After a couple of weeks of occasional use of Safari's tabbed browsing, I'm just not happy. The Safari tabs are "anchored" to the toolbar above rather than the document below and that just seems wrong to me. For a while I thought it might be that I was just used to the moz-style tabs but after some though and a brief attempt to explain to pink my concern with Apple's implementation (and the reason I prefer Camino's tabs,) I've decided that it's not just being accustomed to one and not the other. Here's the problem as I see it.
A tab provides two basic functions. It provides a location for identification - the label, and it provides a "handle" for grabbing or selecting that particular object. Think of the realworld example that most of us are familiar with, the file folder. The tab on a file folder provides a place to label that folder and a handle that you can pinch to pull that folder into view. If that tab was floating above the folder, somehow connected to the filing cabinet above rather than the folder, its functionality would be diminished. Users would probably have a more difficult time associating the tab and it's label with the folder they wanted and they'd have a harder time physically grabbing the folder and pulling it out.
I think this is the case with the Safari tabs. Being an advanced user, I can make this adjustment but it's an adjustment to a less usable interface and I shouldn't have to. I have no idea why Apple designers made this decision and I'm sure it's already been discussed out there on the web (maybe I'll google for it later) but it seems to me that they've really created "buttoned browsing" rather than tabbed browsing and that it will be less obvious and learnable at first and less efficient even after well learned.
If this design decision is any indication of Apple's "innovation" in the browsing space, they'd be well served to do a little more immitation and a little less innovation.
Maybe jinglepants or one of his many fanboys will enlighten me :-)
