Apple’s Safari is no longer my primary browser after macOS Sonoma had such a negative impact on its performance, but I hope macOS 15 brings me back. To be honest, the issues started almost four years ago with the macOS Big Sur beta.
At the time, people complained about Safari’s redesign, which I loved. Still, the issue was the app would continually display duplicated tabs even after a stable version was available. Once I clicked on a tab, the duplicated one would become a blank page.
While this problem was eventually fixed, it took Apple far too long to address the Safari issue on macOS Big Sur. In addition, it was with this operating system update that the pop-up warnings that a page was draining my MacBook’s battery became more frequent.
This could have been solved if Apple was blocking all those ads and trackers it promised to. Not only was that not happening, but the pop-ups made pages load more slowly as well.
Around the time that macOS Ventura rolled out, I switched from a 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro to the 2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro, but even Apple’s silicon optimization wasn’t enough. A few Safari tabs opened, and everything slowed down. With that, I decided to switch to Microsoft Edge.
In macOS Sonoma, I tried using Safari a few times to editing articles or browse the web, but I’d constantly get a pop-up saying that a page was consuming too much memory.
At the end of the day, I was utterly convinced that even a 2023 Mac Studio with an M2 Max and 32GB of RAM couldn’t handle Safari.
I don’t care about AI, but I hope macOS 15 makes Safari better
macOS 15 is expected to feature some AI improvements, but I really want a better Safari, and memory consumption isn’t the only issue. Another common complaint is that Safari can’t save passwords properly, especially when Apple suggests a strong password for a new credential. Even saving your credit card with Safari on macOS is a pain.
Meanwhile, I have never had any issues with Microsoft Edge. Everything works smoothly; it saves and remembers all my passwords. Still, since I’m reluctant to use Edge on iOS and iPadOS, I don’t have the seamless experience I once had.
If Apple can’t fix Safari, I think I might fully switch to Edge in iOS 18 and macOS 15. I can’t wait for WWDC 2024 to see if Apple has heard our concerns.