GeenaPDX

Trying to figure out how you can say Safari is ultimately better on iPadOS 15? New cool features do not make an app better if it loses important functionality. I feel like this review was written a bit with rose colored glasses. A quick look at reactions from actual users across the internet would show that many of the new UI choices are causing pain for people in the iPad ecosystem. During an upgrade cycle a user should be encouraged to learn new features (such as tab groups), but it shouldn't stop a user from current workflows. 

Post-upgrade, there is now no "bookmarks" button on the top nav and no way to bring it back. With the redesigned Sidebar in Safari, the bookmarks are now buried down one level. Previously you could open bookmarks, select a site, close bookmarks to go full screen. Now, in order to do this I open the sidebar, click on bookmarks, select bookmark, select back button, close sidebar. Which seems like a step back. Further complicating this is that the sidebar will not remember if you are in bookmarks and always requires you to open it from the top level. 

Interestingly, in portrait mode, you can open the sidebar, go to bookmarks, load a bookmark and clicking into the page closes the bookmark panel. In addition, the next time you open the sidebar it remembers you were in bookmarks. The frustration for me here is I use my iPad as my home computer and thus landscape mode. It has been doing great for 2 years in that functionality, but now this is so awkward that it really kills the enjoyment of surfing my links. Yes - you can setup favorites to do some of this, but why remove this landscape functionality - especially when Apple is selling the keyboards so hard? I can use the iPad in portrait, but to do this I have to pull it out of the Magic Keyboard, change orientation, select the bookmark, click into the webpage to close the bookmark panel, return it to landscape and then click the keyboard back on.

It's almost like Apple didn't consider the use case they have been hammering in ads for the last year. I'm pretty frustrated. I guess I am hoping they patch this as a 'bug" but its really put a damper on 15 for me.