Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 173 With Safari 17 Features

by

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced in March 2016. Apple designed the ‌Safari Technology Preview‌ to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview Feature
‌Safari Technology Preview‌ 173 adds functionality that is included in Safari 17, coming with macOS Sonoma. There are Feature Flags that replace the Experimental Features section of the Develop menu, and the Develop menu itself has been revamped. Responsive Design Mode has been updated to focus on the responsiveness of a page's design at any height or width.

Available features on macOS Sonoma include Profiles for separating browsing data like History and Favorites, web apps, and improved private browsing mode. Features for all operating systems include Live Text support for vertical text recognition in images and videos, HEIC support, and JPEG XL, a new image format with an improved compression algorithm for better image quality at smaller file sizes than JPEG.

The browser also includes updates for Web Inspector, CSS, Media Queries, Rendering, Editing, JavaScript, Popover, Images, Media, Web API, and SVG.

The current ‌Safari Technology Preview‌ release is compatible with machines running macOS Monterey 12.3 or later, macOS Ventura, and macOS Sonoma, the latest version of macOS that Apple is beta testing right now.

The ‌Safari Technology Preview‌ update is available through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences or System Settings to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.

Apple's aim with ‌Safari Technology Preview‌ is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. ‌Safari Technology Preview‌ can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.

Tag: Safari Technology Preview

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Air Size Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With Rear Camera Bar Allegedly Shown in Leaked Photo

Tuesday January 21, 2025 12:46 pm PST by
A leaker known as "Majin Bu" today shared an alleged image of a component for the rumored, ultra-thin "iPhone 17 Air" model. The blurry, pixelated image shows a pair of rear iPhone shells with a pill-shaped, raised camera bar along the top. On the left side of the bar, there is a circular cutout that appears to be for a single rear camera. On the right side of the bar, there appears to be an ...
Read Full Article • 143 comments
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
Read Full Article
2024 App Store Awards

Apple Explains Why It Removed TikTok From the App Store in the U.S.

Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action. Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
Read Full Article • 257 comments
iPhone SE Dynamic Island Majin Bu

iPhone SE 4 Leak Shows Dynamic Island, Casts Doubt on Rumored 'iPhone 16E' Name

Monday January 20, 2025 9:01 am PST by
A new iPhone SE is widely rumored to launch this year, and the device has potentially been confirmed today by known leaker Evan Blass. In a private social media post, Blass shared an image of what appears to be source code mentioning an iPhone SE (4th Gen), which casts doubt on the alternative "iPhone 16E" name rumored for the device. However, the name in the source code could be a...
Read Full Article • 177 comments
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Read Full Article • 48 comments
airtag 4 pack blue

AirTag 2 Launching This Year With These 3 New Features

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory. A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June. The original AirTag was announced...
Read Full Article
ipad pro 2024

New iPad Pro Reportedly Launching This Year

Tuesday January 21, 2025 6:40 am PST by
Apple plans to release at least one new iPad Pro model this year, according to a supplier-focused report today from Korean website The Elec. It is likely that the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models would be updated simultaneously. After receiving an OLED display last year, the report said the iPad Pro will receive only "minor" changes this year. Overall, the next iPad Pro is expected to...
Read Full Article • 135 comments
iOS 19 Roundup Feature

iOS 19 Rumored to Be Compatible With These iPhones

Saturday January 18, 2025 10:28 am PST by
iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr. The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models: iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhon...
Read Full Article
truecaller

Truecaller iOS Update Rolls Out Real-Time Caller ID Support

Wednesday January 22, 2025 2:07 am PST by
Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers. Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update. iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ ...
Read Full Article • 57 comments

Top Rated Comments

alwillis Avatar
alwillis
21 months ago

Support for JPEG XL does seem odd. Seems like that ship has passed. Also Google seems to be starting to promote AVIF which is a better compression algorithm and can do video as well.
Many in the web community were pretty upset that Google dropped support for JPEG XL after including it behind a flag for months. JPEG XL has advantages over AVIF, including progressive decoding and the ability to recompress existing JPEG files in a lossless fashion while saving 20% on file size.

I think it's a shrewd move by Apple, getting out ahead of Google with an image format many in the web community really want. However JPEG XL was being viewed previously, it'll be supported on hundreds of millions devices this fall after Sonoma, iOS 17 and iPadOS ship.

The article The Case for JPEG XL ('https://cloudinary.com/blog/the-case-for-jpeg-xl') covers all of the details.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PsykX Avatar
PsykX
21 months ago

boo, no profiles except on Sonoma :(
I've gotta say, this is the only reason I want the new Safari. Want to separate Home from Work. Guess I'll wait more!
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
alwillis Avatar
alwillis
21 months ago

I downloaded the tech preview but I can't view JPEG XL files - it's not listed in the Developer > Feature Flags section. How do I enable support for it? I'm on macOS Ventura 13.4.1 - is it a Sonoma-only feature?
JPEG XL is Sonoma-only at this point.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
emosewamai Avatar
emosewamai
21 months ago

Safari Technology Preview 173 adds functionality that is included in Safari 17
[LIST=1]
* I know, I am in minority for asking this feature - Split Tabs. I found it super useful than cascading two windows and switching between them, window losing focus etc. Arc Browser is super helpful with this feature.
* Native ad blocking would be great just like how Brave does. Using external ad blockers is hogging my machine/Safari and I end up restarting Safari.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CostaMoses Avatar
CostaMoses
21 months ago

boo, no profiles except on Sonoma :(

I've gotta say, this is the only reason I want the new Safari. Want to separate Home from Work. Guess I'll wait more!
you both may want to try Arc Browser - their profiles and spaces work really well. I used Safari for pretty much everything, but switched over a few months ago and am so happy with it! The only thing I miss is how the codes texted to me would autofill on Safari. That is such a nice Safari feature.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr.Mozi Avatar
Mr.Mozi
21 months ago
Can someone confirm whether the responsive presets (^⌘R) are back or not? Apple has removed them entirely in Sonoma's Safari 17, making web development quite hard.



Attachment Image
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments