iOS 6 Overview: Safari

Although it isn’t necessarily cool or customizable enough to be a hit with the hipsters, Safari is a reliable and professional web browser. Admittedly, I’m a Chrome man for pleasure/personal use, but switch to Safari for work. The combination works well for me. I’m getting off course, here’s the lowdown on the updated Safari browser for iPad/iPhone.

Reading Lists

Sometimes you don’t have an internet connection. It may not happen often, but it happens. So, Apple built in an offline viewing mode in to Safari for iOS. Once you add something to the Reading List, it downloads it and stores it on your phone. Useful if you know you’re going out and like to avoid using your cellular network whenever possible, you can get your Reading List ready before you leave home/office and read while commuting. It’s an incredibly useful feature.

iCloud Tabs

A fantastic new feature within Safari. I’ve been using a similar feature in Chrome for a while now. The more iDevices you have with your iCloud account on, the better this becomes. Having a MacBook Air and iPad as well as an iPhone means I can take full advantage. Using iCloud, Safari automatically logs every tab that’s open on any of your Apple gadgets. If you then hit the iCloud icon in Safari on any of them, it shows you all the tabs, and you can carry on reading if you need to switch devices. 60% of the time it works every time. I jest of course, it’s not let me down once. You don’t have to do anything, “it just works”.

 

Fullscreen Landscape (on iPhone/iPod touch)

If you have an iPhone, you’ll know that it offers one of the most fluid web-browsing experiences out there. But, in landscape mode the top and bottom bars can get in the way slightly. With a quick tap, you can take your page fullscreen. The navigation and sharing bars disappear and are replaced with soft icons for going back and forward, or returning to the default view. Much better.

Sharing

The sharing options are virtually the same as they are in most other apps. iOS 6 sees a much better UI for sharing, replacing the dull list with iOS style icons and an attractive background. Simpler, prettier and gives the ability for growth in the future. You can email, message, tweet, post or add to home screen as a web-app shortcut. The other options include printing via AirPrint, adding to your Reading List or Bookmarking as well as copying the link. All-in-all, pretty much everything you need in a browser to get you through the day.

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Smick47 5 pts

Anyone having trouble staying connected to wifi or when going to the App Store sending you to the apple website

Jdjdidid 6 pts

@Smick47 happened to me but after 30 mins of turning wifi on and off. It stopped. It was scary