Apple walks back macOS Monterey tab changes, refines search in iOS

Apple has made a major change to Safari tabs in the latest macOS Monterey beta, reverting the design back to a more familiar layout after receiving feedback from beta testers.

In macOS Monterey, Apple introduced a new tab system that allowed each individual tab to act as a search and URL field. It also nixed the standard URL and search bar that's long been a part of Safari.

However, it appears that Apple is now walking back on that design choice in the third beta version of macOS Monterey, which was released Wednesday. The latest version features a dedicated URL and search interface at the top with tabs arranged beneath it.

Users who are a fan of the Monterey-style search bar can still enable the user interface design in the View menu.

In addition to the interface change, Apple also made several other updates to Safari across its other operating systems. In iOS 15, for example, Apple has refined the Safari search UI and added the ability to initiate a page refresh by long-pressing on a tab bar.

In addition to UI changes, Safari will receive extension support on iOS and iPadOS and new user interaction changes exclusively for mobile.

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11 Comments

stompy 411 comments · 18 Years

About 3 years ago

"Users who are a fan of the Monterey-style search bar can still enable the user interface design in the View menu."

Is there any such person, not counting Apple employees?

Spitbath 97 comments · 5 Years

stompy said:

"Users who are a fan of the Monterey-style search bar can still enable the user interface design in the View menu."

Is there any such person, not counting Apple employees?

If it makes the browser window more compact then yes, I'm a HUGE fan!

tjwolf 423 comments · 12 Years

stompy said:

"Users who are a fan of the Monterey-style search bar can still enable the user interface design in the View menu."

Is there any such person, not counting Apple employees?

I actually liked the more compact design - the only thing that sucked was that there was no "Reload" button. When I got the new beta, I re-enabled the "Monterey" way because Apple now added that reload button.

Alas, there is now a very annoying bug - you can't close the current tab using the 'x' to the left of the address bar (the 'x' appears as you hover over the web site icon). Ctrl-W still works to close the tab, so no biggie, I guess, but I can never remember that keyboard shortcut (or most others, it seems :-(

elijahg 2822 comments · 18 Years

It's good that Apple are giving us options instead of forcing one or the other upon everyone as they usually do because they know best, apparently. Just need the iOS Safari's bottom address bar to be moved back to the top now - or at least stop hiding content under it at the bottom. It's impossible to touch website UI elements that fall under the address bar - basically any site with a footer - without first swiping it out the way. Which randomly does and doesn't work, and then after prodding the website's button the address bar pops back in the way again. Also the way it rockets to the top of the screen when you touch it is jarring, it could go to the top of the keyboard instead. And hiding as much as possible behind the ellipsis is stupid. At least one extra button press for everything just for the sake of minimalism.

Edit: I see they have done as above, still no fix for it sitting above website UI elements though.

marquiskurt 1 comment · 3 Years

elijahg said:
It's good that Apple are giving us options instead of forcing one or the other upon everyone as they usually do because they know best, apparently. Just need the iOS Safari's bottom address bar to be moved back to the top now - or at least stop hiding content under it at the bottom. It's impossible to touch website UI elements that fall under the address bar - basically any site with a footer - without first swiping it out the way. Which randomly does and doesn't work, and then after prodding the website's button the address bar pops back in the way again. Also the way it rockets to the top of the screen when you touch it is jarring, it could go to the top of the keyboard instead. And hiding as much as possible behind the ellipsis is stupid. At least one extra button press for everything just for the sake of minimalism.
Edit: I see they have done as above, still no fix for it sitting above website UI elements though.

From my understanding (and watching some WWDC sessions), it is supposed to be up to the website developers to handle this. They've introduced some environment variables that developers can use to detect and account for those changes. More info on this is found in the session called Design for Safari 15: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc21/10029

Note: I am not stating that putting the responsibility on the developer is the correct way to handle it, but it is the way that Apple is currently going about it.