Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 3 With Extensive Tweaks and Bug Fixes

Wednesday April 27, 2016 11:33 AM PDT by Juli Clover
safaripreviewiconApple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser that launched on March 30. Release 3 includes a long list of feature tweaks and updates to JavaScript, CSS, Web APIs, Web Inspector, Accessibility, Rendering, Media, and Networking, plus bug fixes.

Release notes are available on Apple's Safari Technology Preview website.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Mac App Store to anyone who has downloaded the browser.

Apple's goal with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development ahead of launch. Safari Technology Preview can be run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while aimed at developers, it does not require a developer account to download.

Tag: Safari Technology Preview
33 comments

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JCrz
50 months ago
All I want for Christmas is a desktop browser that doesn't autoplay videos.
Rating: 6 Votes
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deathnite
50 months ago
Here's an HTML5 comparison of Safari Preview 9.1.1 vs 9.1 vs 9.0. http://beta.html5test.com/compare/browser/6622362e7251ac62/54b79a2e71e1c3a1/safari-9.0.html



Rating: 4 Votes
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c1phr
50 months ago

Since Apple ignores basic usability with not showing icons in the tab bar, this safari browser can rott on in meaninglessness. What a pity.

As far as you're concerned, let it rot. For those of us who don't notice the icons, I see no great reason to put them there. Every time this "problem" is pointed out to me, I proceed to forget about it because it seems like a pretty small thing to get upset about.
Rating: 4 Votes
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Slix
50 months ago
Just downloaded this for the first time. I haven't had any real issues with Safari recently, but any improvements to stability and HTML/CSS/Javascript updates are always welcome of course.

I like that Apple is doing more to get their beta software in the hands of more people to get it perfected ahead of time.
Rating: 2 Votes
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SteveW928
50 months ago

When there are many tabs open, dont you think it would be much faster to recognize the content of the tab, when you see the icon of the tld? Like an apple in case of macrumors?


Bingo! This removal of graphical elements (especially shapes / icons... or using nondescript ones), removing color, or even possibly things like hiding aspects of the URL are bad UX/UI moves.
Rating: 1 Votes
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SteveW928
49 months ago

Well in Firefox Nightly (v49) and the current Safari Technology Preview (5) CSS Grid is now enabled by default/unprefixed so you don't need to mess with any of that!

But for future reference you will likely encounter other things behind flags (prefixes are being killed thankfully but many things are still prefixed) so...

For features behind flags search in the URL/ominbox: For Chrome & Opera go to/search 'chrome://flags', for Firefox go to 'about:config', not sure about Webkit/Safari but they may not have any flagged features yet anyway. Then there will be a settings page with a bunch of features in development that you can turn on if you want to try them out, these can affect the stability of the browser so be warned.

For prefixes, just prefix the property or value with the vendor prefix (-ms-, -o-, -webkit-, -moz-) and use it as you normally would (there are occasionally syntax differences which you may need to look up). For example (and kinda redundant now):

body {
display: -webkit-grid;
-webkit-grid-columns: auto;
-webkit-grid-rows: auto;
}

There's a wealth of info for support for CSS and JS on caniuse.com, which i recommend checking out. ;)


Thanks Josh... most of that is what I've found. But, supposedly, there is a way to enable it in Safari (but, I'll try again with the most recent, if it's on by default!). Lots of stuff references turning it on in Safari, but I couldn't find any way to do so.
Rating: 1 Votes
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Jme Saunders
50 months ago

Here's an HTML5 comparison of Safari 9.1.1 vs 9.1 vs 9.0. http://beta.html5test.com/compare/browser/6622362e7251ac62/54b79a2e71e1c3a1/safari-9.0.html


That is certainly an improvement, thank you for that! Apple can make Safari again if it tries hard enough.

I agree, they haven't been very polished. However, maybe if they either started earlier by doing this type of beta release, or if they simply pushed release dates back in order to GET it where it needs to be before release (like how (Snow) Leopard was done), we might be seeing the polish we want to see from Apple.

One can hope. :p


I agree, Apple haven't been doing these that long. I'm still quite shocked they have a public iOS beta. I came from OS X Tiger and used every single version of OS X since. It's the little things that I don't like. The Photos apps I can't use multitouch to rotate a photo for example. In Finder I can't pinch to zoom anymore. There's still remnants left over from the previous UI as well. I am quite excited for WWDC though.
Rating: 1 Votes
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jonblatho
50 months ago

Could anyone let me know if there is webRTC support? Apple really led the way with HTML5.

No.

Are add ons like Ghostery and Adblock supported?

Yes.
Rating: 1 Votes
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Michael Goff
50 months ago

All I want for Christmas is a desktop browser that doesn't autoplay videos.


https://hoyois.github.io/safariextensions/clicktoplugin/

I think that does what you want.
Rating: 1 Votes
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atikalz
50 months ago

Bingo! This removal of graphical elements (especially shapes / icons... or using nondescript ones), removing color, or even possibly things like hiding aspects of the URL are bad UX/UI moves.

It makes no sense in terms of UX and usability. And that's what a browser should aim for. It's not a peace of design furniture.
Rating: 1 Votes
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