[easton]

Safari actually does get backported to previous macOS releases, at least during betas. You can run the Safari "Technology Preview" on n-1 macOS. https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/

But they aren't backported on iOS, I assume purely for marketing (look at our new tab layout! you'll get it in the fall), which doesn't make sense considering the last time anyone cared about a browser feature was probably when tabs were added to IE7.

[philo23]

Yeah they've always updated Safari on the previous version of macOS, but that's pretty far from being evergreen, and the average user isn't going to be using the technology preview.

Take Chrome for example, where there's roughly an update every 60 days and the option for them to push out security fixes quicker.

Imagine having to wait for an operating system update (major or minor version) to just get the latest secure version of Chrome. That's pretty much where Safari is, especially on iOS.

Don't get me wrong, I think Safari gets a lot of unwarranted hate and it can certainly be a bit quirky here and there, but if they didn't have to wait for the next major/minor release of macOS/iOS to update Safari I think it'd be in a much better place.