Web Inspector, the popular open source web development tool for Safari web browser, is now ten years old.
For a decade now, Web Inspector has helped developers prototype, inspect and debug their code on iOS and Mac devices.
It began as a simple tool, lacking even a basic console, and capable of only offering the DOM tree and style rules. However, over the course of ten years, Web Inspector has evolved into a big project, and today, it is an integral part of every web developer’s workflow who needs to work with the Safari web browser.
The most interesting part is that Web Inspector, in itself, has been open source ever since its birth back in 2006. With each major update of Safari, Web Inspector too got an overhaul, such as the major UI redesign in 2008.
Last year, Web Inspector added many new changes and updates to its core, such as enhanced JavaScript support, better queries and styling, better frame rendering and many new interesting additions.
As of now, Web Inspector does not seem to have any decent alternative and as such, this open source web development tool built within the Safari web browser is going strong.
Are you a user of Web Inspector? If not, and if you do code often for iOS or Mac devices, you should give it a spin. And if you are an existing user, how has your experience been? Share your views in the comments below.
I actually prefer it over Chrome and Firefox’s tools.