how often and how recently you visit a site. So as you explore the web and discover new websites, your top sites will change to match your evolving tastes.	Opera: Has been available since version 9.2 (that's from April 2007 guys, you're two years late!). Chrome: Has been there since Chrome's beginnings.
Browsing and Navigation: Customize Number of Top Sites. To set the number of sites Safari displays on your Top Sites page, click the Edit button in Top Sites and choose Small, Medium, or Large in the lower-right corner to display 24, 12, or 6 site thumbnails, respectively.	Not sure if this could be called a feature (I'd call that a sub-feature). But yes, not available in other browsers.
Browsing and Navigation: Pin Top Sites. To organize your top sites the way you want, click the Edit button and drag site thumbnails to any position in the Top Sites grid. You can pin sites to specific locations by clicking the pushpin that appears over the site.	Yet another sub-feature, but this one is available in Opera.
Browsing and Navigation: Top Sites: Fresh News. You can see at a glance when one of your top sites has been updated. Just look for the star in the upper-right corner to see which sites have fresh content to review.	Yet another sub-feature, which is new. Good.
Browsing and Navigation: Tabs on Top. In its new efficient and compact design, Safari integrates tabs at the top of your browser window, giving you more room to enjoy your favorite sites.	Chrome: Complete and obvious Google Chrome rip-off here; tabs-on-top was one of Google Chrome's flagship features.
Browsing and Navigation: Smart Address Field. Enter web addresses quickly and easily. As you begin to type an address in the address field, Safari automatically completes it with the most likely match — called the Top Hit — and highlights it. Simply press the Enter key to connect to the site. If the Top Hit is not the site you intended to visit, check the list of relevant suggestions, drawn from your bookmarks and browsing history, that Safari displays. Click to select the site you want to visit.	Firefox: Rip-off of Firefox 3's Awesomebar.
Developer Tools: Powerful Tools. Apple has brought its expertise in Mac OS X and iPhone development tools to the web. Safari 4 includes a powerful set of tools that make it easy to debug, tweak, and optimize a website for peak performance and compatibility. To access them, turn on the Develop menu in Safari preferences.	Firefox: Available with Firebug, Venkman, Web Developer Toolbar, and the almighty DOM Inspector. Opera: Dragonfly.
Developer Tools: Web Inspector. The Web Inspector gives you quick and easy access to the richest set of development tools ever included in a browser. From viewing the structure of a page to debugging JavaScript to optimizing performance, the Web Inspector presents its tools in a clean window designed to make developing web applications more efficient. To activate it, choose Show Web Inspector from the Develop menu.	Sub-feature, equivalent to Firebug.
Developer Tools: Elements. Take a closer look at your page's structure with the Elements pane, which makes it easy to examine your Document Object Model (DOM) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) rules. You can even make quick changes to your DOM or CSS and immediately preview how the changes affect your page.	Sub-feature, equivalent to the DOM Inspector.
Developer Tools: JavaScript Debugger. The Scripts pane features the powerful JavaScript Debugger in Safari 4. To use it, choose the Scripts pane in the Web Inspector and click Enable Debugging. The debugger cycles through your page's JavaScript, stopping when it encounters exceptions or erroneous syntax. The Scripts pane also lets you pause the JavaScript, set breakpoints, and evaluate local variables.	Sub-feature, equivalent to the Venkman.
Developer Tools: JavaScript Profiler. Optimize your JavaScript code using the state-of-the-art JavaScript Profiler in Safari 4. The Profiler lists the performance characteristics of each of your script's functions, making it easy to pinpoint problem areas and drill down to the offending lines of code.	Sub-feature, but that's new, unless I missed a killer Firefox add-on.
Developer Tools: Databases. Safari is the only browser that includes tools for managing the offline databases that will be part of the next generation of websites. The Databases pane in Safari 4 allows you to view tables and databases and even execute SQL queries.	Google Gears: Database Query Tool.
Developer Tools: Resources. The Resources pane graphs the order and speed at which website components load over the network. It's also the first tool that lets you sort data based on loading parameters such as latency, response time, and duration. You can graph page resources by either size or load time. Clicking a resource in the left column brings up detailed data on the right. For text resources, such as documents and scripts, you see the text source of the file. For image and font resources, you view a graphical preview of the file.	Chrome: Available since Chrome's beginnings. Also available in Firebug.
Graphics and Fonts: CSS Effects. Using CSS effects, a new technology pioneered by Safari, developers can stylize images and photos with eye-catching gradients, precise masks, and stunning reflections, providing an extra layer of polish to their websites by adding just a few lines of code.	Oops, wasn't that mentionned in the "Advanced Web Technologies" category? And then we wonder how can they count up to 150 features.
Search: Smart Search Field. Find what you're looking for instantly. As you enter text in its search field, Safari recommends relevant searches courtesy of Google Suggest and lists your most recent searches, presenting them in an easy-to-read list.	Firefox: Available since the dawn of time. Chrome: Built into the location bar.
Search: Full History Search. Use Full History Search to instantly find pages you've visited in the past. To find a page, simply begin typing in the Search History field in Top Sites. There's no need to remember page titles or complex URLs. Safari stores all the text from every page you visit, so you can base your search on any word or phrase that appeared on the site you want to find. And since Safari displays the results using Cover Flow, you can flip through large graphical previews until you recognize the site you want.	Opera: Available since version 9.5. Firefox: Available since version 3.
User Interface and Appearance: Full-Page Zoom. With Full-Page Zoom, it's easy to take a closer look at small print on your favorite sites. Shrink or magnify the contents of web pages using Multi-Touch pinch gestures on your MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro trackpad. Images, videos, and other page elements adjust while your text remains razor sharp, keeping your page layout consistent as you zoom.	Oh, wasn't this mentioned in the "Accessibility" category already? Oh, sorry.
User Interface and Appearance: Inline Progress Indicator. Safari was the first browser to move the progress indicator into the address field, making it more visible and freeing up space for web content. At a glance, you can see exactly when a site is finished loading.	Opera: Has been there for a long, long time. Firefox: This is more of a personal preference, but you can get progress bars on each tab, which I find smarter than one progress bar for the current tab.
Windows Integration: Windows Native Look. If you're using Safari on a PC with Windows Vista or Windows XP, you'll feel right at home because Safari features a native look — just like other Windows applications — including a native title bar, borders, and toolbars.	Is that seriously a feature? All Windows app have a native look unless you explicitly change that, which is what Apple did before Safari 4, giving Windows users a very inconsistent user experience. (It was the gripe of many Safari Windows users, it seems) Now they've changed back to a native look, and they call that a feature.
Windows Integration: Windows Font Rendering. Safari on Windows now uses Windows Standard fonts to deliver a more consistent experience. You can also choose to use Apple fonts. Thanks to the anti-aliasing algorithm in Safari, you enjoy crisp, gorgeous fonts. The algorithm preserves the subtleties of each font while rendering each character with a crispness that makes your favorite sites a pleasure to read.	Same as above ("Windows Native Look").

Conclusion

Safari has improved, giving it some much-needed features to have a place in today's browsers wars. But its main source of inspiration is not Apple's tech visionaries as they would have you believe, but rather, other browsers. However, they do have the merit to pack all these features into a single browser, whereas other browsers only have a subset of those features. In short, as Lifehacker really well sums it up: If Apple knows how to do anything, it's take tech you've already seen and make it flashier and more fun to use. The new Safari 4 public beta is no exception.

Edit: Oh, and Safari was cracked in seconds at the Pwn2Own hacker competition. [Pocket Lint]