Apple has just released a press release of the announcement of Safari 5, but nothing has officially been posted on Apple's website.

Apple today released Safari 5, the latest version of the world's fastest and most innovative web browser, featuring the new Safari Reader for reading articles on the web without distraction, a 30 percent performance increase over Safari 4,* and the ability to choose Google, Yahoo! or Bing as the search service powering Safari's search field. Available for both Mac and Windows, Safari 5 includes improved developer tools and supports more than a dozen new HTML5 technologies that allow web developers to create rich, dynamic websites. With Safari 5, developers can now create secure Safari Extensions to customize and enhance the browsing experience.

Features of Safari 5 (from MacRumors);

- Safari Reader makes it easy to read single and multipage articles on the web by presenting them in a new, scrollable view without any additional content or clutter. When Safari 5 detects an article, users can click on the Reader icon in the Smart Address Field to display the entire article for clear, uninterrupted reading with options to enlarge, print or send via email.
- Powered by the Nitro JavaScript engine, Safari 5 on the Mac runs JavaScript 30 percent faster than Safari 4, three percent faster than Chrome 5.0, and over twice as fast as Firefox 3.6.* Safari 5 loads new webpages faster using Domain Name System (DNS) prefetching, and improves the caching of previously viewed pages to return to them more quickly.
- Safari 5 adds more than a dozen powerful HTML5 features that allow web developers to create media-rich experiences, including full screen playback and closed captions for HTML5 video. Other new HTML5 features in Safari 5 include HTML5 Geolocation, HTML5 sectioning elements, HTML5 draggable attribute, HTML5 forms validation, HTML5 Ruby, HTML5 AJAX History, EventSource and WebSocket.
- The new, free Safari Developer Program allows developers to customize and enhance, Safari 5 with extensionsbased on standard web technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. The Extension Builder, new in Safari 5, simplifies the development, installation and packaging of extensions. For enhanced security and stability, Safari Extensions are sandboxed, signed with a digital certificate from Apple and run solely in the browser.

The press release states that Safari 5 should be available for a free download today, but nothing has shown up on Apple's website and there was no mention of it during the keynote today. We'll keep you posted and try to learn some more information.

UPDATE: It appears that news is now breaking that Apple is holding a "Safari State of the Union" address to developers at WWDC and we should see it then. It also appears that the meeting has begun, meaning we are probably a few hours away from seeing Safari 5. Stay tuned for more information.

UPDATE 2: It appears as though the press release has been taken off of the website were it was initially found, most likely because Apple has posted it early by accident. Too late, we already know the features!

UPDATE 3: We're currently trying to guess the download link to Safari on Apple's website. Stay tuned.

UPDATE 4: The press release had been re-uploaded, but with a different URL: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/apple-releases-safari-5-95817479.html

UPDATE 5: The press release has now been posted on Apple's website: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/06/07safari.html

Download should be available really soon.

UPDATE 6: The download for Safari 5 is now available here or in Software Update.

QUICK NOTES:

  • Safari 5 adds back the blue loading bar for webpages, something that we all missed.
  • BIng is now a search option in Safari 5
  • It does appear to be a bit faster, but we'll continue to check it out