Apple brings 3 big new features to Safari on iPhone, iPad, & Mac in initial 27.3 beta

Apple has released the first developer betas of 27.3 and Safari is getting three new features: vertical tabs, adaptive dark mode, and more Siri AI.

The 27.3 update is looking like a huge one for Apple, with new features across all of Apple's platforms. The new Health app has made its return, Apple Watch is getting new Siri AI features, and Apple Intelligence is coming to China.

Then we have Safari on iPhone, iPad, and Mac that is seeing a trio of substantial new features.

Vertical tabs

The first addition to Safari is vertical tabs, which even works on iPhone Duo. It looks incredible and is a long-requested feature from users.

It's quicker to scan full tab titles and it's more space-efficient for displaying content. To enable, users can turn on Vertical Tabs from the View menu on the Mac and iPad or within the dedicated Safari settings on iPhone.

Adaptive Dark Mode

Apple has supported Dark Mode for years, and there is even an automatic version that switches your device in the evening. Some people prefer the aesthetic but Dark Mode is also easier on the eyes in dim environments.

If you've ever been browsing Safari late at night only to have a bright white background sear your eyes, you know why Dark Mode exists. Many websites have custom styling that follows your device's appearance settings and goes between a light and dark styling.

Some sites though, have not done the legwork and do not support a dark appearance. Starting with the 27.3 updates, iPhone, iPad, and Mac will have Adaptive Dark Mode that intelligently changes these sites to be darker.

The feature uses Apple Intelligence to analyze each site you visit individually. When you first visit a site that could benefit from Adaptive Dark Mode, an alert will appear at the top of the page prompting you to enable it.

Adaptive Dark Mode will darken light backgrounds, tune the text contrast, invert logos and graphics as needed, recolor vector artwork, and rebalances layered shadows on complex layouts.

Developers still have full control of the and there is a tag that they can add that will force the site to appear as-is if they do not want Adaptive Dark Mode to apply to their site. This is also a beta, so it will likely change and improve throughout the beta cycle.

Siri AI expands

Finally, Apple is adding additional support for Siri AI within Safari. It has additional context and expanded controls across tabs and content.

When viewing a page, Siri AI understands the entirety of the page. For example, if you're looking at a long product item description, you could ask Siri AI how heavy the item is and it would search the page for its weight.

Siri AI can now take action across tabs too, such as "put all these tabs into one group" or "close all my Reddit tabs." You could ask Siri AI to "clear my history of this site within the last 20 days."

Coming soon

The new features currently in beta will likely ship with iOS 27.3, macOS 27.3, and iPadOS 27.3, though there is always a chance they will be delayed. The suite of 27.3 updates will arrive to users in December.

Some features will also come to Safari 27.3 for macOS Tahoe, though Adaptive Dark Mode and Siri AI will require an Apple Intelligence device.

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