Apple has updated Safari in the latest beta for its upcoming operating systems, with the final release expected in the fall. The update primarily includes the addition of a new feature called Distraction Control.
It comes with other features like Highlights, which highlights relevant information on a website (such as a phone number or address of a hotel), and a new Reader mode that includes an automatically generated summary and index.
Why this matters. Apple is taking a step to allow users to personalize their web browsing experience by giving them Distraction Control, a new tool to control the content they see on screen.
How it works:
- Users can manually select which elements they want to hide on each web page, such as invitations to subscribe to a newsletter, login windows, and more.
- A blue icon in the search bar will notify users if there’s hidden content, in case they forget and miss an item in the future.
- Users can reveal the hidden content again with just a few clicks.
Some context. This new feature comes in addition to the recent enhancements Apple announced for Safari at WWDC 2024. It’s unusual for an additional enhancement to be announced mid-summer, rather than being introduced alongside the rest in June.
In any case, it falls under the features recently debuted by Safari to make web browsing a cleaner experience.
Key details:
- This isn’t just another ad blocker, it’s a new Safari feature. It only hides fixed content, not dynamic content.
- The settings will be specific to each device and won’t sync across all devices. For example, users can hide items on an iPad but keep them visible on a Mac.
- Once an item is hidden, it’ll stay hidden when revisiting the same website in the future.
- There won’t be a button to hide multiple items at once. Users will need to hide each item individually.
What’s next. The Distraction Control feature will be available in the fall with macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, and iPadOS 18. The beta version is already accessible in the most recently released versions.
This article was written by Javier Lacort and originally published in Spanish on Xataka.
Image | Apple
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