Apple Releases Safari 15.1 for macOS Big Sur and macOS Catalina

[Jim Lahey]

Does Safari 15 have a sidebar that appears and disappears on its own according to user preference, or is it as badly broken as it is iPadOS 15 Safari? Not a chance I will upgrade if this is going to kill my Mac’s sidebar.

 

[Kylo83]

It's Social media.

The Whiney get moved to the front of the line.

Exactly so true

 

[Jim Lahey]

iOS 16 won’t have any design changes as apple will be scared to change anything; I miss the days apple told up what we like and we get used to it

Changing stuff in the pursuit of increased usability is cool. Breaking what already works is not.

 

[Kylo83]

Changing stuff in the pursuit of increased usability is cool. Breaking what already works is not.

The compact design is much better works fine and the same colour toolbar is nice people would of just got used to it like I have

 

[JonBOY26]

Well I'm still running Catalina because I found the overall design of Big Sur to be a big step backward, in particular the layout and appearance of Finder windows.

 

[dannys1]

I do sorta wish they had kept that option. I think it might have worked with the "connected" tab look that they reverted to. Maybe there was some kind of internal codebase reason that they couldn't do that. It might be coming later, once they've had time to settle into this new commitment.

Wait a minute, the colour matched title bar has gone away with both options?! I had that all the way through Big Sur with the "old" tab bars - now they've taken it away, what?? Why?

 

[dannys1]

It's minor and doesn't really matter, but…

View attachment 1881187
View attachment 1881188

Why is "Show color in Compact Tab Bar" in "Advanced"? You already have the Compact/Separate radio buttons in "Tabs". Why not simply show the checkbox when "Compact" is selected.

(Also, that blue border is really slim. It's barely noticeable that "Separate" is selected.)

And for me it doesn't work - yet show colour worked just fine in the standard tabs before the Monterey update (if show colour means colour coded title bars, i'm not sure if it does, because that's just stopped working all together for me)

 

[dannys1]

In Safari 15.1, Apple undid those design changes and returned Safari to its pre-Monterey look, doing away with the updated design and the feature that blended the top bar in Safari with the background color of websites. Those who liked the new design can still enable it in Safari preferences, but the old design is the default.

I'm pretty sure we can't enable the old design - I see now way to get back colour coded title bars unfortunately.

 

[Don't Know Jack]

Sooooo much better.

 

[miamialley]

I'm glad you can enable the page to still color/wash the top Safari bar. I always liked that subtle feature.

 

[MrCubes]

My main browser of choice is Edge, but I also often use Safari alongside it. Very unpopular opinion, but I’m actually enjoying the compact design and don’t see any issues with it.

I’m curious - what are the main reasons for people hating the compact tabs?

Speaking for myself (others may differ), but not enough space to show long urls (important to me) and not enough space to show all my tabs in enough detail to differentiate them.

 

[soyazul]

I like the new combat design.... It requires some adaptation time, but I like to have more space for the content

 

[Orizaba]

The new compact design is still a bit different as all the "tabs" are next to the address bar instead of under it. Any way to use compact with the tabs under the address bar?

 

[JoeInMilwaukee]

Does anyone have direct links for the Safari 15.1 updates?

I also need a direct link for the latest Device Support Update that appeared after I installed Catalina Security Update 2021-007.

Edit: @camelia pointed out to me that the Device Support Updates are the same as those issued at the end of September. Hence, the previous download links referenced here can be used.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

How are iCloud Tabs working with Safari 15.x and iOS 14? Anyone?

 

[chucker23n1]

The new compact design is still a bit different as all the "tabs" are next to the address bar instead of under it.

That's literally what the "compact" part means, yes.

 

[827538]

I want the normal tab design but with the color matching. Is that so hard Apple?

 

[827538]

The compact design is much better works fine and the same colour toolbar is nice people would of just got used to it like I have

I actually liked a lot of that. I didn't like the constant confusion over which tab was active.

 

[Rydawg96]

I want the old tabs with the colour matched title bar though!

Same here, don't know why colour matching can't work with the old tab bar design. Also, when tabs get collapsed, it unfortunately no loner shows the speaker icon on tabs that have audio playing. Seems Apple went too far on reverting to the previous design.

It's minor and doesn't really matter, but…

View attachment 1881187
View attachment 1881188

Why is "Show color in Compact Tab Bar" in "Advanced"? You already have the Compact/Separate radio buttons in "Tabs". Why not simply show the checkbox when "Compact" is selected.

(Also, that blue border is really slim. It's barely noticeable that "Separate" is selected.)

Well at least those who use the compact design get a choice. Not sure why separate layout cant get color anymore.

iOS 16 won’t have any design changes as apple will be scared to change anything; I miss the days apple told up what we like and we get used to it

Like when they made the hockey puck mouse? That thing was gone in 2 years.

Any chance this adds hide my email for big sur? Seems silly I have to update my Mac for this

Don't think they can, its probably too deeply integrated into the OS for them to add it to previous versions.

 

[rushmere]

Excellent, I can move back to Safari now, at least for casual browsing.

My business will probably stay with Edge though. I was forced to switch when Safari 15 was launched, and I'm now liking it better than Safari for more intensive multi-tab browser use.

 

[miamialley]

Why don’t you fix the safari on the new MacBooks to handle promotion and not stuck at 60hz

This update didn't fix it?

 

[chucker23n1]

Same here, don't know why colour matching can't work with the old tab bar design.

They probably found that coloring those tabs doesn't look great. That's why the introduced the other control, which was easy enough to colorize, but doesn't look very tab-like.

 

[Populus]

It's minor and doesn't really matter, but…

View attachment 1881187
View attachment 1881188

Why is "Show color in Compact Tab Bar" in "Advanced"? You already have the Compact/Separate radio buttons in "Tabs". Why not simply show the checkbox when "Compact" is selected.

(Also, that blue border is really slim. It's barely noticeable that "Separate" is selected.)

So basically, if I want to use Safari as shown on WWDC 2021, I have to select “Separate” on Tabs, and then go to Advanced and select “Show color in Compact Tab Bar”. Ok, good to know. I agree with you, it should be on the same place.

 

[chucker23n1]

So basically, if I want to use Safari as shown on WWDC 2021, I have to select “Separate” on Tabs, and then go to Advanced and select “Show color in Compact Tab Bar”. Ok, good to know. I agree with you, it should be on the same place.

Compact, not separate, but yes, I think that's right.

 

[CPx]

And the people rejoiced!