One thing about the current set up of Safari in ios 26 on my phone is that I can’t tell whether I have other tabs open without tapping the ellipsis (…) in compact view or the tabs icon in the bottom or top view. What I want to see is the other tabs displayed to the right or left of the currently open tab as it was in ios 18, as shown in my screenshot below. Is there any way to do this?
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Tab Display On iPhone On 26 Versus ios 18
- Thread starter papbot
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Maloney~888
macrumors 6502a
That doesn’t do it. The only way to see if you have other tabs open is to tap the ellipsis (…) in compact view or the tabs icon( the 2 pages overlap) in bottom or top view. I’ve found no way to get the display in my image above from iOS 18.
There's no way to get the tabs to show on the sides, but you can swipe left or right on the address/search bar. That will switch between tabs if you have any. You can also swipe up on that bar or pinch to zoom out on the page to see all your open tabs.
Thanks, that’s what I’ve discovered. I frequently switch to other apps or tasks and may not come back to the phone and Safari for a while. In all previous OSes it would be obvious that I have other tabs open. I guess now I either have to remember or manually check every time. That’s inconvenient and puzzling why that functionality would have been removed. There’s certainly enough room, especially in compact view, to display the other tabs.
Maloney~888
macrumors 6502a
I suppose they want to keep compact, compact. At least you can swipe left/right to see if you have any other tabs or swipe up from address bar. Not perfect for what you are after but keeps it simplified or not if you require visible tabs either side of address bar.
It does keep it simplified, just not as user friendly as every prior release. I found complaints here about this from back in July so I’ll just have to get used to it. I wasn’t using 26 on my phone till it was generally released. On my ipad Safari tabs are fully functional so I wasn’t expecting this.
Maloney~888
macrumors 6502a
That would be nice, but here we are in 26.1 and no show. I use the bottom view on my phone, and when I saw there was a compact view, I was hopeful that would be the one that would have that function. There’s so much room around the URL field.🤷♂️
Maloney~888
macrumors 6502a
Yeah it’s compacted but they could have made use of the space, suppose it’s not as compact then! Maybe in iOS 27 they revert 😉
I’ve not got iOS 26 on my main devices. I’ve been testing it out on my spare iPhone 11 since the first beta in June. I think it was me that mentioned this in one of the earlier iOS 26 beta threads.
When they first introduced the bottom bar in Safari they designed it that way to make it clear to the user that there were other tabs open. It’s now much less useful - as you say you’re either having to remember there are other tabs open, or go to the all tabs view. Clearly it’s a style over function choice, in their obsession with minimalism. I’m sure they could do something to show there are other tabs open. Any change made that adds extra steps, or hides useful functionality, is a regression to me.
The same with open iCloud tabs on other devices. For example, if I had a tab open on my iPad, once upon a time I could close it with just a swipe on my iPhone. But for a few years now - maybe since iOS 13, but I can’t remember exactly - you have to long press and then select close. That’s fine if you’re using a mouse/trackpad, but iPhone and iPad are touch devices first and foremost, and swiping to close when you’re using it in that manner was much quicker and more convenient.
I think when making changes Apple should be thinking to themselves “Why did we originally design it this way? Will the changes we make remove / hide / make it more difficult for a user? Is it going to decrease productivity? If so, how can we design it to keep that particular function so as to not worsen the customer’s experience?”
And the same any other tech company, it’s not just restricted to Apple. Like I’m now using Windows 11 for work. They’ve redesigned the “File Explorer” - it now has only a handful of icons on a row (cut, copy, paste, delete, rename), and then a “…” menu for other functions. There’s more than enough room on that row when in full screen mode for all of those functions to be set out! Hiding things and adding extra steps isn’t an improvement in my view, it decreases productivity.
Changes should be making the user’s experience better, not worse!
When they first introduced the bottom bar in Safari they designed it that way to make it clear to the user that there were other tabs open. It’s now much less useful - as you say you’re either having to remember there are other tabs open, or go to the all tabs view. Clearly it’s a style over function choice, in their obsession with minimalism. I’m sure they could do something to show there are other tabs open. Any change made that adds extra steps, or hides useful functionality, is a regression to me.
The same with open iCloud tabs on other devices. For example, if I had a tab open on my iPad, once upon a time I could close it with just a swipe on my iPhone. But for a few years now - maybe since iOS 13, but I can’t remember exactly - you have to long press and then select close. That’s fine if you’re using a mouse/trackpad, but iPhone and iPad are touch devices first and foremost, and swiping to close when you’re using it in that manner was much quicker and more convenient.
I think when making changes Apple should be thinking to themselves “Why did we originally design it this way? Will the changes we make remove / hide / make it more difficult for a user? Is it going to decrease productivity? If so, how can we design it to keep that particular function so as to not worsen the customer’s experience?”
And the same any other tech company, it’s not just restricted to Apple. Like I’m now using Windows 11 for work. They’ve redesigned the “File Explorer” - it now has only a handful of icons on a row (cut, copy, paste, delete, rename), and then a “…” menu for other functions. There’s more than enough room on that row when in full screen mode for all of those functions to be set out! Hiding things and adding extra steps isn’t an improvement in my view, it decreases productivity.
Changes should be making the user’s experience better, not worse!