Apple's iOS 27.3 is offering a major upgrade to your web browsing

Apple's Safari browser has been quietly getting better for a long time now, but in this year's OS updates it's really stepped up.

Now with the first Betas of iOS 27.3, iPadOS 27.3 and macOS 27.3, it's getting better still. Apple has introduced three major new features to the way you browse that could finally convince Chrome users to make the jump.

A new Vertical Tabs arrangement helps better manage your space. An adaptive dark mode allows you to switch into dark mode even if it's not natively available on the website you're viewing, and Siri AI custom Actions can help you manage your browsing experience.

Vertical tabs

Safari has offered a way to view your tabs in a sidebar for sometime on the Mac, but the new vertical tabs arrangement removes them from the top bar and lets you reduce them to just the icons if needed. You can then hover over each icon to get the details of the tab.

It makes for a very clean-looking narrow strip that works as well on iPad and iPhone Duo as it does on Mac. Plus, you can quickly organise your tabs by topic to make them easy to find.

Adaptive Dark Mode

Dark Mode is a handy function when viewing apps or websites at night, as you don't get that bright glare of the white space. In fact, some like to use dark mode all day long.

The problem has been that apps and webpages need to have a dark mode coded into them to work, and not all do. Now though, Safari can apply a dark mode to any web page, whether it's natively supported or not.

When you have dark mode active, Safari will offer the option to render a version of the page in dark mode, and then automatically convert it. The technology will invert logos and take into account images and layout to provide the best experience, but if you don't like it, you can easily switch back to the regular view. Then you can pick which sites you want to convert on a site-by-site basis.

Siri AI custom actions

Siri AI integration has increased with this update too. The new features allow Siri AI to manage your web history, close tab or organise them into groups for you.

The context-aware functionality will be extended too, using the full extent of the web page you're on, not just the part you've scrolled down to. This isn't currently available in the Beta but is coming soon.

Finally a Chrome killer?

If you've had your fill of crowded tabs and slow loading times, these updates to Safari could tempt more users to use it.

I suspect most users already use Safari on their iPad and iPhone, so it's likely to be on Mac where the gains will come.

Even if you already use Safari, though, these new features will only improve your browsing experience – especially the adaptive dark mode and vertical tabs.