By Jason Snell

Safari update brings vertical tabs, adaptive dark mode, AI integration

Safari is getting some major feature updates in the 27.3 updates to Apple’s operating systems, which are due in December and are appearing in a developer beta today: vertical tabs, an adaptive dark mode, and additional integration points with Siri AI.

Now your tabs go the other way

In recent years, numerous browsers have experimented with re-orienting the traditional top-of-the-page tab bar into a vertical stack, and now Safari is joining the parade. (It makes sense, when you think about it, because most of our screens are much wider than they are tall, putting vertical space at a premium.¹)

Vertical tabs aren’t a default, but they are now a new option. The tabs sit on the left sidebar as a strip of icons by default, but if you prefer you can resize the tab bar to also show tab titles. On the Mac, Apple has built a hover effect reminiscent of the macOS Dock that displays the name of the tab when you move the pointer over its icon, and if you pause and hover, it’ll display a floating window with a visual page preview.

Just as with the horizontal tab bar, you can pin tabs—in this case, by dragging them up to the top of the bar. And the new vertical tab system works with both Tab Groups and Apple Intelligence-organized topic views.

This feature isn’t just Mac-specific—it’s also available on iPad and on iPhone Duo, in both portrait and landscape. It’s configurable via the View menu on the Mac and the iPad, and in the Settings app on all platforms.

Please turn off the lights

Apple added support for dark mode back in 2018, and web standards have supported the idea of an alternate dark appearance for ages. The problem is, and has always been, that if a website doesn’t explicitly support dark mode, it will blast its lightness into your eyes and make you unhappy. This is so frustrating that numerous extensions have been built to let users force websites into dark mode, my favorite of which has been Noir.

Still, it’s long past time for the Sherlocking of Noir, and here it comes. In 27.3, if Safari comes across a web page that doesn’t offer a dark mode, it has the ability to intelligently build a dark style for that site, not only darkening backgrounds but tuning text contrast, inverting some logos and graphics, recoloring vector artwork, lifting raised surfaces, and rebalancing layered shadows.

It’s an opt-in feature. When you encounter a site that could be darkened, Safari will ask you to try it out and see if you like it. You can opt to tell Safari to apply dark mode to all websites automatically, or approve the changes on a site-by-site basis.

If a site does offer a dark mode—but it’s one that may be a bit too light for comfort—well, Safari is going to respect the original designer’s wishes in that context. Basically, web designers who hate the idea of dark mode and have explicitly guarded against it will not be overridden by Safari. (See, there’s still at least one use case for third-party extensions!)

This is a great feature that’s long overdue as a part of Safari. But Apple needs to not stop here: HTML email in Apple Mail is also a disaster in dark mode. Also, this change doesn’t affect in-app WebViews today, which means your in-app browser sheet will still shout at you in the dark. Once this shakedown cruise in Safari is done, Apple needs to put these smarts everywhere.

More access for Siri AI

Apple’s also expanding the ability for Siri AI to access the contents of web pages currently loaded in Safari. This new set of custom actions lets Safari understand the complete web content of all open tabs. (Currently it can just look at what’s displayed on screen.)

So for example, you could ask about content that’s way down on a page you’re looking at. Currently Safari can’t answer if it can’t see it, but in 27.3 it’ll be able to parse the entire page and find the answer.

Siri AI can also now take direct actions on your Safari tabs and windows, including moving, sorting, and organizing them. So you could ask Siri AI to put all your cooking tabs in a tab group, or sort a bunch of Amazon product pages by price, or close all those Amazon tabs. You can also add items to the Reading List and even ask Safari to clear your history, including per site.

These new features all appear in iOS 27.3, iPadOS 27.3, and macOS 27.3. The first developer betas are now available, the public betas should be available in the next few weeks, and Apple expects 27.3 final to ship to everyone in December.

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