Safari Changes on iOS 26 Go Beyond the Address Bar - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Safari Changes on iOS 26 Go Beyond the Address Bar

by

One of the key changes to Safari on iOS 26 is a redesigned Liquid Glass address bar, with three layouts available to choose from. Beyond that, the upcoming software update includes a few smaller changes for the web browser.

safari liquid glass

Web Apps For All Websites

Starting with iOS 26, every website added to the Home Screen via Safari opens as a web app, even if it is not configured to be. On earlier iOS versions, websites that were not configured to open as a web app would open in Safari, meaning that the Home Screen app icons for those websites were effectively just bookmarks.

iOS 26 Safari Web Apps
Users can turn off "Open as Web App" while adding a website to the Home Screen if they prefer the app icons to still function as simple bookmarks.

This change also applies to iPadOS 26.

HDR Images

Safari now supports HDR images, five years after the browser gained support for HDR video.

HDR images have wider dynamic range and increased color gamut, making bright areas of the image appear brighter and dark areas appear darker.

This change applies across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, and visionOS 26.

SVG Icons

Safari now supports the SVG file format for icons anywhere that they are shown in the browser, including in the bookmark bar and on the start page.

SVG icons have smaller file sizes than PNG icons, and they offer infinite vector scaling, meaning they can be resized without any loss in image quality.

More

Even more changes coming to Safari across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, and visionOS 26 were outlined in a WebKit blog post last week.

iOS 26 and the other software updates are currently in beta.

Related Roundups: iOS 26, iPadOS 26
Tag: Safari
Related Forum: iOS 26

Popular Stories

iOS 26

16 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 26.4

Wednesday March 25, 2026 4:40 am PDT by
Apple has released iOS 26.4, the fourth major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was released in September, and there are at least 14 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below. The update doesn't have the enhanced Siri feature set we were hoping for – that's likely to arrive in iOS 27 – but there are quite a few other new additions included. They ...
Read Full Article
ios 26 4 yellow

Apple Releases iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4 With New Emoji, Playlist Playground, Purchase Sharing Changes and More

Tuesday March 24, 2026 10:03 am PDT by
Apple today released iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4, the latest updates to the iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 operating systems. The new software comes six weeks after Apple released iOS 26.3 and iPadOS 26.3. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. iOS 26.4...
Read Full Article • 183 comments
iOS 26

iOS 26.4 Adds Two New Features to CarPlay

Tuesday March 24, 2026 1:55 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 was released today, and it includes a couple of new features for CarPlay: an Ambient Music widget and support for voice-based chatbot apps. To update your iPhone 11 or newer to iOS 26.4, open the Settings app and tap on General → Software Update. CarPlay will automatically offer the new features so long as the iPhone connected to your vehicle is running iOS 26.4 or later....
Read Full Article • 32 comments

Top Rated Comments

sniffies Avatar
sniffies
11 months ago
Quick tip on how to open tab overview with a single gesture: swipe up on the address bar
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
B
bencordes
11 months ago
Why in the world was the "new tab" + icon moved to the top left corner?! What a stupid change. Everything about this Safari redesign makes the app more cumbersome and slow to use.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
X
Xenden
11 months ago
Apple needs to change the new Gabe button to be on the bottom right when your in the all tab view. It is annoying having to reach to the upper left to open a new tab.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
klasma
11 months ago

The mention of SVG immediately made me think of this frustrated Apple user from yesterday.
Not a lot of "customer SAT" going on here
🥴 😬


SVGs are being used for phishing. They can contain javascript that is executed upon displaying the SVG, can submit data to an external host, or can contain malware payload as an embedded zip file or similar (https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1027/017/).

Here is a screenshot of an SVG that displays a fake Excel spreadsheet with a built-in login form that sends the data to attacker:



Attachment Image
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sniffies Avatar
sniffies
11 months ago

Apple needs to change the new Gabe button to be on the bottom right when your in the all tab view. It is annoying having to reach to the upper left to open a new tab.
You can simply swipe left on the address bar to open a new tab.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mikebenton Avatar
mikebenton
11 months ago
Before anything else, I would appreciate a focus on the fundamentals. Many sites don't work properly using Safari, but work fine on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. To me, that seems like a Safari problem. Also, it would be nice if there was a solution to the page-loading issues. Many sites that have inline adverts bounce all over the place. When you navigate to their site you get 95% of the content right away. Then all this other content starts loading (usually adverts) and content starts shifting around. Often I end up click on the wrong thing because of this shifting. I'm not claiming to have a solution, but it would be nice if this problem was solved.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments