Safari comes with useful features on iPhone and iPad. Some of them include permanent desktop mode, configurable site settings, support for content blockers. However, I think people often overlook Safari's ability to add sites directly to the home screen, especially on the iPhone or iPad
ContentsWhy create shortcuts on the home screenAccess sites fasterStay focusedApp-like experienceOffline functionalityFrees up storageHow to add sites to the home screenCollect them
If you've just dismissed the Add to Homescreen option as another fancy way to bookmark sites, you'll be surprised. Home screen shortcuts provide several benefits.
Safari's ability to add sites to the home screen has been present on the iPhone and iPad for years. But it was the eventual support for Progressive Web Apps with iOS 11.3 that started to make more sense.
Progressive Web Apps are websites designed to function like real "apps" – albeit with limitations such as a lack of notification support – once you add them to the home screen . Not all websites are PWAs, but that shouldn't stop you from reaping at least a few of the benefits listed below.
Safari's website shortcuts appear as perfectly rendered icons, modeled after the site's logos and favicons, making them easily accessible and quite hard to miss. Beats needing to browse favorites or bookmarks in Safari when you can load them with a single click directly from the home screen.
But what's even more useful is that they also show up as "apps" in search (Spotlight), which helps you easily get rid of the clutter if you have a lot of apps installed. /P>
Hate being distracted by bookmarks and autofill suggestions in Safari? Home screen shortcuts should help. You can easily visit sites with just one click without looking at a Safari tab.
Even better, these shortcuts also cause certain sites to launch in a dedicated instance of Safari. This means that you can completely forgo annoying browser features. Most notable is the lack of tabs, address bar, navigation controls, etc. Don't worry, you can still navigate using effortless gestures.
If you tend to procrastinate, especially when you want to get work done on the iPhone or iPad, then this "limitation" should probably work wonders. However, there's no way to tell if a site will launch in a dedicated Safari instance until you add it to the home screen.
If your favorite websites don't have associated apps on the App Store, adding them to the home screen should be a decent alternative.
For starters, you get proper icons that are no different from dedicated apps. And as mentioned earlier, some of the sites you launch using shortcuts appear without the standard browser elements (tabs, address bar, etc.), allowing for a very app-like experience. .
Plus, sites that offer PWA features — not many yet, unfortunately — work even better at emulating real apps. A good example is Twitter. Compare the actual app and the PWA side-by-side, and you'll only notice a few subtle differences.
For a list of PWA sites, see Appscope.
The ability to work offline is a key benefit associated with sites with PWA functionality. They cache a limited amount of web content locally, allowing you to easily navigate a site even if you lose internet connection.
It won't matter if the PWA is very online oriented. In the case of Twitter PWA, you can visit old feeds or pages you've visited before, but that's about it.
Home screen shortcuts also offer the best way to replace App Store apps and reduce storage space. For example, installing a PWA like Twitter reduces a significant amount of storage otherwise consumed by the app itself – around 100-150MB. Quite handy if you're carrying an iPhone or iPad with less storage. /P>
PWA caches also have an imposed upper limit of 50MB, so you shouldn't have to deal with temporary file buildups and associated issues.
However, you may not want to replace the dedicated apps which are essential for now. Although PWAs work well, for the most part they do not support vital features, such as system notifications, background refresh, etc.
Have you decided to add a few sites to the home screen of your iPhone or iPad? So here's how to do it. The steps below are for iOS 13 and iPadOS, but they also work the same, aside from the visual changes to the Share Sheet, in iOS 12 and iOS 11.
Step 1: Visit the site you want to add to the home screen, then tap the Share Sheet icon. Next, scroll down the share sheet and then tap on the option labeled Add to Home Screen.
Unless you want to create a shortcut to a specific page, stay on the homepage of the site while viewing the share sheet, especially if you want to emulate the site as an app.
Step 2: Enter a name for the shortcut, then press Add. If you want to rely on search (Spotlight) to get to your shortcuts faster, keep in mind the name you give it.
Note: If the site does not provide an appropriate home screen icon, Safari will use a webpage snapshot instead.
That's it. Home screen shortcut is now added. You can start using it immediately. There is no guarantee as to whether a site will actually open in a dedicated Safari window, or even sport PWA functionality until you start using it.
Adding sites to the home screen not only gives you faster access to your favorite sites, but also allows for a more focused experience. And if a site offers real PWA support, then you're in for a treat. Just don't expect the same level of functionality you'd normally get with a dedicated app from the App Store – at least not yet – and you should be good.
Then:
Although Firefox doesn't let you add sites to the home screen, it's still a fantastic browser for the iPhone and iPad. Find out how it compares to Safari.
