How to make Safari tabs great again on iPadOS 15

Apple’s Safari tabs just didn’t hit the mark

Apple’s Safari team appears to be listening to feedback, slowly pivoting away from the heavily criticised tabs arrangement it provided in iPadOS 15. What’s new is important and given it might be what you see in the final version of the OS you need to know what it does and how it works.

How to make Safari tabs great again

Apple took several steps too far with its compact tab experience in Safari on all its devices. The arrangement was visually confusing, made it difficult to research effectively, hid some of the most common functions behind an array of steps, and attracted other criticisms.

It wasn’t – and isn’t – very good.

Apple seems to be developing an understanding of this and in the latest Public Beta 4 of iPadOS 15 has introduced a way to return Safari to a more normal mode in which tabs live in their own separate row and you can still see (and use the tools inside) the browser bar. It makes a huge difference and should be the default.

How the new tabs work

How does it work? Apple has created a new Setting in the latest iPadOS 15 beta. It comes in the form of a toggle that lets you move between the compact version (no) or the more familiar and more usable version in which tabs live on a separate row, and you can enable a third row for Favorites also. You can also disable colors in the tab bar, which many have found annoying, using the Show Color in Tab Bar toggle button.

[Also read: iOS 14 and later: How to replace Safari and Mail as default apps]

Here’s where to find these three settings:

First: Open Settings>Safari

• To make tabs rational and easy to use again tick Separate Tab Bar.
• To see the Favourites bar toggle Show Favourites Bar in General.
• To stop showing colors in the tab bar toggle the Show Color in Tab Bar button in the Accessibility section.

9to5Mac tells us the beta also returns the Reload button, easy access to Reader mode and a Share button. I say it’s a relief Apple listened on this one.

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