Apple debuted a controversial new Safari tab design this summer at WWDC 2021, and since then, it has tweaked that look and even let you turn off many of the changes. With macOS Monterey, however, the company is going back to the way tabs looked before. On Apple’s official page for the upcoming software update, if you scroll down to the section titled “Access Tab Groups anywhere,” you can just barely see Safari’s older (and arguably better) design in the example screenshots on both a Mac and on an iPad (via Daring Fireball).
Perhaps even more surprising is that the old design is now the default, according to MacRumors, which observed the reverted tabs in the macOS Monterey release candidate. However, if you want to use the design Apple revealed at WWDC, where tabs also function as URL bars, that will be an option you can flip on in the preferences menu, MacRumors says.
macOS Monterey will be available on October 25th.
