The challenge is allowing pages to occupy the area beneath Safari's side-mounted controls without making parts of a website inaccessible. In an Friday, October 23 WebKit post, Apple's Jen Simmons explained that an existing web setting could enable this, but Apple's research suggests many sites would not handle it correctly.
That setting, viewport-fit="cover", allows a webpage to expand into areas that would otherwise be reserved. Website developers must then leave enough space around important content to prevent it from being covered by the interface. According to Simmons, many sites fail to make those allowances on every edge.
Apple is investigating whether another solution could offer developers more control with less risk of obscuring content. A header's background could, for example, span the screen while its navigation links remain within the unobstructed portion.
For now, Safari 27.1 restricts webpages to the area beside the controls and uses the page's background color to fill the remaining strip. This limits the width available for content on the outer display.
The arrangement stems from the screen's proportions. Apple placed controls along the side of the device because the outer display is shorter and wider than other iPhone screens, preserving more height for apps and webpages.
Separately, Safari 27.1 adds automatic two-page PDF viewing when the iPhone Duo is held partially folded like a book. Flattening or closing the device returns the document to a single-page view.
Developers can also test experimental support for detecting the screen's folding posture and positioning content around the device's middle fold. Those features are available behind Safari feature flags, while the proposed change to content beneath the controls remains under investigation.
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