With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in India, there’s nowhere for me to go and have an adventurous trip. So the only audacious step I could take within the confines of my home was to install the iOS 15 beta on my iPhone.
The new update brings a lot of goodies to the iPhone, including notification profiles, separate security updates, and FaceTime links. But personally, I think the update to the Safari browser experience is the best of the lot.
Let’s go through it step by step. First, Apple has shifted the address bar to the bottom. So it’s much easier to type out a site’s address, go to the back and forward pages, and have access to the tab switcher icon within reach. All of it makes one-handed operations a breeze.
Plus, you can switch between tabs by swiping on the address bar — just like you switch between apps on your iPhone. It’s pretty neat, and I’d use it frequently to quickly check the score of a game I’m following while reading an article. You can also pinch in anytime to see all open tabs in a grid.
The new Safari also brings a pull to refresh action. So if you’re accessing a live blog or Twitter, you can easily perform that gesture to refresh your page with new content.
The update also brings a few new things to site settings when you tap the three-dot menu next to the address. First, you can now easily change the font size, translation to another language, and see the site’s privacy report through a handy new section.
Plus, the website settings menu allows you to set defaults for a site, such as using reader mode automatically or giving it access to your camera, mic, or location.
Safari on iOS 15 brings some other nifty features as well, so I’m going to mention them in a rapid-fire list:
- Web extensions are coming to the browsers, so apps like 1Password can easily fill in your credentials and 2FA codes.
- You can now set a background image on Safari. To do that, start a new page, scroll down, and tap on Edit.
- By default, Safari hides your IP address from trackers.
- This new version will finally let you group tabs on your phone.
- The new update also brings improvement to the landscape view.
I’m sure you’ll enjoy this new browsing experience when iOS 15 goes live later this year.
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