Safari for iOS: A Newfound Appreciation
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Safari for iOS: A Newfound Appreciation
With all the recent discussion about modern and alternative web browsers (including this episode of AppStories, which I recommend listening to in case you missed it), I’ve been studying a lot of third-party browsers for iOS so I can be better prepared in case Apple will have to allow non-WebKit browser engines in iOS 17 later this year. In doing so, I actually ended up developing a newfound appreciation for Safari on the iPhone, which gets a lot of things right compared to other apps – particularly thanks to its new bottom-oriented tab bar design – and also comes with some exclusive advantages that are too important to ignore.
A lot of thought has gone into Safari over the years, and it shows when you start comparing it to the likes of Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Brave, iCab, and others. Some of Safari’s advantages may disappear over time depending on technical changes for browser makers in iOS 17, but in the meantime, I wanted to go over some of the perhaps under-appreciated features of Safari for iOS that I can’t live without.