macOS Monterey Beta 3: Apple Redesigns Safari Tab Interface Following Complaints

[Tozovac]

does anyone remember when the Safari 4 Beta had the tabs at the top? That was my personal favorite UI layout in Safari and I was sad to see them revert back to the more traditional UI layout by the time the final version released.

Hello Safari 4 beta my old friend.
For those who don't remember: Apple tried Tabs on Top with Safari 4 betas... back in the day... only to revert them to the way we are used to now after people had been complaining. Kinda similar to what they have done now.

View attachment 1806327

Isn’t it true to say that, whether the tabs are on the top or the bottom, it doesn’t really matter as long as there’s obvious differentiation between them and the address bar? Both Microsoft edge and Chrome that I use at work have the tabs at the top, but it’s very, very intuitive and obvious as to what are tabs and what is the address bar.

The real issue as I see it is the continued mistake of making everything light gray or lighter grey, and making “buttons” look too much like text that looks too much like tabs that look too much like the address bar, etc.

Apple, please stop with the minimalist change for the sake of change and forced homogeneity, and return to intuitive function-first interfaces.

 

[Rogifan]

Given the author of this article, I would say that is pure speculation, being passed off as fact, unfortunately.

John Gruber claims something similar. But maybe that’s just an ego thing for him (and others in the Apple commentariat community). I can see Apple trying out different things and those being reflected in the betas. I’m more skeptical that because Gruber wrote a nasty blog piece about the Safari changes that Apple scrambled to undo some of them for the latest beta.

 

[JungeQuex]

How about fixing the complaint where Safari automatically reloads a page if it is using too much memory? That “feature” drove me to Firefox because I can’t be punished by Apple for using websites with inefficiencies, and I can’t afford to lose all of my work because of their aggressive function mandates.

 

[Andropov]

I think this design if much more flawed. Either go all-in on address-bars-as-tabs or dump it and go back to regular tabs. Now we have tabs that look like address bars... but there's also an old fashined address bar... that doesn't work like the 'fake' address bars used for tabs at all. It's confusing, specially if you're coming from iOS or iPadOS. And it looks jarring. Why do address bars and tabs look exactly the same on Safari for macOS if they aren't the same thing at all?

This is the kind of design concept where you can't just go half way.

 

[TheralSadurns]

Isn’t it true to say that, whether the tabs are on the top or the bottom, it doesn’t really matter as long as there’s obvious differentiation between them and the address bar? Both Microsoft edge and Chrome that I use at work have the tabs at the top, but it’s very, very intuitive and obvious as to what are tabs and what is the address bar.

The real issue as I see it is the continued mistake of making everything light gray or lighter grey, and making “buttons” look too much like text that looks too much like tabs that look too much like the address bar, etc.

Apple, please stop with the minimalist change for the sake of change and forced homogeneity, and return to intuitive function-first interfaces.

Sign.
Also... I miss Aqua.

 

[Apple_B0N6]

I'm I the only person who uses windows instead of tabs? I just swipe down with 3 fingers and I have all my Safari windows. Tabs are way too much trouble.

 

[macintoshmac]

I generally do not feel like change is bad, and I like the beta 1 and beta 2 Safari changes, but a look at this old screenshot makes me think we have gone backwards somehow. Even the beta 3 change is wasting a lot of space compared to this.

This screenshot is from the first quarter of 2018, so this is High Sierra. It looks clean and crisp, and made me realise how bloated Safari UI has come to be today, and I mean today.

 

[srbNYC]

I agree. The current updates (more iOS than MacOS, but still) make me think of this recent study.

Adding is favoured over subtracting in problem solving

People tend to solve problems by adding features.

www.nature.com

 

[oneMadRssn]

This looks like crap. So much wasted vertical space. 🤢

Agreed. I actually like some of the iOS-ification of macOS, but this is just a waste of space. Especially on landscape widescreens, UI designers have to be mindful of vertical space.

 

[MacBH928]

i thought that was a screenshot of the current Firefox

 

[11235813]

They need to indicate the currently active tab stronger. Maybe a line around the active tab can work. It's very hard to separate active tab from inactive ones. It's also hard to separate tabs from the address bar. It's all similar shades of color. This amateurish design is very not Apple like. Have they been hiring too many Google and Microsoft UI designers lately?

 

[srbNYC]

They need to indicate the currently active tab stronger. Maybe a line around the active tab can work. It's very hard to separate active tab from inactive ones.

Yes yes yes. This.

 

[Tagbert]

I'd like to see something where the tabs are at top and are always visible but the toolbar containing the url appears dynamically on mouseover for desktop or tapping the tab for iPad. This gives the extra vertical space but does not smash all the controls into one line. it lets the toolbar have as much space as needed where you can add additional tool icons. The toolbar would appear above the page content and does not require weird custom CSS to reserve space. (You could have a preference to always show the toolbar in which case it would shift the browser content area.)

Default view - toolbar hidden

On mouseover/tap display toolbar

 

[vagos]

It was ugly and it wasn’t going to get less ugly and jarring.

I don’t want my browser to change themes every time I visit a new website.

I agree. They disabled this anyway. Now it's grey all the time.

 

[srbNYC]

"Show color in tab bar" an option under Advanced.

 

[Tozovac]

Sign.
Also... I miss Aqua.
View attachment 1806707

People can say what they will about style preferences but there’s real “obviousness” that was last seen in Mavericks. Now interfaces are all light, airy, “modern” often-hard-to-discern minimalist spaghetti on the wall.

 

[RandomDSdevel]

-----The old design with tabs that actually looked like tabs is still better…, but I think I'll be able to live with this.

---

-----(Also, anyone looking for an example of somebody who always keeps the tab bar visible even when there's just one tab, you've found one.)

 

[Tozovac]

I wish articles about UI/UX changes would include before and after photos.

That would be very obvious, helpful, and efficient for the user, not very inline with Apple UI after 2013 and therefore not necessary on an Apple fan site like MR…

You just need to tap and explore and discover an example on your own.

 

[Arthur75]

Hmm. I don't need this. I can read quite well, no need for icons to mess it up for me.

because you don't use it, most probably, it's basically unusable these days anyway

 

[Michael Scrip]

That would be very obvious, helpful, and efficient for the user, not very inline with Apple UI after 2013 and therefore not necessary on an Apple fan site like MR…

You just need to tap and explore and discover an example on your own.

Look... they already took the time to make one screenshot...

Why not two?

Show me the difference... don't just tell me in words...

 

[matrix07]

because you don't use it, most probably, it's basically unusable these days anyway

Oh no I'm using favorite bookmark everyday. It's in fact the first thing I set up for Safari and the most used personally.

 

[lupinglade]

The new tabs were the best part of the event, people are really lame and scared of change

I love change when it's an improvement, but not when it's poorly thought out and executed. Don't over generalize.

 

[shadowv4x]

Why did Apple change it in the first place?

Well, the old Safari design, at least to me, just looked out of place in the modern refresh of Big Sur.

 

[teejaysplace24]

This is the feature I was most looking forward to in Monterey. I use chrome for this reason; the tabs are easier to see and quickly grab. I’m encouraged, at least, by the prospect that they‘ve not done away with it entirely.

 

[dogslobber]

Good grief. How does one get rid of those terrible tab bar animations which induce motion sickness? The tabs being buttons looks woeful too, so how about bringing back the original tabs concepts? You know, Apple, DON'T change things because you've nothing better to do. Leave them and fix damn bugs in the OS itself.