Safari Finally Gets Vertical Tabs in iOS 27.3 Beta

Vertical tabs finally land in Safari

Safari users have asked for vertical tabs for years, and the 27.3 developer beta delivers them across all three platforms.

The feature works the way you'd expect if you've used Edge or Chrome: open the Safari View Menu or go into Settings and switch to vertical tabs. On iPad and Mac the tab strip sits on the left side of the window. On iPhone, including the new iPhone Duo, it appears in both portrait and landscape.

By default the tabs show as icons to save space. Hovering over one previews the page behind it. You can drag and drop tabs to pin them at the top of the list, and tab groups carry over.

Apple didn't invent this. Microsoft Edge has had vertical tabs for years, and Chrome added them more recently. But for the roughly 2.5 billion people inside Apple's ecosystem, Safari is the default browser, and a missing feature there is more noticeable than a missing feature anywhere else.

Safari 27.3 beta: what's new and who gets it

Adaptive Dark Mode goes beyond native support

The new mode doesn't just respect sites that already offer dark themes. It forces the issue on the ones that don't.

Safari's current Dark Mode only kicks in on pages that explicitly support it. Adaptive Dark Mode changes that: it automatically darkens light backgrounds, inverts logos and graphics, recolors vector artwork, lifts raised surfaces, and detects shadows to adjust them.

Apple says the goal is to avoid ruining sites in the process. Pages that are already dark are left alone. Developers also get new tags they can use to opt out of the automatic adjustments, which should prevent the worst-case scenarios where logos turn into unrecognizable blobs.

It's a pragmatic approach. Chrome and Firefox have experimented with forced dark modes for years, with mixed results. Apple's version will be judged on how many sites it breaks, not how many it fixes.

What else is in the 27.3 beta

The release notes also point to Siri AI browser tools and the first look at Audio Intelligence.

TechRadar's report mentions Siri AI tools inside Safari and the debut of Audio Intelligence capabilities, though details are thin in this first developer beta. Apple typically staggers feature rollouts across beta cycles, so more may surface before the public release.

As always with developer betas, this is not software to install on a daily driver. Bugs are expected, and features can be pulled before launch.

Availability and pricing

The features are part of the iOS 27.3, iPadOS 27.3 and macOS 27.3 developer betas, which are available now to registered Apple developers. Public betas usually follow within weeks, and the final release typically arrives later in the cycle. Apple has not announced a date.

There's no extra cost: Safari ships with the OS, so anyone with a compatible iPhone, iPad or Mac will get the update for free when it's ready.

Safari's vertical tabs are years late, but for anyone who lives inside Apple's ecosystem, late is better than never. The Adaptive Dark Mode is the more interesting bet: if Apple can force dark mode without wrecking sites, it'll be a quiet win users feel every night.