As I have mentioned before it really does feel like I'm the only person who actually likes the new tab design for Safari on Mac.
John Gruber has written a particularly scathing piece articulating how he despises the new tabs and my RSS reader this morning had numerous others linking to it. I have yet to see anyone else say they like it.
I have supported the theme-color meta tag on the blog for years as I like the way it extends the site's colour scheme to the browser, especially on mobile. I have gotten so used to seeing this effect that it feels strange when a browser hasn't supported it. I know it's personal preference but I'm glad Apple have included the option to use it. As Gruber says, it can be turned off, along with the compact, single line layout.
Even beyond that, I like the new rounded tab design which Gruber says looks like buttons rather than tabs that "do not work as a metaphor for multiple documents within a single window." Yes, it is quite a radical change and, if you are thinking purely from a visual metaphor perspective, they don't look like tabs but since installing the first MacOS Monterey beta I have not had to "think, continuously" about which tab is active.
Maybe I'm lucky, maybe my brain is just able to accept the new design and move on, instantly grasping the new style and method of operation. Maybe I just don't work with as many tabs open as other people and don't suffer as much impact from the change.
Maybe my years of flipping between platforms (Windows & Mac, iOS and Android) have meant that I'm used to adjusting to different display paradigms and display languages such that I'm never really set in my ways.
