Sidebar ISO 15

1949SingleSpinner wrote:

How do I remove the bookmark sidebar in landscape after the ISO 15 update. After the update it is always visible and to remove it one has to back track a number of times before you can remove in and then when you want to go back to the bookmarks it becomes another journey.

The Sidebar is now closed with the Sidebar button at top-left of the screen:

Note: For this button to be visible, if Bookmarks/Reading List/History is displayed in the sidebar, you must first tap the “Back” and “Safari” buttons that appear in this location.

The iPad User Guide is a rich source of frequently overlooked information. Having updated to iPadOS15, this resource may be worthwhile to review in order to better understand many of the changes that have occurred with transition from iPadOS14 to iPadOS15. The Guide is available both online using a web browser (such as Safari), or as an Apple Books download:

iPad User Guide - Apple Support

https://books.apple.com/book/id1567104892

There are many changes within iPadOS15 - and significant changes to Safari and its management of Bookmarks is but only one. You are not the first to make the observation concerning the introduced shortcomings of the iPadOS15 Safari Sidebar - and certainly won’t be the last.

Apple do invite constructive feedback, comments and feature requests via their product feedback pages. For iPad and iPadOS:

Feedback - iPad - Apple

You are encouraged to make use of this facility in expressing any views concerning issues, bugs, or functionality changes of which you are unhappy.

In the main Safari menu bar area, tapping the open book icon once reveals the bookmarks side panel.

Tapping that same open book icon, again, makes it disappear.

Best of Luck to You!

Returning to consistency of the UI, whilst accepting that the button/icon was differently styled (i.e., a Book pictogram in place of the Sidebar representation), the Book icon of iPadOS Safari14 and earlier was actually more consistent with the the sidebar functionality of other Apps. I appreciate that without access to a device with iPadOS15 installed, the nuances of the difference will not be readily obvious.

I’ll try to explain…

Previously, a simple tap of the Book icon opened or closed the Safari sidebar - the sidebar being revealed or hidden with its selected “view” (Bookmarks/Reading List/History) being preserved. For example, if Bookmarks was the selected view, a single tap of the Book icon/button would open or close the sidebar showing your bookmarks - the same being true of the other available views when selected.

The changes made within iPadOS15 Safari are profound in context of the functioning of the Safari Sidebar. With iPadOS15, the Sidebar button/icon is only visible in certain circumstances - such as when the sidebar is hidden, or when the sidebar is open but none of the Bookmarks/Reading List/History views are actually selected. In mirroring my previous example, if the sidebar is open and Bookmarks is the selected view, the sidebar cannot be dismissed/hidden; the sidebar button/icon is not visible. In this situation it is necessary to first tap the Back button to reveal the Sidebar button.

This problem compounds where your Favourites/Bookmarks are arranged in a folder tree; the deeper that you drill through the hierarchical layers, the more taps of the Back button are necessary before the Sidebar button re-appears - as the sidebar button/icon is only available at the top level. Remember - in iPadOS14, only a single tap of a persistent button/icon was necessary.

As is, it is now impossible to quickly and easily reveal or hide any of the Bookmarks/Reading List/History views within the Safari sidebar without protracted tapping and navigation. This behaviour is completely inconsistent with other native Apps - where the sidebar button/icon is persistent, allowing an easy open/close of the sidebar as needed - and in each case, the relative state of the sidebar being preserved.

Verified it was fixed in iPadOS 15.1.

tim0409 wrote:

That may be how it “works now” but it’s ridiculous, and I would like to know if it’s a bug or an “improvement”.

As implemented, this change to the iPadOS15.x Safari UI appears to be design…

Apple invite constructive feedback, comments and feature requests via their product feedback pages. For iPad and iPadOS:

Feedback - iPad - Apple

You are encouraged to make use of this facility in expressing any views concerning issues, bugs, or functionality changes of which you are unhappy.

This limitation has indeed been addressed, at least in part, within iPadOS 15.1.

Whilst not a complete fix, the sidebar button is now persistent across all sidebar views - although it remains necessary to “navigate” back to the top-level in order to switch between Favourites/History/Reading List, or to select Tab Groups.

The landscape sidebar was so irritating I’ve switched to a different browser. Maybe everyone should since Apple seems to be deaf on this issue.

MichelPM wrote:

Since I have not installed iPadOS 15 on any of my family’s devices, I am only aware of certain major changes in iPadOS 15 and NOT all of the subtle, minor changes.

Intended purely as helpful [and gentle] reminder… 😉

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Test your answer. When answering a technical question, if possible, make sure your Submission works on your own Apple device before you post it.

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Many might argue that this change to the Safari sidebar and its function is relatively major - and is detrimental to the UI.

Then you know how to do it. That's how it works now.

That may be how it “works now” but it’s ridiculous, and I would like to know if it’s a bug or an “improvement”.

No one likes this change in the Safari side panel functionality.

To make your voice heard, you can post feedback about this using the feedback link provided above.

Wow!

Apple revamps, Safari, again, in iPadOS 15.

It looks like Apple did this to make the side panel behaviours consistent, across the UI, as this is how the side panels work in Mail and the Photos app and in the Notes app.

Thanks for posting this info.

Since I have not installed iPadOS 15 on any of my family’s devices, I am only aware of certain major changes in iPadOS 15 and NOT all of the subtle, minor changes.

Well,

That's not great!

Thank you for the elaboration.

I, probably, will NOT remember all of that, but, basicaly, what you have stated i the the side panel now, when being opened and used, now makes it harder as you cannot easily dismiss the panel if you using any of the feature options within the Safari side panel

The farther into the options you access the side panel, the more steps needed to backout to the point where the panel can be dismissed.

Yes, this makes dimissing the panel much more of an effort and pain to be able to do.

Seems Apple just added more complication to this feature, where none was needed.

Seems Apple needs to return to add a way to go back and make this panel much easier to dismiss once into the various side panel menu options.

On a separate comment I do not like the way widgets are being treated and handled, now, in iPadOS 15, as it breaks with having a clean aesthetics look to the Home pages, with different sized widgets scattered accross all home pages.

It is a very ugly “look” and Apple really should bring back the option of the Widgets/Home page combo, like in iOS 14, but have THAT layout persist on multiple home pages instead of just the very first Home page.

And since learning of other “new” iPadOS 15 features/“tweaks”, I find myself, leaning more and more toward dimissing upgrading to this version of iPadOS for an entire year, once again, and wait to see what is in store for IPadOS 16.

Maybe another “less is more” upgrade with emphasis, again, on OS optimizations.

I did this in the past, for three OS versions, ( iOS 11-13 were garbage, IMSO ).

So, I have ZERO issues with doing this, now.

With Apple still allowing security point updates for iPad 14 users, I see NO immediate reasons to upgrade to a still very buggy iPadOS 15.

Thanks for all that info, though.

Greatly appreciate that!