Apple delivers Safari 15.1 beta for macOS Big Sur and Catalina

AppleInsider · October 2, 2021 12:57AM

Apple this week issued a beta version of Safari 15.1 for macOS Big Sur and Catalina for testing ahead of a launch to macOS Monterey this fall.

Release notes accompanying the Safari 15.1 beta, which was pushed out on Thursday, largely repeat disclosures issued with Safari 15 in September.

Refinements and feature additions might be added at a later date in subsequent beta releases prior to public availability.

While Apple fails to specify what improvements are contained in the new beta, MacRumors notes a fix for an issue that would crash the browser when bookmarking a YouTube page.

Designed to complement Safari on iOS 15 and iPadOS 15, Safari 15 for Mac delivers a refreshed user interface with a few controversial elements including a "Compact" layout that merges navigation controls, tabs and the Smart Search field (URL field) into one line. The change was implemented to afford more space for webpages, but the design has proved confusing and Apple now offers an option to return the browser to a more traditional view.

Also new are Tab Groups for organizing open tabs, up-to-date security and privacy tools, performance enhancements and UI tweaks.

The redesigned Safari will be included with macOS Monterey this fall.

Developers can download the Safari 15.1 beta from Apple's developer website.

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CheeseFreeze · October 2, 2021 1:08AM

I wish my tabs still looked like tabs. With the new design, I keep confusing the active tab state with the inactive tab state.

It’s really annoying to see Apple taking something that worked just fine, and then turn into something stupid nobody asked for.

fastasleep · October 2, 2021 1:42AM

I'd be more tolerant of the exceedingly stupid UX changes if it weren't so goddamned buggy. First off, after upgrading I lost all of my open tabs. Ever since, quitting and reopening Safari results in losing my most recent tabs and reopening a random set of tabs from earlier in the day that had been closed and sometimes some random start pages instead. This happens *often* and usually when I accidentally hit cmd-Q instead of cmd-W to close a window. "Reopen All Windows From Last Session" no longer works. It's infuriating.

That and the "tabs" are glitchy as fuck now — sometimes they mysteriously disappear and are replaced by a big gap between other tabs, dragging tabs into a window with another set of tabs or just between tabs in the same window often causes giant gaps and other irregularities.

And oh boy, is it fun trying to train muscle memory that's had me clicking on favicons to drag them around, when the favicons are cleverly hiding the close buttons that only appear on hover now.

What a shit show.

renedekat · October 2, 2021 6:19AM

fastasleep said:

I'd be more tolerant of the exceedingly stupid UX changes if it weren't so goddamned buggy. First off, after upgrading I lost all of my open tabs. Ever since, quitting and reopening Safari results in losing my most recent tabs and reopening a random set of tabs from earlier in the day that had been closed and sometimes some random start pages instead. This happens *often* and usually when I accidentally hit cmd-Q instead of cmd-W to close a window. "Reopen All Windows From Last Session" no longer works. It's infuriating.

That and the "tabs" are glitchy as fuck now — sometimes they mysteriously disappear and are replaced by a big gap between other tabs, dragging tabs into a window with another set of tabs or just between tabs in the same window often causes giant gaps and other irregularities.

And oh boy, is it fun trying to train muscle memory that's had me clicking on favicons to drag them around, when the favicons are cleverly hiding the close buttons that only appear on hover now.

What a shit show.

Hear hear and amen.

This release should never have made it past quality control. It shouldn’t even have reached that department in the first place.

takeo · October 2, 2021 10:47AM

I hate it so much. I’ve tried both tab views. I actually find compact less confusing but also much less functional. I’m a web developer so I’m often editing URLs in the address bar and in compact mode the address bar / tab has to be clicked to expand and even then its not very big. Also I’m often editing the end of the URL to add a query param or page slug and many times I’ve ended up clicking the stupid lock icon instead and having the SSL certificate window pop up. So I’ve settled on separate mode.

Separate mode is THE WORST! But I need an always visible address bar. But after A WEEK in separate mode I STILL keep clicking on the tab to edit the URL instead off the address bar. That’s because the address bar is STILL small for no good reason. It’s also extremely faint. Zero contrast. And narrow. Why is it so narrow?! Why isn’t it full width?! But if you only have one tab open the tab IS full width?! And it’s an ugly mid grey that my brain keeps reading as “address bar”. I click on the active tab a dozen times day mistaking it for an address bar even though the actual address bar is always visible. Even after a week I haven’t gotten used to it. I keep clicking on the tab to edit the address. It’s brutally confusing and ugly.

Simple fix… in separate mode make the address bar full width (and not completely washed out so it seems almost invisible) and most importantly… make tabs LOOK LIKE TABS! And changed that hideous and confusing mid grey “highlight” design. Ugg.

I also still can’t figure out how to drag a tab into my favourites. Or how to drag it into a favourites folder.

I’ve also had it crash numerous times when dragging a tab out to its own window.

S12 · October 2, 2021 12:10PM

For me tabs aren't the problem. It's speed. It's so sloooow. Sites like AppleInsider and CNN will bring Safari to a stop. Every time I open AppleInsider, after about a minute, I get the banner that the site is consuming a lot of memory and performance may improve by closing it. Changing tabs can cause it to be unresponsive for 15 to 60 seconds. A lot of sites, like my banking and government pages where you need to fill out info online, are broken and I have to use Edge or Firefox.

IMHO, Safari 15 is a disaster.

williamlondon · October 2, 2021 8:20PM

Love the new tabs creating extra screen real estate. Haven't encountered any bugs, no slowing down of sites. Change can be difficult I understand, but no reason to be held back by luddites, negative nellies and people simply opposed to progress.

Onward ho!

mcdave · October 4, 2021 3:28AM

CheeseFreeze said:

I wish my tabs still looked like tabs. With the new design, I keep confusing the active tab state with the inactive tab state.
It’s really annoying to see Apple taking something that worked just fine, and then turn into something stupid nobody asked for.

What macOS Safari 15.0 are you using? The active tab is the one with the close button & is lighter (on dark) or darker (on light) backgrounds than all the other tabs. You’d have to be blind to miss it…

This is trolling of the worst kind.

fastasleep · October 4, 2021 10:36PM

mcdave said:

CheeseFreeze said:

I wish my tabs still looked like tabs. With the new design, I keep confusing the active tab state with the inactive tab state.
It’s really annoying to see Apple taking something that worked just fine, and then turn into something stupid nobody asked for.

What macOS Safari 15.0 are you using? The active tab is the one with the close button & is lighter (on dark) or darker (on light) backgrounds than all the other tabs. You’d have to be blind to miss it…

This is trolling of the worst kind.

As has been outlined many times by many people, reduce your tabs down to two and tell us how clear it is which tab is active. At a glance, your screen grab looks like one inactive tab in a pile of active tabs, btw. It’s shit UI design and there’s no excuse for it.

Apple delivers Safari 15.1 beta for macOS Big Sur and Catalina

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