Introduction
At Apple’s annual developer conference WWDC 2025, major updates were announced for iOS 19 and macOS, along with the release of Safari 19 powered by the WebKit rendering engine.
In recent years, the WebKit team has accelerated its adoption of web standards to improve layout compatibility across browser engines (Blink and Gecko).
This article highlights key Safari 19 announcements from WWDC 2025, focusing on WebGPU integration, browser fingerprinting shields, and newly supported CSS properties.
1. WebGPU Enabled by Default
A major update in Safari 19 is that WebGPU is now enabled by default.
WebGPU is the next-generation standard for GPU-accelerated 3D graphics and data processing in the browser, replacing WebGL.
Core Benefits
- Faster Rendering: By directly accessing native system APIs (such as Metal on Apple devices and DirectX 12 on Windows), WebGPU runs with much lower CPU overhead than WebGL.
- Efficient Local ML workloads: With Safari joining Chrome and Edge in supporting WebGPU, developers can run local machine learning models and real-time graphics pipelines efficiently on macOS and iOS devices.
2. Advanced Privacy Controls and Security Enhancements
Safari 19 introduces new measures to protect user privacy.
Anti-Fingerprinting Shielding
The browser updates its protection against “browser fingerprinting”—the practice of identifying individual users based on device settings (such as screen resolution, installed fonts, and hardware specs).
Safari 19 handles these requests by returning standardized mock data, preventing cross-site trackers from identifying the user’s specific hardware configuration.
3. Web Standards and New CSS Properties
Safari 19 also adds support for several CSS properties to improve layout styling options.
Experimental Masonry Layouts
Masonry layouts (like Pinterest’s multi-height column grids) can now be implemented natively using grid-template-rows: masonry. Safari 19 includes bug fixes and performance updates to prepare the WebKit implementation for production use.
Native Scroll-driven Animations
CSS scroll timelines (such as scroll-timeline) are now fully supported, allowing developers to build parallax effects and scroll progress indicators without writing JavaScript scroll event listeners.
/* A scroll-linked progress indicator */
@keyframes scale-progress {
from { transform: scaleX(0); }
to { transform: scaleX(1); }
}
.scroll-indicator {
animation: scale-progress auto linear;
animation-timeline: scroll();
}
Conclusion
Safari 19 brings WebGPU support, scroll-driven animations, and improved privacy tools to WebKit.
These additions make it easier to build high-performance web applications that run efficiently on Apple hardware. Keep an eye on these updates to optimize your apps for the latest Safari version.