Safari 16 supports AVIF images, Passkey and has lots of news for developers. Safari 16, the latest version of the browser for iOS 16, is now able to manage AVIF images in the same way as it is possible to do updated versions of macOS Ventura, macOS Monterey and iPadOS 16 (not yet officially available).
How easy it is to install iOS 16?
The developers of WebKit, Safari’s rendering engine, point out some details of particular interest to developers. The AVIF format – developed by Alliance for Open Media – is an alternative to image formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF or WebP; offers support for multiple color spaces, can handle both lossless (lossless data compression) and lossy data (algorithms that involve the loss of part of the original information during the compression / decompression phase) and boasts other features.
Safari 16 also supports Passkeys, easy-to-use and more secure unique digital keys that are never stored on web servers and remain on the device. Designed to replace passwords, passkeys use Touch ID or Face ID for biometric authentication. And thanks to iCloud Keychain, they sync across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV with end-to-end encryption. They also work in apps and on the web, and the user can also log into sites or apps on non-Apple devices by simply using the iPhone.
Merchant Tokens in Apple Pay are supported, helping to simplify recurring payments and payments applicable to multiple merchants.
Other novelties of interest to developers are: Web Inspector Extensions, Container Queries, Subgrids, others concerning accessibility, novelties for object animation, overscroll behavior (CSS elements) and shared workers (elements that can communicate with all the scripts that share the same origin, in other words all the scripts belonging to the same website or Web application).
Safari 16 is integrated into iOS 16; macOS Monterey and macOS Big Sur users can get Safari 16 from OS updates.
In updates for macOS, Apple explains that Safari 16 “introduces new features, even faster performance, and improved security.”
Among the innovations indicated in the release notes:
- The panel group home pages allow you to add different background images and favorites for each group
- Add different pinned panels to each group to easily find the websites you visit most often
- Displays a list of open panels in the sidebar
- Settings configured for specific websites now sync across all devices
- Change secure passwords to suit specific website requirements
