Apple has released its third developer betas for the upcoming iOS 15 and macOS Monterey, and they bring some much-needed fixes to Safari — namely, undoing some of the more controversial changes introduced in the earlier betas. For macOS, that means a normal tab bar that goes back to the previous design, while iOS is getting a more consistent design when it comes to the URL bar.
iOS 15 is still sticking with its new tab view and the moved URL bar on the bottom of the display, but the latest beta docked it there permanently, instead of bouncing it to the top of the screen when you selected it. Apple’s also added a new refresh option to the pop-over menu when you tap and hold the URL bar. Together, the changes help make the new design a lot more cohesive to use.
As expected, Apple is continuing to tweak the design of Safari in iOS 15.
In beta 3, the address bar is now docked above the keyboard. There is a new search UI and support for quick website searches too. Getting better! pic.twitter.com/Tm562Djr0i
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) July 14, 2021
The change to macOS is simpler: Apple seems to have just brought back part of its Big Sur design for Safari’s URL bar and tabs, ditching the combined tab/URL bar setup that it debuted in the earlier betas. In the latest beta, there’s once again a URL bar that lives at the top of each Safari menu, with a row of tabs beneath it.
Each of those tabs still takes up a decently large piece of real estate — the overall Monterey design is the same in that regard — but it’s definitely an improvement over the original betas. That said, if you preferred the new design, that’s still an option too, according to 9to5Mac.
Unchanged, at least for now, is the iPadOS version of Safari. Given that Apple isn’t expected to fully release its latest OS updates until the fall, though, there’s still plenty of time for additional changes to Safari across all of Apple’s platforms.
