I think he's overreacting for the most part. Not saying I would made have this change but it seems easy enough to get used to. Over the years, Safari has undergone lots of visual design changes and well even though I didn't like every one of them, here I am still using it and used to its latest visual language.
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Safari 15 Users Say New Tab Design is Counterintuitive
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This inverse colour confuses me every day. I tried compact briefly and didn't like it. Why, Apple!?
The whole UI change thing is a mess.
A bright tab for the active one and medium grey for inactive ones is all we need.
Tabs and bars shouldn't even have to change colors, be semi transparent, etc.
Insisting on various shades of light grey and medium grey for text, UI elements, single pixel lines, etc. ... ggrrrr. Can't believe I have to use accessibility options to increase contrast, reduce motion, reduce transparency, ... and yet it still is grey on grey.
A bright tab for the active one and medium grey for inactive ones is all we need.
Tabs and bars shouldn't even have to change colors, be semi transparent, etc.
Insisting on various shades of light grey and medium grey for text, UI elements, single pixel lines, etc. ... ggrrrr. Can't believe I have to use accessibility options to increase contrast, reduce motion, reduce transparency, ... and yet it still is grey on grey.
Easy fix. Enable compact tab mode and it’s easy to tell which tab is active, plus get more real estate for content by combining the tab and address bars. I’m no spring chicken and not usually excited about major UI changes, but safari 15 is the best browser design I’ve ever used and would be sad if they reverted to the old UI.
I totally agree. I can't tell you how many times I've closed the wrong tab. I sure hope they do something about it. It's maddening!
Safari 15's controversial new design on the Mac has led to complaints about the way the browser indicates which tab is active.
As illustrated by Daring Fireball's John Gruber, there was never any ambiguity about which tab is active in previous versions of Safari, with an active tab shown with lighter shading that matches the browser's toolbar.
In Safari 15, however, tabs have a new button-like design with a rounder and more defined appearance. Apple has also inverted its shading of tabs, with an active tab now having darker shading and inactive tabs having lighter shading. The change has annoyed Gruber and other users, as evidenced by this Reddit thread with nearly 1,000 upvotes.
"The design is counterintuitive," wrote Gruber. "What sense does it make that no matter your settings, the active tab is rendered with less contrast between the tab title and the background than background tabs? The active tab should be the one that pops."
In a Safari 15 window with two tabs open, especially from the same website, Gruber said determining which tab is active is basically a guessing game. Gruber acknowledged that it is easier to discern the active tab when more than two tabs are open, but he said the confusion with exactly two tabs should have been reason enough to scrap the design change.
"I can't tell you how many times I closed the tab that I needed because of this," one Reddit user expressed in frustration.
Unfortunately for users who do not like the new design, Apple has not made any changes to the shading of tabs in either the Safari 15.1 beta or the latest version of the experimental Safari Technology Preview browser.
Article Link: Safari 15 Users Say New Tab Design is Counterintuitive
apple's UI/UX team has been junk for like a decade now.
It’s terrible. Wait, why am I parroting everyone else? No problem with new Safari on iPadOS 15, the tab is always highlighted - dark on day mode, light on night mode (to not be obtrusive), makes sense to me.
It's hard to believe that a company that was once famous for its UI designs could lose the plot this badly.
When Gruber doesn’t like something he doesn’t let it go. I’m sure he’ll be complaining about this until Apple changes it.
It is counterintuitive because it's the exact opposite of the previous design. However if you have more than a few tabs open it's easy to spot the different colored "tab".
I hate the new design anyways: if you don't enable compact mode you actually lose vertical space. If you enable compact mode your address bar moves around and you lose the title of the page unless you switch to another tab.
I hate the new design anyways: if you don't enable compact mode you actually lose vertical space. If you enable compact mode your address bar moves around and you lose the title of the page unless you switch to another tab.
I agree with this and also don't like not having the favicon in the active tab...
Breaking News: People continue to complain about change....more at 11
It was annoying at first but I started to like it by Beta 2 or 3 and now really like it.
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IOS 15? 🤮 So bad I rolled my iPad back to 14.8.
Agreed. It's a terrible design, and it uses more space than previous designs. Need to go back to Catalina's layout. I've been using Safari since it's original beta (in 2003), and now I'm debating changing browsers.
I’m not fond of it, but it’s not the end of the world.
In the meantime, X-Plane recently announced version 12 of its flight simulator for the Macintosh — and not a word of coverage from this website. I’m tired of journalists who focus more on outrage stories than real news.
I realize I’m probably in the minority on that.
In the meantime, X-Plane recently announced version 12 of its flight simulator for the Macintosh — and not a word of coverage from this website. I’m tired of journalists who focus more on outrage stories than real news.
I realize I’m probably in the minority on that.
When you have three or more tabs, the selected one is a bit more obvious. But it does still feel clunky.
Anyone else also not like that they reversed the ordering of the tabs and favorites bar (tabs are now above the fav bar)? Muscle-memory is causing me to still fumble with this.
Anyone else also not like that they reversed the ordering of the tabs and favorites bar (tabs are now above the fav bar)? Muscle-memory is causing me to still fumble with this.
Compact view has its own usability issues. E.g. every time you want to do a search or enter a URL your eyes have to find the place to point to and click on to begin typing....(what do you know - there's actually a shortcut that'll do that: Command-L....if only I could remember that!)
it’s unfortunate that Apple feels the need to change the UI of Safari just for the sake of having something to announce at WWDC. I’m getting used to the address bar at the bottom on iOS, but the tab layout on iPadOS and Safari 15 are horrendous. I know they needed to screw around with a functional UI just to fill in 5 minutes at the WWDC keynote, but this is horrible. I close the wrong tabs, click on tabs that I’m apparently in.
I think the problem is… Apple allowed two different designs. And I actually prefer the compact design and I think it’s a better design over the separate view.
The situation is… it’s hard for people to accept change. And I think over time.. with a chance to get accustomed to the compact design. I think users will grow to enjoy it. Apple can tweak it to add certain tasks to the design, but I think users are so dead set on having separate tabs don’t believe that a compact design could work.
The situation is… it’s hard for people to accept change. And I think over time.. with a chance to get accustomed to the compact design. I think users will grow to enjoy it. Apple can tweak it to add certain tasks to the design, but I think users are so dead set on having separate tabs don’t believe that a compact design could work.