Here’s a confession: I never close my browser tabs. I just let them pile up until my browser looks like a Tetris game I’ve already lost. Well, it looks like Apple is finally ready to help me clean up.
Apple’s first iOS 27.3 developer betas are here, and they add three new Safari features: Vertical Tabs, Adaptive Dark Mode, and Siri commands. It’s the one I’m most excited about.
What do Vertical Tabs and Adaptive Dark Mode actually change?
Vertical Tabs is the overdue one. It’s an optional left-hand sidebar that replaces the top tab row, showing only icons until you widen it to read full titles. In my opinion, this beats chopped-off labels any day.
It works with Tab Groups (saved sets of tabs) and Topics (Apple Intelligence’s automatic tab categories). You can turn the feature on in Safari’s settings or the View menu on Mac and iPad. I have a feeling that Vertical Tabs should also feel right at home on the iPhone Duo’s bigger screen.
Adaptive Dark Mode is what my tired eyes care about. Even with Dark Mode enabled, some websites don’t support it. When you land on one of those sites, Safari will show a prompt that uses Apple Intelligence to give the page a darker background.
You can keep it on everywhere or pick on a site-by-site basis.
What can Siri do in Safari, and who gets it?
I saved the best one for last. Apple’s conversational AI assistant, Siri, can now tidy Safari tabs and windows when you ask. Basically, you can use the new Siri ability to sort, close, or arrange them in Tab Groups. You can even wipe a site’s history for a set period, all with a natural language command.
In my experience, wrangling dozens of tabs by hand is exactly the chore a voice command should kill, so I’m cautiously optimistic.
The Siri features, however, need an Apple Intelligence-capable device. Whether Adaptive Dark Mode does too is murkier. And as this is a developer beta, I’d wait for the full release (likely in December) instead of gambling my daily browser.
