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Safari Should Display Favicons in Its Tabs (daringfireball.net)
Favicon -- or its lack thereof, to be precise -- has remained one of the longest running issues Safari users have complained about. For those of you who don't use Safari, just have a look at this mess I had earlier today when I was using Safari on a MacBook. There's no way I can just have a look at the tabs and make any sense of them. John Gruber, writing for DaringFireball: The gist of it is two-fold: (1) there are some people who strongly prefer to see favicons in tabs even when they don't have a ton of tabs open, simply because they prefer identifying tabs graphically rather than by the text of the page title; and (2) for people who do have a ton of tabs open, favicons are the only way to identify tabs. With many tabs open, there's really nothing subjective about it: Chrome's tabs are more usable because they show favicons. [...] Once Safari gets to a dozen or so tabs in a window, the left-most tabs are literally unidentifiable because they don't even show a single character of the tab title. They're just blank. I, as a decade-plus-long dedicated Safari user, am jealous of the usability and visual clarity of Chrome with a dozen or more tabs open. And I can see why dedicated Chrome users would consider Safari's tab design a non-starter to switching. I don't know what the argument is against showing favicons in Safari's tabs, but I can only presume that it's because some contingent within Apple thinks it would spoil the monochromatic aesthetic of Safari's toolbar area. [...] And it's highly debatable whether Safari's existing no-favicon tabs actually do look better. The feedback I've heard from Chrome users who won't even try Safari because it doesn't show favicons isn't just from developers -- it's from designers too. To me, the argument that Safari's tab bar should remain text-only is like arguing that MacOS should change its Command-Tab switcher and Dock from showing icons to showing only the names of applications. The Mac has been famous ever since 1984 for placing more visual significance on icons than on names. The Mac attracts visual thinkers and its design encourages visual thinking. So I think Safari's text-only tab bar isn't just wrong in general, it's particularly wrong on the Mac.
*Channeling Steve Jobs* A web browser is an experience. It needs clarity. It needs consistency. It needs to be beautiful. The toolbar area of Safari is beautiful. Notice the clean monochromatic appearance. Notice the lines, the pristine appearance, the unblemished look. It's perfect. It's sterling. It's absolute perfection. To introduce favicons would smear it with excrement. It would disturb its Zen tranquility. It would besmirch its purity. Yes, the Safari web browser, a thing of beauty is a joy forever.
I've heard of First World Problems before, but for the love of all that is holy, would you people please go outside occasionally?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
No, don't bring back "insanely great". Apple design is what it is now. If you don't think a "professional" laptop should focus solely on "thinner" and "lighter", and you think it should focus on some other metrics instead, then maybe you aren't cut out to be an Apple customer any more.
Lots of people prefer "professional" laptops that achieve thinness and lightness over all else, and don't care one whit about other features like "ruggedness", "serviceability", number of expansion/USB ports, etc., and as a result Apple is the most valuable company on the planet.
If you don't agree with this, then you need to find a vendor that agrees more with your values, instead of sticking with one that is basically the polar opposite of what you want.