Safari 15 Opinions

Safari 15: Interface update with mixed reviews

At the beginning of the release of Safari 15, many people praised it, such as color changes in browser controls and security innovative features such as iCloud private relay. However, the UX changes to the Safari 15 have sparked more controversy in the wider Apple-related circles.

Several commentators have made severe criticisms of Safari 15, for example, Steven Shen pointed out that the tags on iPadOS are difficult to use, while Saagar Jha believes it is difficult to distinguish between private browsing and ordinary browsing modes. Much of the criticism focuses on the browser control itself, not on the color change. Nick Herr even calls it "shrink minimalism":

Compressing the address bar into each tab is annoying. It's a clever idea, but it means everything moves around because the tags move. They scroll left and right; their size changes as you open and close other tabs.

The small size of the browser tag also means that many controls are hidden by default, including reload and share buttons. They are all buried in a fuzzy "⋯" control that Apple has been obsessed with recently. If you often share web links, you can't even add buttons to the toolbar more permanently. I think this continues the worrying pattern of bad UI habits.

In other words, hiding useful buttons under a random ellipsis menu is not something that users who use these buttons frequently like. Federico Viticci's article "Hiding buttons from popular built-in applications is a bad idea" also explores similar changes in iOS Safari. Gruber also said:

I think the new Safari interface is a bold attempt – a fascinating idea worth trying. But I don't know anyone who thinks that, in fact, they don't seriously reduce availability. I hope Apple can restore the previous Safari tag and browser Chrome interface. For me, even the Share button now requires an extra click or a tap, which is crazy. If Apple releases this design on Mac, it will prompt many current Safari users to switch to Chrome or other Chromium-based browsers.

These changes are not popular. I can't help but wonder if people will really switch to other browsers just because of this? My guess is that Safari users either don't care because their Mac comes with Safari, or they use it intentionally because of their Apple properties, and these changes aren't enough to get them to give up.

But some have praised Apple's efforts. Jason Snell calls it "self-inflicted wound", but also sees the advantages:

Apple is trying to simplify the interface of Safari as much as possible. Its designers examined every interface element, from the tag to the URL bar, to every toolbar project, and thought about whether they could hide, delete or minimize these elements in order to provide more screen space for the web page itself.

I think Apple should be praised for its efforts, not only because the vast majority of its customers use screens with up to 13 inches diagonal dimensions, but because Apple should always try to find a better way. I don't believe that there is any type of application—from web browsers to email clients to text editors—a problem that has been solved.

Jeff Kirvin thinks this is just misunderstood:

What I've seen in Safari 15 is the first step in the new design language for iOS, which prioritizes adaptive context interfaces. Since moving to the new "full screen" iPhone X design, content has been the king on iOS, and Apple has been deleting more and more users of Chrome. This is the next step in this journey.

In addition, I would like to mention:

• Thanks to Niels Boey for writing “What does the Safari 15 update mean for my design?”, which is probably the most comprehensive analysis of visual changes I have seen so far.
• Thanks to Luke Channings for his exploration of “Did Safari 15 finally fix the viewport height?” The answer is…mostly yes: “If you subtract env(safe-area-inset-bottom) from 100vh, you get the result you want.”

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