Let me tell you something about the people who design software at Apple. They are, without question, some of the most talented, best-paid, and catastrophically wrong human beings on the planet. They sit in their glass building in Cupertino, California and they think to themselves: “You know what users want? The opposite of what they’ve always had.”
This is how we ended up with the Safari address bar at the bottom of the screen.
For decades — decades — human beings have understood that the address bar lives at the top of the browser. It sits up there, proud and purposeful, like a well-organised bookshelf or a functioning democracy. You look at it. You type in it. You know where it is. This is not complicated. This is not controversial. This is just correct.
And then some bloke – who probably drives a vintage VW Beetle – said, “Actually, what if we moved it to the bottom?” And rather than being escorted from the building by security, as would have happened anywhere sensible, his colleagues apparently nodded and said, “Genius. Ship it.”
The reasoning, apparently, is that the bottom of the screen is easier to reach with your thumb. And yes, fine, technically, if you hold your phone in one hand like some sort of ambidextrous circus performer, the bottom is more accessible. But here’s the thing: I don’t navigate the internet with my thumb like a confused toddler prodding a touchscreen for the first time. I use both hands, like a grown adult who has been using technology since it came in beige boxes the size of a chest freezer.
More importantly, the bottom bar is compact. Insultingly compact. It sits there like a shy footnote, practically whispering the website address at you in a font you’d need a jeweller’s loupe to read comfortably. And when you scroll — oh, it gets worse — it disappears entirely, presumably because Apple believes that once you’ve started reading something, you’ll never want to go anywhere else ever again.
The good news — and I don’t say this often about software — is that Apple has, presumably after receiving several thousand furious emails from people like me, included a way to restore sanity. It requires about forty-five seconds of effort and no prior technical knowledge whatsoever.
Open the Settings app. This is the grey one with the gears on it.
Scroll down and tap Apps. Then scroll down to find Safari and tap that.
Scroll down until you find a section called Tabs. You’ll see three options Compact, Botton and Top
- Compact is the default. It is the bottom bar, but even worse it has been made smaller.
- Bottom This was what they did years ago…seemingly out of utter madness and something everyone has assumed was the way it had to be. (but more on that below)
- Tap Top . You’re done. Welcome back to 2010, when the internet worked properly.
But What If You Insist On The Bottom Bar?
Some of you may actually prefer the bottom bar. Perhaps you have unusually long thumbs. Perhaps you find the chaos comforting. No judgement.
In that case, you can at least make it less aggressively compact. The bar has a tendency to collapse into near-invisibility when you’re scrolling, which means every time you want to type a new address you have to perform a small ritual tap to summon it back from wherever it’s been hiding.
This is where you’d tap on Bottom but at least it would be full size.
