Apple has relocated Safari’s favorites section in the latest betas of iPadOS and macOS, putting it back right above the tab bar where it used to be before the controversial redesign.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Apple continues to refine Safari for Mac’s controversial redesign
- In the latest move, the favorites bar now lives above the tab bar
- This is how things used to be before the polarizing Safari redesign
- The change is evident in the latest iPadOS and macOS betas
Apple tweaks the location of Safari’s favorites tab
This change was first spotted by Jason Snell of Six Colors, who reported it on Twitter.
The visual tweak is present in the latest beta release of macOS Monterey which is scheduled to launch publicly within weeks alongside new Mac notebooks.
According to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber on Twitter, the fourth beta of iPadOS 15.1 also shows the favorites bar above the tabs, where it originally used to live. So this design change in Safari is coming to both the iPad and Mac systems via iPadOS 15.1 and macOS 12 Monterey.
Unfortunately, the browser still doesn’t show favicons in the favorites bar.
I agree in the sense that this design is fundamentally broken and they should just kill it completely, rather than yanking out all the reasons it exists and then tinkering with the leftovers
— Jason Snell (@jsnell) October 13, 2021
The polarizing design of Safari for Mac
Safari introduced a polarizing redesign that however didn’t sit well with many users, prompting Apple to add a few new toggles in preferences for those seeking to reverse the company’s most unpopular design decisions. Read: How to revert Safari’s controversial design
On iPhone, for example, people can easily choose between having the URL bar at the top or the bottom of the interface. On iPad and Mac, you can choose between consolidated tabs (where each tab expands when clicked to reveal a hidden URL field) and the regular ones.
Similar controls exist in Safari for macOS Monterey, including turning off website tinting and consolidate tabs. With the aforementioned updates launching publicly within a few weeks, it’s interesting that Apple continues to tweak Safari’s unpopular design.