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Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• 1_player 5y ago
  The updated Safari has had a baffling UI update. It does not make any sense at all, on THE most important application that's shipped with the operating system. It's those kind of UI ideas that look great on a mockup, but do not work in reality with real data and real users, those that open 35 tabs—behaviour encouraged by macOS windowing system by the way—and now all of those are crammed into a ludicrously small space that's constantly moving around. I don't know what Apple were thinking there. Let's not call it UX, this is designers changing for change's sake at the expense of user experience. I'm struggling to see how is it justifiable in any way.
  • mamp 5y ago
    I think their hoping tab groups will reduce the 35 tab situation, but it’s too hard to organise when in information gathering mode. I hope they put a preference option to go back to the current interface. I’ll be filing a bug report.
  • badkitty99 5y ago
    It’s hard to judge something that’s constantly changing, to make a final decision anyway. They exploit our good nature and milk the benefit of the doubt with military precision, leaving us confused, powerless and hooked on the update system of their products and services.
  • Someone 5y ago
    “but do not work in reality with real data and real users, those that open 35 tabs” That is close to stating that those that open fewer than 35 tabs aren’t real users and, further between the lines, that those people can be ignored. However I think, but don’t have data to confirm it, that they should be catered for and that “those that open 35 tabs” are a vocal minority.
    • 1_player 5y ago
      What? I'm saying there's a ton of people opening a lot of tabs, nowhere in my comment I was disparaging towards them. Please don't make assumptions. I'm just saying their use case has been ruined by this update, a use case that is seldom represented in neat and oversimplified designer mockups.
      • xvector 5y ago
        their use case has not been 'ruined', you can use tab groups
    • elliekelly 5y ago
      > However I think, but don’t have data to confirm it, that they should be catered for and that “those that open 35 tabs” are a vocal minority. This is the first time I’ve ever even considered the possibility that someone is capable of using a browser with only one or a few tabs open at a time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they exist, but having a million tabs open is so ingrained in how I consume information on the internet I suppose I kind of forgot it’s possible to do it any other way. It makes me wonder if I’ve ever had only one tab or window open at a time? Maybe in the 90s? I don’t remember AOL having “tabs” the way browsers do now but I think you could have multiple windows open.
      • d3fault 5y ago
        I usually have a max of 2 windows open with anywhere between 4 and 9 tabs open. We do exist!
      • mulmen 5y ago
        I typically have 5-10 browser windows open with 4-10 tabs per window across 5+ spaces. I’m terrified of the next redesign of spaces.
      • skydhash 5y ago
        I only use a few open tabs (3 on my mbp and 4 on my ipad). I only open tab with a specific goal in mind and close it as soon as I’m done.
  • apple4ever 5y ago
    I don't know what they were thinking either. It's a horrid change. Can't see the tabs any more, the URL is no style hidden now, and the URL bar is now jumping around like crazy.
• cloogshicer 5y ago
  Fully agree. I don't understand wtf Apple is doing with their UIs lately. It's as if they were purposefully trying to make things worse.
  • zer 5y ago
    I wouldn't attribute it to malice. The author has got that probably right: the people in charge think in iOS terms.
    • minxomat 5y ago
      Ah yes iOS where refreshing a page now requires you to menu dive instead of having an always accessible button up top
      • lupinglade 5y ago
        On macOS too now, it’s beyond ridiculous.
      • sbuk 5y ago
        Tap the top of the screen and Safari jumps to the top of the page. Pull down to refresh.
        • AlexandrB 5y ago
          What if I don't want to lose my spot in the page by scrolling to the top[1]? This is a straight up UI regression. Just because there are workarounds doesn't mean it's not shit. Edit: [1] For example if I want to load new comments in a HN thread I'm reading.
        • mulmen 5y ago
          That's three steps that used to take one. In exchange for losing the capability to quickly refresh a webpage in a browser we got... nothing?
• blue_box 5y ago
  “ And it makes no sense whatsoever that one would want to go looking for the Reload button in a tiny menu with a More… icon.” I don’t even remember when was the last time I clicked the reload button. I just press command + R.
  • jpxw 5y ago
    Yeah, to me much of this sounds great. No menu bar? Great, I never use it. Keyboard shortcuts make it unnecessary. No reload button? Great, one less thing I don’t use cluttering up the UI. I understand that less experienced users may find this confusing though. Although saying that i think anyone can learn Cmd-R and Cmd-W, and would be better off for it. I agree with the article on the tab/address bar merge being bad though.
    • arvinsim 5y ago
      It makes no sense to optimize for niche power users over general casual users.
      • yakubin 5y ago
        Stop patronizing casual users. Cmd+R isn't rocket science, just like Cmd+C. Casual users aren't monkeys.
        • AlexandrB 5y ago
          Then why not remove ALL the buttons. Stick them in a hamburger menu. And present everyone with a list of keys they must memorize during OS first boot? This is how far UX discussion has fallen since the early 00s. We went from talking about affordances, discoverability, and "principle of least surprise" to fashion. "I like it to look clean. Less chrome, and let the users eat shortcut keys, hamburger menus, and gestures."
          • yakubin 5y ago
            Your comment doesn't reply to anything in mine. I haven't written anything about hamburger menus, things looking lean, chrome or gestures. The only thing my comment was about is the practice of imagining non-computer-expert people to be mindless zombies who don't know basic stuff. Cmd+C, Cmd+V, and Cmd+R are one of the most popular shortcuts in computers, known by people who aren't computer experts. Just because something is done with the keyboard, doesn't mean it's some l33t knowledge exclusive to "power users". But computer professionals often talk about "casual users" as stupid, probably to feel better about themselves, because they know all that oh-so-advanced-hard stuff. So yes, just like a "copy" button would be a waste of space, when Cmd+C is so widespread, a "refresh" button is similar in that regard. Apple would be the last company to optimize for power users.
• nikomen 5y ago
  I’ve considered switching to Safari on my Mac because I had heard that it has stellar performance. However, with no support for uBlock Origin because of their incomplete implementation of the extensions API, and now these UI changes, it looks like I’ll stick with Firefox. I still plan to stay with my Mac because of the ecosystem. I’m one of the few who seems to actually like Windows 10. There are warts in Microsoft’s software, just as there are in Apple’s. But I like having my iPhone integrated with my Mac. The only option on Windows is Android phone integration. I’m trying to remove myself from Google’s ecosystem, though.
  • throayobviousl 5y ago
    Adguard is 99% the same, and free, and on iOS.
    • kruuuder 5y ago
      Ad blockers on Safari are apparently unable to block YouTube ads, due to API limitations. I wish Firefox wouldn't excessively drain the battery on macOS, and Chrome wouldn't excessively drain personal data to Google, and Brave wouldn't excessively violate the trust of its users. As of today, there's not a single browser on macOS that I don't strongly dislike. Looks like Safari won't improve soon.
      • pram 5y ago
        Adguard blocks YouTube ads. Maybe actually try it before dismissing it lol
        • kruuuder 5y ago
          I tried 1blocker and Wipr. Both failed to block YouTube ads due to said API limitations (as confirmed by their devs). If it's in fact an API limitation, why bother trying yet another blocker? After your reply, I did a quick search for Adguard and found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Adguard/comments/nahkk4/adguard_not_blocking_youtube_ads/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Adguard/comments/nahkk4/adguard_not...
• geerlingguy 5y ago
  The new tab/address bar thing could be the reason I switch back away from Safari after using it as my main browser for a few years due to its energy efficiency compared to Firefox and Chrome. What UI designer thought taking away more space for the tab bar was a good idea? Does that person even use a web browser?
  • oneplane 5y ago
    Do you honestly think this is a one-person job? While you might question the outcome of product development, assuming that a multi-billion R&D budget accounts for 1 designer is just unhelpful. Even just the WebKit commits with Apple engineering contacts is enough to build a whole company around...
    • geerlingguy 5y ago
      One person had the initial idea; the hive mind doesn't make radical changes like this on its own. A lot of times, you can end up with amazing new ideas that way, but sometimes a change based on ego / "that person is just so brilliant" is just bad. The tab bar thing is going to be Touch Bar 2.0, I think. The question is, how long is Apple going to push it? I was hopeful the Touch Bar would die with M1 Macs...
      • oneplane 5y ago
        I'm sure there is one (administratively) responsible person in the end, but I haven't every had a large-scale design lean on just 1 person or have very low-quantity lynchpins. I doubt Apple's inner workings are simplistic in such a way that one person with some sort of clout pushed this with no further thought. At the end of the day this is just speculation but purely negative speculation is just some form of populism/FUD and makes everything worse.
    • TwoBit 5y ago
      I'm not arguing this change as good or bad, but the pattern of one or two key people deciding something and others getting on board to implement it is common.
• nailer 5y ago
  I’ve said this before on HN, but as a reminder the following are all verifiable facts: there is no dedicated macOS team anymore, Apple market iPads as a superior alternative to a laptop, and macOS as a percentage of revenue has over a long period dwindled in favour of iOS (with a few minor blips along the way). A reasonable conclusion is that macOS isn’t apple’s priority. Meanwhile with WSL and Terminal Microsoft is pushing hard at developers. apt get is a better system than home brew and always has been. Vote with your wallets.
  • tomduncalf 5y ago
    The fact that they have invested what must be an astronomical sum in moving Macs over to their own CPU architecture suggests otherwise. It’s probably more fair to say their vision for MacOS doesn’t align with what everyone would like? Personally I’m very happy with MacOS and think Big Sur is a great iteration, I really like the look and feel, and the attention to detail to UI that I find lacking in alternatives. But that’s the beauty of choice, not everyone has to agree!
    • nailer 5y ago
      I think they need a platform for developers and macOS diehards. But fast forward 10 years macOS won’t exist.
      • tomduncalf 5y ago
        You’re probably right, but that won’t happen until we can do all the things we care about on whatever the “one true platform” I don’t think. I believe Apple will always support “power users”, if just because they need to support developers, and their large audience of creatives using their machines.
  • wwalexander 5y ago
    The MacPorts project has existed for 7 years longer than Homebrew, and is a much more sane experience similar to FreeBSD ports. In fact, Jordan Hubbard, the co-founder of FreeBSD and the original author of FreeBSD ports, was involved in the MacPorts project (along with other Apple employees). I’m always baffled that Homebrew is seen as the standard macOS package manager. MacPorts has existed for many more years. It behaves more similarly to package managers on other operating systems without weird symlink tricks. It doesn’t send analytics to Google. It has over 25,000 active ports (Homebrew doesn’t seem to publish its formulae count but SO threads seem to indicate something in the region of 4,000). To each their own, but I highly recommend anyone reading this to give MacPorts a try.
• defaultname 5y ago
  Linked article refers to the changes in Safari as "thoughtless UI", which is a fairly common argument used against changes that people don't like. Against Apple, Microsoft, WinAmp, Reddit, etc. But let's be fair and note that there quite certainly a lot of very proud, considerate, intentional designers and developers who are behind this change. People who probably put thousands (millions?) multiples of "thought" in considering the changes, versus someone saying "Whoa...this is different and I don't like different." The whine about site colors bleeding into the chrome seem particularly subjective, yet they're presented as if they're objective truths. I use a macOS beta 15 device beside a 14 device, all day every day. At first install it was jarring, but then I became acclimated to it and it's fine. Tab groups are fantastic. I appreciate the aesthetics of chrome bleed, but that's just my subjective opinion. My only complaint about the browser is that it's crash-prone right now.
  • laurent123456 5y ago
    > People who probably put thousands (millions?) multiples of "thought" in considering the changes Thoughts maybe, but did they ask users what they wanted? Did they run usability studies to verify that these changes make sense? I can't imagine that they did. Certain UI changes in macOS, Windows, etc. are so obviously bad (and are eventually changed) that no matter how much they thought about it, they didn't care to check what users thought.
    • defaultname 5y ago
      Every user thinks they're the aggregate "users", though. That their personal opinion and take is universal. For instance the address bar on here is a canonical truth and is the linchpin of the experience. See how every time a browser touches it (e.g. Chrome truncating the address) is met with mobs of the angry. Many users -- including even "power" users -- seldom interact with the address bar. Nor is it verification of anything much. It simply isn't that important anymore. Another comment mentions that the reload button is two clicks away, which is a fair point but that everyone who actually uses reload (generally developers -- zero web apps should ever require the user to hit reload) use a keyboard shortcut. Eh. "Certain UI changes in macOS, Windows, etc. are so obviously bad (and are eventually changed)" True. At the same time, every UI change of anything ever has yielded a firestorm of criticism and pushback. And more times than not the new design was better and people acclimate to it and eventually prefer it. I judge nothing on initial reception.
• heavymark 5y ago
  I love Apple and Safari and frequently provide bug reports to WebKit but I also absolutely hate the new safari and hope they reconsider it. I don’t mind change that is for the better and simply requires time to change muscle memory but this requires that and the end result is more clicks to do things, fewer static targets and the supposive benefits aren’t benefits for me at least. I find it most awful on iOS. The WebKit team is great and have to assume this direction to make the chrome of the app even smaller came from higher up. Hopefully more public backlash when the public betas come out so apple can rethink it. At the end of the day it’s still better than the alternatives for my use cases but hate that for me it’s a worse experience for something I use more than any other app.
• yoz-y 5y ago
  This weird user interface décisions also completely negate all that talk about speed. On iOS you now have to tap through a submenu with animations to do anything. (Share, Private Mode, Reading list…) the tab groups are useless as they are also hidden behind more taps (on Mac having multiple windows makes way more sense anyways, maybe let people name those or somehow see them grouped in the current open pages view on the bottom). Every action now feels slower, because even if the page loads 10ms faster than in another browser, any useful interaction will end up in hundreds of milliseconds of animations.
  • tomduncalf 5y ago
    Does the “reduce animations” accessibility toggle help at all here?
    • contriban 5y ago
      I found that to just change the animations to fade instead of scale/pan. The duration is unaffected, it just makes it flatter and uglier. I wonder how fast things would feel if you could disable all animations, Windows XP style.
      • andrewmcwatters 5y ago
        Yes! I was shocked this setting doesn’t allow me to instantly move around views in iOS! There’s no way in iOS anymore to avoid all of the weird transition animations. Reduce motion hardly does anything at all anymore. In fact, it’s even more jarring than with animations.
        • kayodelycaon 5y ago
          Reduce motion is an accessibility option made to… reduce motion. Changing the animation from swipe to crossfade accomplishes that quite neatly. It keeps everything in place as it switches. I use it because moving the entire display can give me motion sickness. It’s doing exactly what it should do.
• rnantes 5y ago
  Tabs are imperative to web productivity. On Google Chrome since tabs are on their own row at the top of the window and maintain their size and position you can fling your mouse to the top of the screen easily hit them. On Safari since the address bar expands from the active tab, the size and position of the tabs are drastically changing. This makes selecting a tab more difficult. Additionally, since the size the address bar is wider the distance your mouse has to travel to select the neighbouring tab increases. In the end this leads to more effort and bad ergonomics. I would love it if they just had the tabs on one row and address bar one row, until then I will stick with chrome on the desktop.
  • CPLNTN 5y ago
    If productivity is that much the problem, just use shortcuts.
    • hu3 5y ago
      Shortcuts are orthogonal to UI. They're used as a bypass. We shouldn't neglect UI productivity just because there are shortcuts.
• tosh 5y ago
  I love that Safari 15 uses less vertical space (more space for the website!). The nav bar currently feels a bit buggy but it isn’t released yet.
• tofukid 5y ago
  What happens with background images or gradients and the page bleed effect? Does Safari add additional padding to the top of the page to start top aligned background images from outside the viewport? Consistency is the most important principle of good user interfaces. At first glance, changing the color of the same interface controls when switching pages seems like it would be very jarring.
• isoprophlex 5y ago
  Is there a way to downgrade to an earlier safari version? I'm about to get a new macbook, and I'm not particularly looking forward to having to deal with these UI changes ...
  • axelonet 5y ago
    You can not use safari. Chrome for example mostly stays the same unless they feel compelled with these Apple UI changes
    • Tempest1981 5y ago
      Firefox? Waterfox? Brave? Edge?
  • deleted 5y ago
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• threeseed 5y ago
  > Two things any user, no matter their tech-savviness, has needed in a browser. A wide Address bar to see exactly where they are, which webpage it’s loaded, the whole URL This is clearly wrong and brings the judgement of the author into question. People care that they are on "Facebook", "Google", "Youtube". They are not remembering that a stupid cat video belongs to URL: ?v=X2KsttcwC04
  • rswail 5y ago
    Oh man, you had a classic opportunity, surely you should have quoted ?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
  • ballballball 5y ago
    That’s like… just your opinion man. Maybe some people like to see the whole URL. I kinda do. There might be others.
    • threeseed 5y ago
      I take it you skipped past the, "any user, no matter their tech-savviness" part.
    • Retr0id 5y ago
      99% of HN users want to see the full URL, myself included. However, we only care because we know what a URL is, and what the different components mean. The average user doesn't understand the intricacies of URLs, nor should they have to. Parsing URLs unambiguously is hard even for programmers, and has been the source of numerous security vulnerabilities. I think there should always be an option to show the full URL bar, but I can't really argue for it being the default behavior anymore.
  • mathewsanders 5y ago
    I was looking forward to a good cat video but just got the message “This video is unavailable.” What a tease!
  • bluedino 5y ago
    Surprised browsers haven’t just removed the address bar, it’s almost useless now.
• tambourine_man 5y ago
  I’m very concerned about Apple's direction in UX. Big Sur’s dialog boxes, menus, notifications are a mess. And now this Safari comical UI. Every single change has been for the worse. Whoever is in charge of this, please, listen to feedback and change course. This is a disaster.
  • shinycode 5y ago
    I actually like this change. I’ve been using software for more than 25 years so I’ve lived the evolution of UI a bit and sometimes we feel that it’s a regression. But after a period of transition every time I liked the product more. « The familiar is comfortable; change is upsetting ». I can’t imagine being stuck with a Windows XP style for ever I can’t even believe having used it so many years and looking back it’s a disaster but back then people loved it and complained on every single update. So nothing new here …
  • leucineleprec0n 5y ago
    The utter lack of contrast, horrible font antics, and weird obsession with tiny icons drives me mad
• alanbernstein 5y ago
  Why do browser updates keep fucking with the basic interface design? None of these changes are ever necessary. If designers need to justify their jobs, fine. They should design the interface layout with modular components that can be entirely customized by the user. IMO no user should ever be forced to use designs that are the product of meaningless fads in the design world.
  • nlitened 5y ago
    From what I understand, the question is similar to “why do developers keep inventing new frameworks and new programming languages?” Maybe developers are justifying their jobs. Maybe younger developers are excited about ditching the old crufty frameworks and languages, and exploring something new. Maybe every 10 years they reinvent the old wheels, and older developers are grumpy that the change was not needed in the first place.
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    • alanbernstein 5y ago
      Creating new browsers doesn't bother me at all. I think the appropriate analogy is something closer to changing the spelling of a language's keywords arbitrarily. Change for the sake of change, which is easy enough to adjust to, but introduces a transition period that costs time, for no good reason. The backward compatibility effects aren't quite as bad in the browser context... except when the plugin API is affected.
    • saurik 5y ago
      Right: every profession does stupid stuff I am sure, and developers certainly waste a lot of time throwing away good code to start over again; but I think today we are talking about designers?
  • lytedev 5y ago
• api 5y ago
  I have to admit I don't hate the Safari image he's picking on, but it's not great. It's a big shrug. This line is gold though: "Going through Big Sur’s user interface with a fine-tooth comb reveals arbitrary design decisions that prioritise looks over function, and therefore reflect an un-learning of tried-and-true user interface and usability mechanics that used to make for a seamless, thoughtful, enjoyable Mac experience." Cross out "Mac" at the end and it applies even more to Windows than to the Mac. This lack of unified conceptual design, combined with a mindless ape-ing of mobile interfaces on larger machines with large screens and keyboards, describes the whole UI regression trend of the past 10-15 years. We went from thought-out utilitarian UIs with consistency to... a shitpile of random design choices made in isolation. Windows is by far the worst offender here, but Mac has been moving in the wrong direction too for a while. A desktop is not a phone any more than a tractor is a car. Yes desktops and phones have similar chips in them, but their role and use case in the larger ecosystem is very different. Desktop/laptop isn't dead either. There are many more PC machines today than there were in the 1990s at the height of the original "PC era." There are just even more phones and tablets (and IoT devices, and voice assistants, and smart cars, and...), and globally the PC's percentage of the market has declined quite a bit. In absolute terms the ecosystem is larger than ever and these machines are used to create virtually everything in our world.
• ismayilzadan 5y ago
  New Safari design really reminds me Internet Explorer 9 and 10. It also had tabs right to the address bar. Back then I was amazed with the idea, but looking at window icons taking massive horizontal space I became disappointed. Still tried to use it though, but it quickly became clear that there just not enough horizontal space with 720p monitor to fit more than 2 tabs while still understand what is open.
• tayistay 5y ago
  Call me crazy, but I’d prefer the tabs as a big stack on the left side.
  • pcurve 5y ago
    I would love that option too.
  • FractalHQ 5y ago
    Vivaldi is nice for this
  • pickledcods 5y ago
    Absolutely underrated comment! Most websites use only 60% of the available screen width.
    • desas 5y ago
      You let your web browser use your whole screen width?
  • recursive 5y ago
    Edge does it.
  • systoll 5y ago
    My first impression when they opened the sidebar was that that's what we were going to get. The only thing really missing are disclosure triangles: https://imgur.com/a/6AkHI7d https://imgur.com/a/6AkHI7d A sidebar like that would serve tab-hoarders better than either the new or old tab bars, while coexisting with the new UI.
• jonplackett 5y ago
  I thought this was gonna be about the weird floating address bar at the bottom I saw on the iOS demo video. Now that’s gonna be annoying to design a webpage around.
• xrisk 5y ago
  I don’t really care about the address bar being small, but I dislike that you can’t open too many tabs at a time. IMO you should be able to see at least the favicon even when you have 15+ tabs open.
• rpastuszak 5y ago
  Am I the only person who likes this change? Normally, I’d have 4-5 tabs that I keep switching between fairly often and then 20-xx most of the time useless, de facto bookmarks. I use a keyboard shortcut with fuzzy find to pick the right one. Reclaiming the address bar space to cram more tabs on the screen is a marginal gain, at least in my case.
  • TwoBit 5y ago
    > Am I the only person who likes this change? yes
  • dashwin 5y ago
    I like this change as well. I don't use tabs at all, I use pinch to show all tabs and switch more often than having to align my mouse along the top of the screen to switch to a tab after reading the text. It's similar to the KonMari method for laying out your things.
  • willyt 5y ago
    I’ve not tried 15 yet, but I really like the idea of named groups of tabs. I have groups of stuff in windows for things that I’m researching and i hate having to open and look at every minimised window to see if that is the group of tabs I’m looking for as it’s often hard to tell from whatever tab url I left that window at before i minimised to the dock.
    • wintermutestwin 5y ago
      In Firefox, I use windows for different categories of subject/use case. I use the Titler extension to label the windows.
      • norman784 5y ago
        Workona works for uses cases like you, the only time that gets annoying is when you are using firefox containers. So I appreciate the new UI (didn't tried it yet) but seems that somehow fits my current workflow.
• FractalHQ 5y ago
  Safari is trash anyways it can hardly even render an svg properly and it sucks at webgl among many other things
  • throwzaway20102 5y ago
    Go play fortnite
• dashwin 5y ago
  I really like the new design on my 11inch MacBook. I don't use the tab bar, I use expose for tabs by pinching my fingers and there's a great view there to switch tabs.
• dashwin 5y ago
  For tabs, I beg to disagree -- tabs have been somewhat meaningless to me when pinch to "expose" was introduced. It works really well, I can search through my tabs if I have a ton of them as well. For share being buried, I'd have to agree. It's the one thing I use most and we end up having to poke more at our screens to do so. That said, it's no means perfect. Some features I want to see in Safari are: - multiple profiles (work, personal etc.) ideally integrated with this new Focus concept that the new OS introduces - grouping: create, manage and switch tab groups - bring back the single click share button
• rubyist5eva 5y ago
  I vehemently disagree that vertical space used is negligible. Due to standard aspect ratios, the vertical space of the display is at a premium. 1920*1080 means you have 840 less vertical pixels than horizontal - it makes a lot of sense to me to try to reclaim some of that space for actual content instead of widgets.
  • reflectiv 5y ago
    This is basically what I tell people when they ask me why I put my start menu and task bar on the left side of the screen.
    • daniel_reetz 5y ago
      Wow. I hadn't thought of it this way, and I even go as far as using a second monitor in portrait mode.
      • beebeepka 5y ago
        I have been doing this ever since 16:9 became a thing, and have converted several people to this simple solution. Canonical had the right idea with Unity which not many people are willing to acknowledge
        • mixmastamyk 5y ago
          The Windows task bar has been movable since 95 I believe. I know because I moved it to the top in the old days. With Mate I keep the main panel on the left as well, however some widgets were not happy in vertical orientation until a few years ago.
    • maxwell 5y ago
      You don't hide the start menu and task bar?
      • zamadatix 5y ago
• Tempest1981 5y ago
  What's the recommended way to move a window that has no remaining title bar? (Honest question, not specific to Safari.) Or am I supposed to only use full-screen windows now?
  • chadlavi 5y ago
    the entire top bar area can be grabbed to drag the window around. Just click and hold anywhere that isn't a button or tab (including between and just below the tabs).
    • Tempest1981 5y ago
      Ok, but the entire top row is now 90% buttons, tabs, and address-bar. Leaving me to struggle with the trackpad to position the mouse on a tiny sliver of border. Is there a keyboard modifier for move-mode?
      • kbrose 5y ago
        There is, but it's disabled by default. Use defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture -bool true Then restart, and now while holding Ctrl-⌘ you can click and drag _anywhere_ on the window to move it.
        • apple4ever 5y ago
          WHOA that is amazing! That would solve so many of this issues.
          • Tempest1981 5y ago
            Seems like it should be enabled by default, unless it already has another binding.
• chadlavi 5y ago
  I don't mind it on macOS because of keyboard shortcuts, but I desperately want my refresh and share buttons back in the iOS version of Safari. Pull down to refresh is great if you're already at the top of the page, but when you're at the bottom you have to open a menu just to refresh the page? Overall though I think the new look is fine, and the author is being a real disagreeable crank about the inevitable merging of iOS/macOS aesthetics.
  • AlexandrB 5y ago
    > inevitable merging of iOS/macOS aesthetics Also known as: "The day I dump macOS for Windows." I feel it coming. One thing that's kept me from getting an M1 Mac is that I'd have to run Big Sur. Given that Apple is continuing in this dumb direction my 2015 MacBook Pro running Mojave might, indeed, be the last Mac I ever own. It's too bad too. With the M1 macs they had finally fixed the keyboards.
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• thysultan 5y ago
  I much prefer less "chrome" so i like the new safari re-design, if it was me i would have just reduced it to just having a keyboard shortcut(cmd + f) that pulls up a spotlight like search that has the url and a list of the tabs you can arrow down on.
• pcr910303 5y ago
  I believe this new design is the best Safari design 'in the constraints of the new Big Sur design language'. I'm liking it mostly because the Big Sur's new toolbar is too thick. With the menubar, toolbar, and the tabbar, 106px of my total 800px height display gets to display non-content information, much of which is clutter when I'm trying to focus on the webpage. It's a whopping 13.3%! Most of this comes from the thick toolbar that Big Sur has started. But since Apple won't be changing that thick toolbar (as we all know), the 30px vertical height (which translates to 3.6%) that I get by hiding the toolbar is precious. So I appreciate the new Safari 15 design. Really, the only problem I'm finding is the refresh button, which I'm like 99% sure will come back with all of this fuzz, and the other functionality in that (...) button needed multiple mouse clicks in Safari 14 anyway. Like... disabling the ad blocker required a long-click on the refresh button, it's now more discoverable. Shifting address bars... I can see how that might make people freak out; Personally I've had zero problems, so YMMV. About tab management – I can't disagree more than the article. Creating group of tabs is very much useful, it's much more helpful than having a group of windows each with different topics and prevents idle windows eating memory and CPU when only one window gets used for a long time. I have five tab groups, one about my school, two on my personal hobbies, one on generic development-related information (including HN) and one on my work, each with 10~20 tabs. I'm guessing the writer doesn't use tabs pervasively – that's fine. But I would like to point out that it is not rarely efficient nor overall unconvincing. Thanks Apple for that tab group feature, I'm seriously getting a ton of mileage over it.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • saagarjha 5y ago
    I mean Safari specifically chose to use a thicker toolbar on Big Sur. If they cared about vertical space, why didn’t the pick the thinner option?
  • noahtallen 5y ago
    Imo, the new address bar is better because it attached to the current tab. This is how it already works, but the design never reflected that. Previously, the address bar was a global UI element which doesn’t modify the global state. I think this could easily be clearer for new users. (And possibly clearer for technologically challenged existing users.) To me, the big complaints are just reacting to it being different. I don’t think that’s fair.
• petepete 5y ago
  I love the colour of the page 'bleeding' into the 'tab area' - providing they can maintain a decent level of contrast. It looks really nice in the provided example. Of course, I hope they've used `<meta name="theme-color"...` instead of the background colour so pages with a white background and a black header don't end up with white chrome.
  • sirn 5y ago
    They do use theme-color and only fallback to either page background color or header background color when theme-color is not present[1][2] [1]: https://files.grid.in.th/z3ox7o.jpg https://files.grid.in.th/z3ox7o.jpg [2]: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10029/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10029/
    • petepete 5y ago
      Ah, thanks for clarifying.
  • arata 5y ago
    > providing they can maintain a decent level of contrast Safari wouldn't apply the theme-color if it makes the UI inaccessible (it has a very few narrow range of color that it won't apply). Also, if the tag is not specified, Safari would not blend the website content into the tab bar.
• jaredcwhite 5y ago
  I don't have macOS 15 beta yet, but I'm running the Safari Technology Preview now on Big Sur which has most (all?) of the new UI changes. I love pretty much everything about it. It looks gorgeous. Tab Groups are incredible. The "address bar is in the tab" concept does take some getting used to and that's likely the area they'll tweak the most over the next few months. But overall, huge step forward in my book. Can't wait to get it on my iPad as well.
  • 0x0 5y ago
    The new UI changes were introduced in tech preview 126, but that one is only available for macOS 12. The download page at https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/download/ says "macOS 11 - coming soon". I have tech preview 125 from earlier and no software updates are available in system preferences. So how do you have the new 126 UI changes on Big Sur already?
    • matwood 5y ago
      It was live briefly before being taken down.
• nixpulvis 5y ago
  This post makes a lot of good points, which I agree with strongly. However: > In other words, what a browser needs is horizontal breathing room, instead we have Apple doing things backwards I disagree with this in general. Which I'm sure is the general opinion of browser developers. We often add extra whitespace to the horizontal margin to assist reading. I think the issue is that we are so used to toolbars on the top of the window, we don't know how to squish it all in there.
  • yxhuvud 5y ago
    Then don't put it there in the first place. Instead, take a clue from tree style tabs and put the tab bar on the left side instead. I'm sure designers with proper buy in from stake holders can make it look less horrible but stay usable.
    • nixpulvis 5y ago
      I think the hard part is making a compelling UI which works in all of: up, down, left, and right reading order. Practically everyone will also be dealing with something like 16:9 and 9:16 aspect ratio, so users will need to be able to transition from vertical to horizontal naturally. In my limited experience with side-panel navigation UIs I believe I would find it hard to use with my vertical displays.
      • yxhuvud 5y ago
        Yes, those would need a different solution. One size does not have to fit all.
• throwzaway20102 5y ago
  Love the updates to Safari. Glad to see Apple aggressively trying to improve the core UX of what a browser is instead of just shoving extensions and ads in. More of this please, Apple!
• justshowpost 5y ago
  Seems like the author is so used to the current design language, that they are vehemently opposed to any change. I personally like that Apple attempts to make websites feel more like applications by making the browser disappear. Websites have evolved to becoming essentially applications that can run on any platform. And with WASM this is only getting better. This is a great thing! Do applications have a permanent bookmarks bar, a reload button, a URL bar? No. It's all built into the OS. When you want to open an application, you search in the Dock or in Spotlight. When an application freezes, you force quit and reopen it. I can imagine how Apple in the future integrates the Safari URL bar into Spotlight search. On iOS this is at least partly possible already. Websites become more and more applications.
  • breeny592 5y ago
    > I personally like that Apple attempts to make websites feel more like applications by making the browser disappear. Now if they could provide a stable platform like they do for their applications versus the pain and edge cases Safari almost always introduces (especially the mobile implementations). I know its not a flashy thing but one WWDC it'd be great if they came out and said how many nearly decade old bugs have been addressed rather than a UI uplift - the cynic in me assumes a "redesigned" app is going to be less, not more stable.
• ziml77 5y ago
  I'm not going to take Safari over Firefox or even Chrome, but this design isn't thoughtless. It looked to me from the demo that they did put some thought into the design. Integrating the address bar into the tabs is a nice idea for saving the precious vertical space people (validly) keep complaining that we're losing. It won't work well for me because I have too many tabs open all the time, but they even thought about that issue and gave tab groups as a way to help keep the number of tabs under control.
• cwizou 5y ago
  I've been using Safari 15 on macOS and iOS since they released the betas and while I could get used to, and enjoyed some of the changes, some I don't think I'll be able to live with. From good to bad : - The tab grouping feature. I'm not sure I understand the complaining, as this is a purely optional feature that you don't have to use. Each new window you open will have it's own "group" that isn't shared anywhere, but you can, optionally, save tab groups that get synced across OSes. I find that to be very useful to make thematic groups and being able to switch from one to another easily on iPad, and having those groups opened on separate windows on mac. - The sidebar is a bit clunky on iOS, for example if you want to browse your bookmarks through it, you'll have to go back to the root state of that tab (pressing back a few times) in order to be able to close it. Thankfully, that's not an issue on macOS ! Having multiple back buttons on screen though, I'm not certain that's a great design for novices, but you can argue it's more of a "power user" feature. - Hiding the close button on a mouseover on the favicon on mac. Quite frankly this one was infuriating the first couple of days, but I did get over it. I do think it will be very jarring for most users though, and a very bad experience for not much reason. Even more puzzling is the fact that on iPad, since you can't mouseover, the close box is visible for the main tab, but not for the others, so closing a non selected tab is a two click process that brings back (or maybe reload) the tab, and that doesn't feel good. - Hiding the reload button. As someone who don't always have my hands on the keyboard, I used that button fairly often on macOS. The touch target to the ... is also fairly small on iOS and I can't say I'm hitting it all the time. The menu that pops also has a peculiar design with some buttons being extra high, and a whole, massively scrollable list of features that are not in an order that particularly make sense to my usage. It's one of this case where you'd wish for some usage based learning as Microsoft tried to do years ago with Office. - The Chrome tinting is something that kinda looks good sometimes, but gets visually jarring quickly. HN is a good example. I do like Orange, but that's just too much to my taste (that feature doesn't seem to be there on iPad). It can be disabled though in Preferences which is good. - Moving around the location bar. That's the change I don't think I can get over, this has been terrible to use for me in practice. The fact that the bar changes width and location, I find visually and mentally jarring on mac. On iPad it's not much better, though at least you understand the premise there, it's about saving vertical space. Conceptually I can't get behind that one : they have voluntarily constrained their design to their smallest screen size, and did it mostly for cross OS consistency. Right now you can revert the top bar using this gist on mac, and I thoroughly hope that Apple will consider making this optional, if only, under the guise of an accessibility preference : https://gist.github.com/zhuowei/8ad1dd478df0efeb67baf2088e5cd85e https://gist.github.com/zhuowei/8ad1dd478df0efeb67baf2088e5c...
• jdmg94 5y ago
  I’ve been using iOS15 beta on my iDevices and tab groups has been a life-saver. If you had. 18 tabs open at any time like the author here said now you can separate them through tab groups that will sync in between devices, so I can have a group for my guitar tabs and a group for all my tech stuff, that leaves the default view clear if I want to start going into a new rabbit-hole
  • hu3 5y ago
    Tab groups are great. Chrome introduced them a while ago and I've been using ever since. Two groups is all I need: Work and Personal. Tabs not in these groups are temporay and are closed once I'm done.
• Exuma 5y ago
  Why can't they fix searching in iMessages. Telegraph does it perfectly. Just #$%^ing fix it.
• umutisik 5y ago
  What I would like: Infinite tabs, they don’t get too small in the tab bar, newer ones to the right, older ones can be accessed by scrolling left. Older than last 15 don’t take up memory. Tabs get saved into disk/cloud and reappear when you restart the browser like on iOS. Basically so you can put off dealing with your open tabs indefinitely.
  • giantrobot 5y ago
    Safari already does this. Tabs begin by showing the page title and optionally the site favicon. Once you've got a bunch open they shrink down to just the favicon. After that point the tab bar scrolls horizontally. You can scroll it with two finger swipes on a trackpad or Shift + Scroll on a mouse. You can see all tab contents by hitting the tab view button (I don't know a better name). Open tabs are synced between devices via iCloud. In the tab icon view you can see tabs open on other devices listed. You can click to open one or ⌘ + Click to open them in new background tabs.
• seumars 5y ago
  I think if you’re the type of person who has dozens of tabs open in a single window you’re doing it wrong anyway.
• catchmeifyoucan 5y ago
  > We need open tabs, we need to see what’s open at all times, and we need to be able to quickly jump to the tab we need in the here and now. I’m working on Amna which tackles the too many tabs problem, and this is a huge generalization. I can have 22 tabs open just for single task. For example opening two HN articles in new tabs will bring the total to 3. Seeing what’s open all the time is overwhelming to most users. I’m a fan of the new tab groups and unlike chrome which puts a bunch of dots, Safari neatly sends tabs away to work with less clutter and a blank slate.
• qaq 5y ago
  Teams grow they need things to do, managers need to justify increasing head count and love redesigns and rebrandings ... I think we are at a point where there is non-triivial size weather app team @ Apple
• andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  Does Safari 15 not do that thing like Mobile Safari where when you scroll the entire address bar goes away? I feel like that should definitely be a thing. The 13-inch MacBook Pros of today seem oddly space constrained compared to the non-Retina MacBook Air I used years ago. But maybe I’m wrong.
• andai 5y ago
  > While you’re there, take a look at how Vivaldi tackles the ‘too many tabs’ problem. Spoiler: by adding a second Tab bar. On the subject of optimal use of horizontal/vertical screen space: Vivaldi's killer feature is native support for vertical tabs, which is a better solution both for large number of tabs and for being able to read their titles easily. If memory serves me, it also supports a tab-tree, ie. each tab's children are indented under it, which is a really cool way to browse. You with tree-style tabs you can see where everything came from, instead of just throwing it in a big pile.
• giuliomagnifico 5y ago
  Hmmm this time I don’t agree with Riccardo. The new interface to me looks better, I’m testing it and I like it, there are only things that I don’t like: 1) the “unified color” in the menubar is terrible, really. You must disable the overlay tab/menubar coloring because this is the only big mess. 2) you have to make 2 taps in order to open the reading list, because you can’t “pin” it but when you open the sidebar you have to choose anytime if you want to see the RL or bookmarks. And this is a bit annoying. Workaround is to use a shortcut (like alt-R to open and close the RL and you can see it straight without two taps)
• xvector 5y ago
  Strongly disagree. Vertical space is not negligible. We already have way too many things taking up vertical space: - menu bar - tab bar - URL bar - bookmarks bar - scrolling site headers - dock Eliminating, combining, or hiding just some of these by default is a huge win for space savings. It's why people have been asking for a combined tab/URL bar for years. The blended chrome does indeed make websites feel like they take more of your screen. Overall this change is seriously tempting me to move from Firefox to Safari.
• makecheck 5y ago
  I think it’s strange that browsers, routinely displaying responsive design layouts, have never tried this for their own window chrome. They keep trying to shoehorn all screen sizes and space savings into one layout, when the web itself does a wiser thing: it adapts and makes better use of space if available.
  • notriddle 5y ago
    But that’s not true? Safari for iPad has two very distinct layouts. The tough part is making sure it doesn’t get confusing.
• heurisko 5y ago
  On the subject of user interface messes, I recently switched away from Chrome on Android to Firefox, solely because of the "tab groups" feature. I usually can live with UI changes, but reading the reviews of Chrome on the Google store, and the Chrome subreddit, it seems I'm not alone in disliking this change.
• xutopia 5y ago
  Aren't monitor size changing things though? Like I don't care what size my task bar is if my screen is so big it makes up for it.
  • pseudalopex 5y ago
    Laptops exist.
• nbzso 5y ago
  I have a controversial theory. Foolish design is everywhere. Look at web trends. No underlined links, no clear button distinction, childish color schemes and rounded corners everywhere. Apple UI/UX design is trend setter. They try to be cool and resonate with naive audiences. This is Design by Marketing. This is the result of corporations hiring cheap millennial designers without proper design foundations, ready to serve and adapt to marketing concepts with compliance and enthusiasm. The burden of boomers expertise and professional code is no go for the future designed to serve boards of executives and shareholders. This trend will continue rapidly, complexity will increase to the point where users will need AI to make choices and filter UX crap created by semi-pros for pennies. Yep.
  • least 5y ago
    What constitutes an adult color scheme for you? Why do rounded corners offend you? Are there examples of what you think are appropriately designed products or websites? This sounds needlessly derisive.
    • nbzso 5y ago
      Think what you want. I can give you an excessive list with examples what is the foundation of UI design as a logic and implementation. What is Accessible and Usable interface. There are a ton of books on the subject. But reading, drawing and deep research are things that require serious focus, dedication and critical thinking. Those skills are not available for people who have more time on hand for “social” media and dribbble or instagram, self validation. I seriously doubt that Steve Jobs will accept the “modern” Apple HIG and iOS redesign of Mac OS, on a simple and logically grounded premise called mouse pointer. Don’t let me start on colors, contrast or flat design. Bad idea from Microsoft Mobile UI gone wild. But don’t worry and be happy. Hey, in the end all user input is error and the almighty emperor will save us all from cognitive overloads with tiny colourful implants.:)
      • least 5y ago
        You don't have to give me an excessive list, a rationale behind your criticisms of Safari's design or explaining what constitutes an adult color scheme would suffice. Flowery language and technical jargon don't actually have much substance on their own.
• canada_dry 5y ago
  It seems like UX/UI design has devolved to eliminate extensive (actual) user testing/feedback/enhancement. Instead, the big FANG cos are happy to accept whatever their 'experienced' designer thinks is an exciting new look with some perfunctory review by the marketing dept. IMHO the what's-old-is-new-again can't come soon enough when it comes to UI design!
• david-cako 5y ago
  For some time now, I've been using a CSS mod for Firefox to put the window controls on the same row as the navigation buttons and address bar, and I use the Tree Tabs extension to get a vertical tab bar on the right, which I overlap with VS Code's file navigation so that the meat of both apps are in view even if they are overlapping. At some point, an update made the window controls disappear. I still haven't fixed it, but I like my toolbar being as small as possible to give me more vertical screen real estate. I don't mind this change to Safari tbh. A big draw of Macs is also the 16:10 aspect ratio.
• rewgs 5y ago
  This change to me feels very touch-oriented. If you're touching a standard browser's URL bar, you might touch a tab instead (and vice-versa). But if you put them on the same horizontal plane, this problem is solved. And from a touch perspective, the URL bar has a ton of wasted space; you don't need more than the length of your average URL as a touch target, so all the horizontal space that comes after it is essentially unused. I think this is yet another way in which Apple is preparing to make macOS touch-enabled.
• logbiscuitswave 5y ago
  > It seems as if the people in the design team are all working exclusively on 32-inch Apple XDR Pro Displays. Makes me think of the complaints in video game text over the past few years and how it had become so small as to be nearly unreadable on normal TVs at normal viewing distances. The natural assumption here is that the game devs were doing all their work inches away from large fancy monitors not thinking of the so-called 10’ experience most people use to consume the content. At least many console games now have text size sliders (with varying levels of usefulness). https://kotaku.com/the-year-in-tiny-video-game-text-2019-1840682509 https://kotaku.com/the-year-in-tiny-video-game-text-2019-184...
  • zamadatix 5y ago
    The majority of these are better explained as "PC game ported to console". The same problem has long existed in reverse, console game ported to PC with enormous UI. There are a vanishingly small number of games that actually do this properly - a scalable UI that has some good default assumption for the platform it is currently on. Of course games rarely make significantly more money because the text is perfectly sized vs the 1,000 other things that are competing to get done before the release date.
    • salamandersauce 5y ago
      Nah. Console exclusives have had this problem for a while too. It was really dreadful on 360 where some devs assumed everybody played on HDTVs despite the console supposed to be SD friendly as well. Some text was literally unreadable in Mass Effect on my 20" CRT TV at ANY distance and was just barely readable on the 20" 480p LCD I was able to upgrade to a little later.
      • mikepurvis 5y ago
        I played the 360 version of Braid on standard definition, and much of the text was unreadable.
    • m463 5y ago
      I think there are lots of "porting" artifacts. Like the "attract" screen when playing on a console which previews the game in a loop. (guess it came from arcade games, or maybe like DVD menu screens) No need for that with a PC game - you're launching it manually, why add a "click to continue"? I am amazed by those reaaaaallly wide displays - developers in the 1990's might have predicted 16:9, but 32:9??
• tacotacotaco 5y ago
  Apple's design team must be fans of Internet Explorer 11.
• axismundi 5y ago
  Hey browser vendors, GIVE US BACK THE CONTROL! I swear it was possible in the past to drag and drop all UI elements, including the tab bar, by right-clicking the chrome and dropping into edit mode, do you remember?
• mulmen 5y ago
  Modern UX people are monsters that come out every few months to terrorize me. I’m honestly scared to install MacOS updates. I don’t recall the last time an update made anything better for me. But I’m a “power user” so I guess that means I should expect to re-learn basic navigation endlessly. My computer is a tool. Please stop changing how I use it.
  • shinycode 5y ago
    You’re welcome to use Windows XP for that matter … seriously I understand because it’s a tool for me as well but it’s the price to pay when you have a product used by millions / billions of people … there is so much different needs and every user thinks he’s the center which is understandable but Apple and others have to evolve with their vision they can’t stuck themselves in the past because we like things the way they are now. We have the choice of switching platform, writing our own or not updating software as well but we as individual are not and will never be the center and « majority » use case …
• Animats 5y ago
  Maybe Apple will spin off desktops and laptops as a "pro" or "business" division or company, as HP did.
• flying_sheep 5y ago
  I have switched back to Windows because macOS is like a second-class citizen in Apple :-/ I am programmer with many Bash scripts in macOS. But the switch is quite smooth actually (thanks to WSL 2). With the similar price of M1 iMac, I can buy a Windows with a much better GPU (for gaming, deep learning, mining, or whatever) and a 140+Hz monitor. With a high refresh rate monitor the UI is so silk smooth. Expect iOS level smoothness when scrolling web pages. However there is something I still want a solution. Say the continuation of the current website (between Edge and iPhone). Password synchronization and Notes (the official iCloud web Notes is almost useless).
• armchairhacker 5y ago
  Lots of people saying that they like the new Safari, and lots saying that it sucks. This is why we need customizable UI. Everyone's laptop is different and everyone's preference is different. Firefox suffers from a similar issue. Of course more customizable UI isn't an easy task, but it would probably be good in the long run to develop a more customizable general-purpose GUI framework.
• freediver 5y ago
  To get the full picture: Rationale behind the Safari 15 design https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10029/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10029/
  • arata 5y ago
    Relevant transcript from the first two minutes of the video: > Since very early in the evolution of the web browser, most of the browsers we've used have had a few fundamental thing in common. There's a very tall toolbar at the top with a slot for the URL that's on it's own line. And the website stays inside this space, this portal to the web, the viewport. Of course, as users, we've trained ourselves to put all of our focus on the website that we're using, but for years, the browser itself has maintained a strong visual presence. No matter how a website is designed to look and feel, the browser interface framed that design and dominated it. What if we could get rid of that frame and extend the design of the website to every edge of the window? Well, that's what we've done in Safari 15. This year we've reimagined the browsing experience as we know it. We're putting all the focus on the web content. The new Safari blends the tab bar into each website by changing its background color. The entire interface is on one line, and things naturally appear when needed. This makes your content feel more expansive. Each web page or web app takes over, extending to all four edges of the window. The browser interface yields to the content.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• augstein 5y ago
  Honestly, as a macOS power user, I love the new approach Apple is taking with Safari. More vertical space is a win, especially with those wide screen displays that are getting more popular and lets be honest: Actions like reloading are best done by using keyboard shortcuts anyway, so having a more minimal UI is a win in my book. The new feature, where Safari’s app chrome changes colour by taking the accent colour of the currently loaded website is just awesome and really brings the website you are currently visiting up one level closer.
• gherkinnn 5y ago
  1. Design changes 2. People whine 3. People adapt and forget, maybe even prefer it Nothing new here. If people continue to whine after more than a few months, there might be something worth investigating. Reddit comes to mind.
• gatkinso 5y ago
  Maybe I missed it but has this person actually tried the new Safari?
• dwaite 5y ago
  Browser makers are always doing aggressive (and thus questionable) things with the UX, partly because the chrome is the only part which is under their control (and not the content). The two most questionable decisions I find in the latest Safari UX are: - A focused tab goes from the title to the address: this means you cannot see the title of the page you are on, and that tabs change relative positions depending on focus. This is unfortunately a hard problem, because users/designers expect a signal that you are on the correct site to prevent phishing - adding a disclosure field for viewing/entering the address anchored to the left is insufficient. - Tab Pinning is still not supported on ios/iPadOS, and since tab groups are synchronized they cannot be pinned. Pinning adds some really nice behaviors for curation, so the whole tab group feature feels less useful than it could be.
• macspoofing 5y ago
  So Apple was inspired by the IE address bar / tab layout. Nice to see Apple preserve history ... just as IE is going EOL.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• zapzupnz 5y ago
  Someone ran the new tabs through Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics, respected in the industry for 27 years. The results were less than glowing. https://twitter.com/feetsnz/status/1403849426683138053?s=21 https://twitter.com/feetsnz/status/1403849426683138053?s=21
• 0xakhil 5y ago
  I welcome these sort of new experiments as long as they give an option to revert to the previous behaviour. At least until they have a real world data to confirm 99 percentile users are happy with it. I don’t know if Apple provides that option in this case, but I think that will reduce the public outcry. It doesn’t make sense to not expect experiments like these in an actively developed product.
• active_salmon 5y ago
  This whole article is written from a very subjective point of view. It's obvious that the author has strong emotional feelings about this. At one point the author says something like "I’ve seen it firsthand in so many occasions and contexts that it can’t be just anecdotal data." (this is the very definition of anecdotal data).