What have they done to Safari?!

[ZebedeeG]

I liked the "Separate" tab layout with colour in the tab bar - but it's gone to how it was previously!

WTF? ?

I find the "Compact" tab option too small - so now I prefer the look of Safari on my 2014 Air which won't upgrade beyond Big Sur, than Safari on my brand new M1 iMac..!

Surely it would be possible to just give us more than two options on how we want our tabs arranged...

 

[jakeenzo]

Yeah I've literally just thought the same thing. Wtf? I'm so confused.

 

[Pro Apple Silicon]

I liked the "Separate" tab layout with colour in the tab bar - but it's gone to how it was previously!

WTF? ?

I find the "Compact" tab option too small - so now I prefer the look of Safari on my 2014 Air which won't upgrade beyond Big Sur, than Safari on my brand new M1 iMac..!

Surely it would be possible to just give us more than two options on how we want our tabs arranged...

They never should have backed off Compact view. That was the original design, and too many people whined, and they caved. Now what you get is worse.

Compact is fine. And should have remained the default.

 

[aj8690]

My Safari reverted back after updating as well. I was using the Separate layout with the new color look but now it's back to the previous look. Strange.

 

[macdos]

Just use Brave. Apple apps are completely toast nowadays.

 

[daveofiveo]

I like how it looks. It considers the iPadOS implementation of Safari with it‘s limited Window space around the borders (I think the term may be “chrome”?). Which I am using right now with a Magic Keyboard. Maybe I’m the use case? Consistency matters.

 

[Extrawdw]

The new design sucks from frame-dropping animations, if you really want that then you could use compact mode or try out Safari Technology Preview.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I liked the "Separate" tab layout with colour in the tab bar - but it's gone to how it was previously!

WTF? ?

I find the "Compact" tab option too small - so now I prefer the look of Safari on my 2014 Air which won't upgrade beyond Big Sur, than Safari on my brand new M1 iMac..!

Surely it would be possible to just give us more than two options on how we want our tabs arranged...

I have color in the tab bar, when I went to the advanced tab and selected show color in compact tab bar. Am I missing something?

 

[Extrawdw]

I have color in the tab bar, when I went to the advanced tab and selected show color in compact tab bar. Am I missing something?

They mean to show color in the "Separate" tab layout, there are two of them if you open "Tabs" preferences.

 

[Tagbert]

They never should have backed off Compact view. That was the original design, and too many people whined, and they caved. Now what you get is worse.

Compact is fine. And should have remained the default.

Compact view only worked if you limit yourself to a handful of tabs. otherwise it became unmanageble.

Having the website stain the tabs was weird and offered no benefit. Just made it harder to ready the labels on the tabs.

 

[ZebedeeG]

Compact view only worked if you limit yourself to a handful of tabs. otherwise it became unmanageble.

Having the website stain the tabs was weird and offered no benefit. Just made it harder to ready the labels on the tabs.

Yeah, as a sometimes prolific tab user the compact ones quickly become too small to see what they are. Though to be fair I can keep things much more manageable using "tab groups" which is already a feature I wonder how I ever lived without!

I did actually like the new more colourful design! Combined with tabs in their own row underneath the address bar was just about perfect, both practically & aesthetically.

But after the initial surprise it's a minor niggle. Monterey is a nice solid upgrade overall.

I do sometimes think Apple is determined to oversimplify things. If some didn't like the new design then a couple of customisation options in preferences would have made everyone happy...

(Okay I admit - then there'd be someone raging about having too many options! ?)

 

[Pro Apple Silicon]

Compact view only worked if you limit yourself to a handful of tabs. otherwise it became unmanageble.

Having the website stain the tabs was weird and offered no benefit. Just made it harder to ready the labels on the tabs.

I disagree, I'm still using it with lots of tabs. It works fine.

 

[ZebedeeG]

I disagree, I'm still using it with lots of tabs. It works fine.

I guess it's a very personal thing!

On a busy day I can find myself with 20+ tabs on the go, and in Compact mode I find they start to get a little too small to identify quickly. In this mode I'm finding the comfortable limit is about 12 tabs on a 24" screen, when running Safari in a window.

It's not a big deal - it's just that prior to the upgrade I had something which worked totally perfectly, and I really liked the look!

Of course - I may just need new glasses!! ?