Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Safari 15 on Catalina, and I don't see this option available. UI wise, everything is still the same as Safari 14. Am I missing something?
 
First thing I did after upgrading was disabling all the new safari features. I’m not a fan of the new tab view either. It reminds me of what the app switcher used to be back on iOS 7 before they improved it. Not sure why they essentially went backwards in design.
 
  • Like
Reactions: steve333
In previous versions of iOS, Apple included a "Show Color in Tab Bar" accessibility setting, which basically had the same effect as the new "Allow Website Tinting" toggle. The fact that Apple made the option more prominent suggests user aversion to tinting is more common than previously thought.

This is proof that the Accessibility settings in MacOS, iOS and iPadOS have become a dumping ground for features that have nothing to do with physical accessibility. Clearly, Apple is trying to score political points by moving settings from application/hardware preferences and burying them in Accessibility, in order to inflate the number of available settings. Apple wants to say "Look at us, we have this Accessibility thing with all these settings" when many of those settings should be located in more appropriate places. Examples:

MacOS

On a Mac laptop, trackpad scrolling speed is not located in trackpad preferences, but is buried in Accessibility (even though mouse scrolling speed is located in mouse preferences).

Mouse pointer size is not located in mouse preferences, but is buried in Accessibility.

To turn off spring loaded folders in the Finder, you don't go to Finder Preferences. Instead, that setting is buried in Accessibility.

iPhone/iPad

On iPhone and iPad if you go to Settings >Display & Brightness, there is no setting to control auto brightness. Instead, you have to go to Accessibility.

On iPhones that have Touch ID, the setting to unlock by pressing the home button once and leaving your finger on the button is not located in Touch ID settings, but is buried in Accessibility.

Dynamic head tracking for Spatial Audio is not located in the Spatial Audio setting, but is buried in Accessibility.

Moving settings from the application/hardware preferences and burying them in Accessibility is not helpful at all. It just causes more irritation because people now have to look in two places to find things: the application/hardware preferences and Accessibility. Accessibility has become as convoluted as iTunes and this helps no one.
 
I'm constantly confused whether a dark grey tab is active or not active. This is bad UI design.

I came here to write exactly this. I thought I'd get used to it as it was a change from what I'm used to but I've realised that, as you also said, it's just poor design. I'm constantly clicking the wrong tab. :rolleyes:

I'm usually all for changes in iOS and macOS and Apple usually do a great job but I feel like everything about Safari in iOS 15 (and Safari 15 on macOS) is worse than in the previous version. At least from a visual standpoint.
 
Damn, new Safari looks bad on macOS. I normally can't be doing with all the complainers who'd have a whine about anything changing, but this just looks amateur, especially on my 1080p monitor where the close tab x is squashed and the font looks strange.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jennyp
On iPadOS, I couldn't tell from the colors when I was in a private tab or not. It was always tricky, black background vs grey background, but with the tinting it was impossible. When I got the Safari update on MacOS I turned it off before even trying.

And hey, extra razz points for Apple for not even giving the feature a consistent name across MacOS, iPadOS, and iOS. Serious lack of oversight there.

Also: on the touch devices the totally gratuitous move of the close "X" from the upper left to the upper right when viewing all tabs. Is it just ego? "I'm a designer at Apple and I need to leave my mark by creating something new" even if it sucks???
 
Chrome is starting to look as a solid option now for me on my iMac, my iPad and iPhone. Safari in iPhone is extremely similar to Chrome, have you tried it?, Apple even copied the way to show the open tabs from Chrome!. Safari is like a skin of Chrome. Serious lack of innovation.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jennyp
Chrome is starting to look as a solid option now for me on my iMac, my iPad and iPhone. Safari in iPhone is extremely similar to Chrome, have you tried it?, Apple even copied the way to show the open tabs from Chrome!. Safari is like a skin of Chrome. Serious lack of innovation.
Don't take Chrome, try Brave, Vivaldi or Edge: they are better and it isn't Google 😉
 
I don’t see the benefit of chameleon behavior. It’s a neat trick, but ultimately disorienting for the user who frequents more than one website.

Imagine you owned a car that magically changed its color to match the cars you parked it beside. Would that be helpful? Now imagine all cars did that. All of a sudden, color is useless as a way of identifying boundaries and branding.

Neat trick though.
 
Even with the "Show Color in Tab Bar" unchecked on macOS Safari, I keep misidentifying active and inactive tabs.

I just keep thinking a dark grey tab is inactive.

Closing tabs I didn't want to is annoying!
 
This example is especially egregious. The blue background is distracting and clashes with the preferred accent colour (pink in this case). I am sure that The Guardian’s developers did not anticipate that their frontpage would end up looking like this. It is not something they have much control over either, since they can pretty much only disable it altogether.

I do not find this feature useful to begin with, even if you like the aesthetics. A website should be limited to its own canvas and not affect the whole look of the browser, at least not like this. I am almost certain that there is potential for abuse there, to trick people into thinking website elements are part of Safari. This has been a problem before with alert dialogs too.
 
  • Love
Reactions: dysamoria
This example is especially egregious. The blue background is distracting and clashes with the preferred accent colour (pink in this case). I am sure that The Guardian’s developers did not anticipate that their frontpage would end up looking like this. It is not something they have much control over either, since they can pretty much only disable it altogether.

I do not find this feature useful to begin with, even if you like the aesthetics. A website should be limited to its own canvas and not affect the whole look of the browser, at least not like this. I am almost certain that there is potential for abuse there, to trick people into thinking website elements are part of Safari. This has been a problem before with alert dialogs too.
The same can be said about the MacOS menu bar and iOS Control Center text being unreadable depending on what background picture or application is currently open. It also opens the door to blaming users for having the “wrong” desktop background, having the “wrong” application open when using iPhone Control Center, or the “wrong” webpage in Safari.


I don’t see the benefit of chameleon behavior. It’s a neat trick, but ultimately disorienting for the user who frequents more than one website.

Imagine you owned a car that magically changed its color to match the cars you parked it beside. Would that be helpful? Now imagine all cars did that. All of a sudden, color is useless as a way of identifying boundaries and branding.

Neat trick though.
If your job includes writing and including screenshots, the constantly changing colors also makes it difficult to maintain a consistent appearance in your work.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: Arran and dysamoria
There’s a difference between avoiding an obtrusive or distracting UI, and promoting UI that cannot be seen at a glance. This plays with the latter, and is yet more of the “Apple threw away decades of UI research” that began in 2013 with iOS 7’s redesign.
 
Safari 15 on ipad looks hideous IMO. Tabs on top of the favorites bar…and in a giant font…with colored logos. It’s a train wreck. Why should the tabs be the dominant frickn thing on the screen?

Edit: I just finished rolling back to 14.8.
 
Last edited:
The logic of colouring the current tab dark is so wrong!

Look at the following. Which tab is current?

Previously, and as per all good UI design, the lighter tab looks on top and current. Not the darker one.

Yet Apple made this idiotic change with apparently no consultation or input from design professionals. Bonkers.

E_2QA_mUYAY0ExW.jpeg



By comparison look at Firefox. It is blooming clear which tab is the current one.

Screenshot 2021-09-22 at 22.32.56.png



How does one revert / fix this Apple Safari behaviour?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.