Going on Safari

Besides App Store and Messages, Safari is arguably iOS’s most important app. It’s your window to the Web. iOS 8 brings a number of improvements, like Suggested Sites to save you from search, the addition of the DuckDuckGo search engine, and browser extensions.

To start navigating the new features in iOS 8 Safari (and get a refresher on a few important older features), let’s start with a look at the controls at the top of the Safari window ①.

① The top of an iPad Safari window, from left to right: (A) Back/Forward (hold Back for a list of previous pages), (B) Show Bookmarks (access bookmarks, Reading List, History, and Shared Links), (C) Address/Search, (D) Suggested Sites list (a new Safari feature), (E) Clear Text, (F) Share, (G) New Tab (hold to see recently closed tabs), and (H) Pages (view open tabs).

If you can’t see the controls shown above, flick down from the middle of the screen. To push the controls back up out of the way, reverse the action by flicking up.

Note: Apple now allows developers to extend Safari with their own apps’ capabilities. This feature is so awesome that it warrants its own chapter: Managing Share Sheets in iOS 8.

Searching in Safari

The Address/Search box allows you to search in several ways:

Enter a URL: To visit a specific Web page just type its URL into the Address/Search box, like http://www.takecontrolbooks.com, and tap Go on the keyboard.
(Press and hold the Period key to see a popover with common URL suffixes such as .com, .org, and .net ②.)

② When entering a URL, you can hold down the Period key to open a popover that provides common URL suffixes.

Search the Web: Type your search terms into the Address/Search box, then tap Go. (To clear the box, tap the x icon at the right of the box.)

New! DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a new search engine option in iOS 8. It’s far less popular than Google, but offers vastly better privacy, along with other power-user features. By default, Safari uses Google to search the Web, but you can change this in Settings > Safari > Search Engine. For more, see my TidBITS article Search in Private with DuckDuckGo.

New! Suggested Sites: Suggested Sites can often save you the trouble of a search. For instance, if I type ron swanson into the Address/Search box, Safari suggests the Wikipedia page for the fictional character ③.

③ Safari in iOS 8 now suggests specific Web pages, alongside suggested search terms.

Searching within a page: Enter your search term, and tap the item in the results list under On This Page. Safari highlights the first result. Tap the arrows that appear at the bottom of the screen to cycle through results, and tap Done when you’re finished.

Finding the Toolbar

On the iPod touch and iPhone, if you don’t see the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, flick up from the middle of the screen to reveal it ④.

④ On smaller screens, Safari automatically hides the toolbar as you scroll. Flick down to reveal it.

Wrangling Tabs

iPad: Tabs work much as they do on the desktop. Tap a tab to switch to it, tap the x to close the tab, or hold and then drag a tab to move it. To manage tabs, tap the Pages icon or pinch in with three fingertips.

Tip: To open a link in a new tab, press and hold it, and tap Open in New Tab.

iPhone and iPod touch: The screen is too small to display tabs, so to view and manage tabs, you must tap the Pages icon. This presents your tabs in a 3D overhead view ⑤. Scroll through your tabs and tap one to choose it. To close a tab, slide it from right to left, off the screen.

⑤ Tap the Pages icon to open a 3D view of all open tabs. Notice the New Tab plus + button. Tap it to open a new tab.

Private Browsing in a tab: To open a private tab, tap the Pages icon, tap Private, and then tap the New Tab plus + button. Unlike in iOS 7 and earlier, you can have both private and non-private tabs open simultaneously and switch between them by tapping Private in the Pages screen. A private tab has black-and-white controls at the top.

Reader View

Reader View makes articles easier to read by cutting out many superfluous visual elements (including most ads) and filling the screen with actual article content. If Reader View is available, a multi-line button appears to the left of the URL in the Address/Search box. Tap it to enter and exit Reader View.

New! Recently Closed Tabs

In iOS 7 on the iPad, you could press and hold the New Tab + button to see a list of recently closed tabs. In iOS 8, that functionality is also available on the iPod touch and iPhone, on the Pages screen.

Bookmarks, Reading List, and Shared Links

Tap the Bookmarks icon to view Bookmarks, Reading List ⑥, and Shared Links:

⑥ Tap the eyeglasses icon to switch to Reading List view and access articles that you’ve saved to read at a later time.

Tip: Bookmarks and Reading List sync via iCloud, so you can access them from all your Apple devices.

Bookmarks: Bookmarks are shortcuts to Web sites you want to visit again. To bookmark the current page, tap the Share icon and then Add Bookmark. To visit a bookmark, tap it in this list. To manage bookmarks, tap Edit at the bottom of the list.
New! To access your “favorite” bookmarks more easily, tap the Address/Search box. And, to bookmark a page and add it as a favorite quickly, tap the Address/Search box, pull down, and tap Add to Favorites ⑦.

⑦ To add a favorite Web site, view it in Safari, tap the Address/Search box, pull down, and tap Add to Favorites.

Reading List: You can save a page for later reading by adding it to your Reading List. To do so, tap the Share icon and then tap Add to Reading List. (In many apps, including Safari, you can press and hold a link to send it to Reading List.)

Tip: To move a bookmark within the Favorites view, touch and hold its icon for a moment, and then drag it. You can also touch and hold an item and then tap Delete to remove it.

Shared Links: Shared Links scans your linked Twitter feed (set it up in Settings > Twitter) and displays only tweets that include URLs. (If you’ve set up multiple Twitter accounts, you can set which are included by tapping Subscriptions.)
New! The Shared Links list can include RSS feeds, enabling you to quickly monitor certain Web sites. To subscribe to a site’s RSS feed, visit the site’s home page, tap the Share icon, tap Add to Shared Links, and then tap Add to Shared Links again. (If you don’t see Add to Shared Links, Safari can’t find the RSS feed; however, if you can find the icon or link, you can tap it manually.)

Editing Your Shared Links

Tap the Bookmarks icon, and then tap Shared Links.
Tap Subscriptions in the lower right.
To remove a feed, tap the red delete button to the left of its entry ⑧.
Tap Done.

⑧ You can edit Shared Links to disable Twitter accounts or unsubscribe from RSS feeds.

You can also hide tweets from individual accounts in this view.

More New Features

Request desktop site: When you’re viewing a mobile site (but don’t want to), tap the Address/Search box, pull down, and tap Request Desktop Site.
Scan credit cards: While buying something from a Web site, tap the credit card number field, tap Scan Credit Card ⑨ and follow the prompts. Once you’ve added a card, look above the keyboard for AutoFill Credit Card.

⑨ When available, Scan Credit Card is located just above the onscreen keyboard.

Use stored passwords in apps: You’ve been able to use iCloud Keychain to store and retrieve Web site passwords since iOS 7, but in iOS 8, third-party developers can access this data, making it easier to log in within apps.
WebGL: Safari can render 3D WebGL content. You can see this in action in this demo from Quake 3.

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