Microsoft used the first day of its MIX11 conference to unveil the first Platform Preview for Internet Explorer 10. The new version is more iterative but focuses on boosting CSS3 feature support. It now supports gradients, grid and multi-column layouts, and can run in a “strict” mode.
Future preview versions will support CSS3’s 3D transforms and transitions, Microsoft promised.
IE10 is just three weeks into development and doesn’t have a full interface to work with but should get rapid releases of preview versions before it reaches beta and eventually ships. A final ship date wasn’t given, but Microsoft released the finished IE9 just last month and may aim for a repeat.
The company explained the frequent updates as important for developing standards but that it also only included technology it expected to work consistently well across browsers. Any feature that wasn’t ready yet, like WebSockets, was being developed at HTML5 labs where they wouldn’t hurt users, Microsoft said. It cautioned that it didn’t want to overreach and support old platforms, helping to explain its decision to abandon Windows XP for IE9.
