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Apple Releases New Big Sur and Catalina Safari 15.1 Betas for Developers With Restored Tab Design

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Following in the footsteps of the macOS Monterey release candidate seeded earlier this week, Apple has released a fourth beta version of Safari 15.1 for macOS Big Sur and Catalina to developers that restores the previous tab design that was in place prior to Safari 15.

safari 15 1 old tabs
Safari 15.1 now features a standard Big Sur tab design, which is enabled by default and is labeled "Separate" in Safari preferences. For those who preferred the Safari 15 design rolled out last month, there is also a "Compact" option that merges the URL bar with the tab bar.

As with Safari in the macOS Monterey release candidate, the new Safari 15.1 beta also scales back on the option to have the Safari window chrome blend in with websites, moving the option to the Accessibility section of the Advanced page in Safari preferences and limiting it to only the Compact Tab Bar design.

With the public release of Safari 15.1 in macOS Monterey, Big Sur, and Catalina, Apple is scaling back on many of the design changes made in Safari 15, which was released for those macOS versions last month alongside iOS and iPadOS 15. Many users were unhappy with those design changes, so Apple will now be offering them as an option rather than the default or only layout.

Registered developers can download the new Safari 15.1 beta by logging in to Apple's developer downloads portal and then navigating to the More Downloads section. The latest version of macOS Big Sur or macOS Catalina is required to install the beta.

Tag: Safari

Top Rated Comments

PsykX Avatar
PsykX
58 months ago
I was SO GLAD they brought back the current design.
I do UX myself (part-time job let's say) and I don't know what they were thinking.
I was this close to switch to another browser. 🤌🏻
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macduke Avatar
macduke
58 months ago
HALLELUJAH!


I was SO GLAD they brought back the current design.
I do UX myself (part-time job let's say) and I don't know what they were thinking.
I was this close to switch to another browser. 🤌🏻
I do UI/UX full-time and I don’t know what they were thinking.

Now I can upgrade with no remaining concerns. Sweet!
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
T
Takeo
58 months ago
Oh thank god. Been using this thing for what… almost a month now? And I STILL find myself being confused over which “tab” is active or clicking in a “tab” to try to edit a URL. Probably happened a dozen times just today.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr. Awesome Avatar
Mr. Awesome
58 months ago

I don’t know why I’m on MacRumors responding to this, but here we go:

Steve Jobs developed NeXT.

Steve Jobs died in 2011.

Apple had to license various things for Safari, because Steve Jobs died.

https://www.chromium.org/

If you think you can fix it, go write the fix and sell it to Apple.
* I have no idea what you’re talking about. Safari was released about 8 years before Steve died.
* Apple didn’t “license various things for Safari.” It was based on an open source browser called Konqueror.
* Contributing to Chromium changes nothing about WebKit. Contribute to WebKit instead.
* Changes to WebKit affect only the engine, not the Safari UI.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
S
Sasparilla
58 months ago
Ahhhh, nice, no more buttons. Was wondering when we'd get it on the "old" OS's.

Have been liking the color thing, but would rather have tabs that look functionally correct instead.

Thank you for listening to and acting on the feedback Apple.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
I
iisdan
58 months ago
People are so afraid of change, the new tab design is way better
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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