In a new WebKit blog post highlighting what’s new in Safari 27.1, Apple’s Jen Simmons said the company is exploring ways to let websites make better use of the iPhone Duo’s external display. Here are the details.
Apple knows that Safari doesn’t take full advantage of the iPhone Duo’s external display
One issue identified in multiple iPhone Duo reviews (including ours) was that Safari’s right-aligned controls take up a significant portion of the external display’s limited screen real estate, leaving websites with an unusually narrow area to display their content.
Here’s what Chance Miller had to say about it in his review, published earlier this week:
But the awkwardness of the iPhone’s 5.4-inch external display shows up in Safari. The web is simply not optimized for this form factor. I’ll talk about this later, but the right-aligned controls on the iPhone Duo eat up usable screen space especially in Safari.
[…]
I can understand why Apple chose the design used for Safari on the iPhone Duo. I don’t think overlaying the controls on the website would have made sense. However, scrolling in Safari is one of the best examples of something that is better on the internal screen.
For new iPhone Duo users who have been frustrated by this issue, Apple’s Jen Simmons shared some good news today.
In a post highlighting what’s new in Safari 27.1, including how websites adapt to different screen sizes and folding positions on the iPhone Duo, Simmons acknowledged that websites currently can’t extend behind controls on the device’s external display, and said Apple is exploring ways to address that limitation.
From his post:
We’d like to give web designers and developers the ability to design and use that space in more creative ways. For example, you may want to extend the header background across the entire width of the display. It might seem like there is only one obvious way to make this possible, but in reality there are many possibilities.
Simmons went on to explain that simply use the HTML viewport meta tag with viewport-fit="cover" Extending websites behind Safari controls could cause problems, because many websites don’t adequately account for those areas, potentially leaving important content obscured.
He instead invited developers to share their ideas as Apple explores a better approach:
We’re looking into whether there’s a better way to achieve the same result: something more foolproof and perhaps easier to use. If you have ideas, we’d love to hear them. And stay tuned.
If you’re a web developer and have ideas about how Apple could address this limitation, you can read WebKit’s full post for details on how to share your feedback.
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