Edible Apple

Graham Bower over at Macpredictions has some interesting opinions about some of the new UI tweaks in Safari 4.  Specifically, Bower notes:

What a travesty then, that Apple should see fit to copy so many aspects of Chrome’s UI in the new version of Safari – an app previously noted for its influential, clean looks. Gone are clever innovations like the progress bar integrated with the URL field, and the inverted tabs. Instead, we have the cluttered, confused messiness of tabs integrated with the title bar, which commits three key UI gaffs:

• Confuses two functions: dragging the entire window, vs moving the tabs
• Draggable handle looks more like a window re-sizing tools
• Inconsistent with every other window in Mac OS X!

I’m inclined to agree about the UI inconsistencies in Safari 4, especially the glaring similarity between the dragable handle and the typical window re-sizing tab.  Also, tabs located on the top aren’t for everyone, and hopefully Apple will eventually allow users to use Safari 3 style tabs if they so choose.  Overall though, Safari 4 is still a sold beta effort from Apple, with a lot more good than bad.

Going back to Safari 3 style tabs

For those who simply can’t stand the new tabs location, here’s a simple way to revert back to Safari 3 style tabs via a simple terminal command, courtesy of Macworld.

All you have to do is type in “defaults write com.apple.Safari DebugSafari4TabBarIsOnTop -bool NO" into the terminal and then restart Safari.  No fuss, no muss!