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Safari Changes on iOS 26 Go Beyond the Address Bar

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One of the key changes to Safari on iOS 26 is a redesigned Liquid Glass address bar, with three layouts available to choose from. Beyond that, the upcoming software update includes a few smaller changes for the web browser.

safari liquid glass

Web Apps For All Websites

Starting with iOS 26, every website added to the Home Screen via Safari opens as a web app, even if it is not configured to be. On earlier iOS versions, websites that were not configured to open as a web app would open in Safari, meaning that the Home Screen app icons for those websites were effectively just bookmarks.

iOS 26 Safari Web Apps
Users can turn off "Open as Web App" while adding a website to the Home Screen if they prefer the app icons to still function as simple bookmarks.

This change also applies to iPadOS 26.

HDR Images

Safari now supports HDR images, five years after the browser gained support for HDR video.

HDR images have wider dynamic range and increased color gamut, making bright areas of the image appear brighter and dark areas appear darker.

This change applies across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, and visionOS 26.

SVG Icons

Safari now supports the SVG file format for icons anywhere that they are shown in the browser, including in the bookmark bar and on the start page.

SVG icons have smaller file sizes than PNG icons, and they offer infinite vector scaling, meaning they can be resized without any loss in image quality.

More

Even more changes coming to Safari across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, and visionOS 26 were outlined in a WebKit blog post last week.

iOS 26 and the other software updates are currently in beta.

Related Roundups: iOS 26, iPadOS 26
Tag: Safari
Related Forum: iOS 26

Top Rated Comments

sniffies Avatar
sniffies
10 months ago
Quick tip on how to open tab overview with a single gesture: swipe up on the address bar
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
B
bencordes
10 months ago
Why in the world was the "new tab" + icon moved to the top left corner?! What a stupid change. Everything about this Safari redesign makes the app more cumbersome and slow to use.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
X
Xenden
10 months ago
Apple needs to change the new Gabe button to be on the bottom right when your in the all tab view. It is annoying having to reach to the upper left to open a new tab.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
klasma
10 months ago

The mention of SVG immediately made me think of this frustrated Apple user from yesterday.
Not a lot of "customer SAT" going on here
🥴 😬


SVGs are being used for phishing. They can contain javascript that is executed upon displaying the SVG, can submit data to an external host, or can contain malware payload as an embedded zip file or similar (https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1027/017/).

Here is a screenshot of an SVG that displays a fake Excel spreadsheet with a built-in login form that sends the data to attacker:



Attachment Image
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sniffies Avatar
sniffies
10 months ago

Apple needs to change the new Gabe button to be on the bottom right when your in the all tab view. It is annoying having to reach to the upper left to open a new tab.
You can simply swipe left on the address bar to open a new tab.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mikebenton Avatar
mikebenton
10 months ago
Before anything else, I would appreciate a focus on the fundamentals. Many sites don't work properly using Safari, but work fine on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. To me, that seems like a Safari problem. Also, it would be nice if there was a solution to the page-loading issues. Many sites that have inline adverts bounce all over the place. When you navigate to their site you get 95% of the content right away. Then all this other content starts loading (usually adverts) and content starts shifting around. Often I end up click on the wrong thing because of this shifting. I'm not claiming to have a solution, but it would be nice if this problem was solved.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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