Not this kind of safari. Photo: Cult of Mac/Charlie Sorrel
Safari’s new “desktop-class” features are getting all the press in iPadOS, but the new download folder, and better website support aren’t everything. There’s also a new in-app settings panels with a ton of options — per-site text size, for example — and even a new font in the Safari Reader View. Let’s check it out.
iOS 13 lets you plug almost any USB device into your iPhone or iPad. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
iOS 13, which launches today, focuses more on adding a range of incredibly useful features and tweaks rather than pursuing a bold, overarching new direction. For instance, Safari on iPad now functions as a full desktop browser, just like on your Mac. Another great addition is the redesigned share sheet, which includes a top row of one-tap buttons for easily sharing with friends via iMessage. If you’re curious about when someone shares their location how do you see it, iOS also introduces enhancements to location-sharing features, which you can learn more abouthere.
Or, in iPadOS 13, which ships at the end of the month, you can plug in pretty much any USB device and it will work. Hard drives, SD cards full of movies, anything.
So, while you’re waiting for the new version of iOS to install on your device(s), check out all the new iOS 13 features right here.
Test shows how much battery Dark Mode will save you on certain iPhones Photo: Apple
Developers received a fresh batch of new beta builds this morning in the form of iOS 13 beta 5. Apple seeded the new software updates just under two weeks after the last set of betas came out, bringing fresh changes to mouse support on iPad, smaller quick action menus and tons of bug fixes.
iOS 13's new Reminders app. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
We already know that Apple has completely made over the Reminders app in iOS 13, adding a new, more powerful layout, and some excellent quick-entry tools so you don’t have to tap the screen like a million times just to remember to take out the trash when you get home.
But Reminders has also gotten its virtual claws deeper into the rest of iOS. Today we’ll see two great integrations that you might not have heard about yet.
Safari is full of new tricks in iPadOS. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
If you currently use a third-party bookmark manager, you might be able to ditch it when you upgrade your iPhone or iPad to iOS 13. The main new feature is that you can now save all your open tabs into a bookmark folder, then reopen all the links in that folder with one tap. But that’s not all. Thanks to iPadOS’ new contextual menus, the built-in bookmarks got way easier to use.
Yes, another desert-as-safari metaphor. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
In iPadOS, Safari sports a brand-new popup menu that lets you rearrange, copy and close tabs just by long-pressing on them. It offers only a few options, but they prove so useful that you will use this trick all the time.
Check out yet another great Safari feature in iPadOS.
Users can't wait to get their hands on iOS 13. Photo: Apple
Apple seeded the third beta build of iOS 13 and iPadOS to developers this morning, bringing a host of new tweaks and bug fixes to test devices just before the 4th of July break.
iOS 13 beta 3 arrives just over two weeks after Apple dropped the last developer beta. The first iOS 13 public beta came out a week ago. Apple also released the third betas of tvOS 13, watchOS 6 and macOS Catalina today.
A rather strained Safari metaphor. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Did you ever type in a URL, only to find later that you already had that site open in another Safari tab? Well, never again, because in iOS 13, Safari will prompt you to open that original tab instead.
A keyboard, upon which one might perform shortcuts. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Safari in iPadOS is “desktop-class,” according to Apple. And part of that definition means Safari offers plenty of keyboard shortcuts, just like when you use Apple’s web browser on a Mac.
Just a quick look at the screenshots below will show you how many more Safari shortcuts are available in iPadOS than in iOS 12: Holding down the ⌘ key now reveals two panels in the pop-up help screen, instead of just one.
Let’s take a look at the new Safari keyboard shortcuts in iPadOS.
iOS 13 has almost too many features to cover -- but that won't stop us trying. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
The second iOS 13 and iPadOS betas bring both good news and bad. Unless you’re a total “thrill-seeker,” it’s still not a good idea to install these betas on your main iOS device. In fact, there will be far more spills than thrills: The code remains raw and buggy as hell.
I have iPadOS running on an old iPad. While this latest version seems much less ragged around the edges, many apps still crash. And I still can’t make the Slide Over apps hide themselves at the side of the screen. Nor do all my favorites appear in the Files app.
The good news is that, despite this, the latest betas offer several new features — and lots of stuff has been fixed. Let’s take a look at the highlights of what’s new in iOS 13 beta 2.
Safari is getting a huge upgrade on iPad with the release of iPadOS, but there are some improvements that iPhone users can also enjoy in iOS 13. One of those is a new feature that saves you from forgotten tab chaos.
You won’t have to worry about closing dozens of tabs you forgot all about anymore.
iOS 13 is bringing some huge improvements to Safari, including a desktop-class version for iPadOS that is nearly as good as Safari on Mac.
One of my favorite new Safari features didn’t get any stage time during the WWDC 2019 keynote, but it completely changes the way screenshots in Safari are handled. You’re going to love it.
At WWDC, Apple Safari and Desktop Engineer Charles Ying promised iPadOS will include a full-featured browser. Photo: Apple
Apple promised the Safari browser coming to iPads later this year will be “desktop class.” That’s a vague term, but tests with the first beta of iPadOS 13 show that it comes very close to the macOS version. There’s still room for improvement, though.
Even so, this is a major milestone for Apple’s tablets. Limitations in Safari have held the iPad back for far too long.
Using a clip-on iPad keyboard to control Safari is getting easier. Photo: Brydge
Apple is making it even easier for iPad users to access Safari features with a physical keyboard. The newly-announced iPadOS adds dozens of keyboard shortcuts to this browser, on top of the ones already there.
Safari is about to get a big privacy boost. Photo: Apple
Apple revealed this morning that it has new plan to stop online ads from tracking internet users across the web.
With some new technology that will soon be implemented in Safari, Apple thinks it has found a way to give both advertisers and privacy advocates what they one. It’s called Privacy Preserving Ad Click Attribution and even though the name is lame, it could be a game changer.
This is the web without content blockers. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Way back in iOS 9 days, Apple added “content blocking” to the iPhone and iPad. More commonly known as “ad-blockers,” this tech lets you use third-party apps to block ads, malware, trackers, comments, and more, in Mobile Safari. Apple itself doesn’t do any more than make blocking possible. To actual decide what to block, you need a third-party app.
Enabling ad-blocking is easy, once you know how, and you can set-and-forget it once done. Or you can keep on top of things, adding custom rules, and white-listing trusted websites. Here’s how.
iOS 13 could offer tons of huge improvements to Apple's mobile operating system. Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac
The last few weeks have been packed with rumors and leaks about what Apple may have in store for us with iOS 13 and macOS 10.15. With so much information coming out day after day, it’s hard to keep track of all the possible rumors.
Fortunately for you, we’ve compiled the full list of expected features coming this year to iOS and macOS. From dark mode to iPad updates, and new Mac apps to Siri improvements, here’s everything we are expecting (so far) in iOS 13 and macOS 10.15.
Here’s one piece of history we don’t want to erase. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Have you got some embarrassing entries in your Safari browsing history? Or maybe it’s a question of security: You don’t want your iPad’s history to fall into the wrong hands, etc.
Smutty jokes aside, there are plenty of legit reasons to clear your Safari history on your iPhone or iPad. And the good news is that Safari for iOS has some great tools for doing so. For example, did you know that you can clear just the last hour of browsing history, or the past couple of days?
Get ready to learn how to sanitize your Safari history on iOS devices.
Apple's market share climbed 4% last quarter. Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
iOS 13 will bring big improvements and a whole bunch of new features to iPhone and iPad users this fall.
Many of the changes have been spilled in a new report that cites people familiar with the update. You can look forward to a real dark mode, better multitasking, a font manager, and more.
Are you seeing this message in macOS 10.14.4? Photo: Wesley de Souza
Some macOS users are unable to sign into Gmail inside the Mail app after installing Apple’s most recent update.
The version 10.14.4 release, rolled out on Monday, puts many in an endless sign-in loop when trying to sync their Google accounts. The problem affects new accounts, as well as existing accounts that were already set up in Mail before the update arrived.
Yoinks is a digital shelf app that can also manage downloads. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
Earlier this week I wrote abut using Shortcuts to build a simple download manager for iOS. It works great, but there’s a better solution. It’s an app called Yoink, and it can be a download manager, and way more.
Who doesn’t enjoy a well-managed download? Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
One of the biggest shortcomings of mobile Safari is downloading files. It’ll do it just fine, but it loads everything as if it were a web page. PDFs, ZIPs, MP3s: They all get loaded right there into the current page, whereupon you have to use the Open In… feature to save the file.
Perhaps even worse — you don’t have any idea how long the download is going to take. All you have to go on is the loading progress bar up in the URL bar, which creeps along and really only offers two states: “not done yet” and “done.”
Today we will fix that by whipping up a download manager using the Shortcuts app. Let’s go.
I’m getting desperate for Safari-related images for these how-to posts. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
This tip is exhibit A in the case for Apple being really, really good at hiding features. I imagine if you went around to Apple’s house for dinner, and the company asked you to set the table, you’d have some real trouble finding the cutlery. Maybe you’d open the cutlery drawer and see only the spoons. Then you’d open the drawer below, expecting that Apple had just set things out differently, as usual.
But in that second drawer you’d find nothing but fruit. WTF Apple? And then you’d notice that the top drawer is a little thicker than it appears when open. You try the top drawer again. This time you see that if you press down on one of the wooden spoons, the others move aside — animated a little too slowly — to reveal the knives and spoons. But where the hell are the forks?
Back to today’s tip. It’s a combination of two tricks you may already know: