The situation with mobile browsers on Apple’s platforms is not exactly positive for users. Safari gets the job done, but every other browser that lands on the iPhone or iPad requires them to use Apple’s WebKit engine. Simply put, most browsers are simply wrappers built on the same foundation for iOS and iPadOS
Therefore, you won’t find any truly outstanding Safari alternatives. There is no such rule on the Mac desktop side. Therefore, in addition to the big names like Chrome, Edge and Firefox, you will also find great options like Perplexity Comet, Dia and ChatGPT Atlas.
This is a pretty limiting situation, especially if you have the more powerful Pro or Air series tablets, which have a desktop-class chip but don’t have a browser option that can take advantage of all that firepower. My long search for a functionally fulfilling iPad browser finally led me to Beam, and it’s the closest I’ve ever come to a desktop-like browsing experience on my tablet.
What is Beam?
Beam is special for several reasons. It is inspired by a popular desktop browser and executes the basic principles on the iPad screen. Second, it unlocks the untapped potential of on-device AI processing and integrates useful AI-driven features mostly available in desktop browsers. It’s not pointless cramming, but subtle and practical.
Here’s the cool part. The browser was developed by a 16-year-old who was frustrated with the browser limitations on iPads and wanted something with more comprehensive features. Henrik Singh, a teenager living in the UK, told me that they were inspired by Arc, one of the most popular Mac browsers on the market, which has now evolved into a spiritual successor called Dia.
“I use a 12.9-inch iPad with a Magic Keyboard. Since I’m in school, I use my laptop for most work and my iPad for written work (mainly math). I kept trying to just bring my iPad and leave the laptop at home, but I couldn’t get it to work. The blocker wasn’t the hardware at all, it was the browser,” Singh told me. “No real sidebar, no spaces, no command bar, nothing like the real Arc experience.”
Beam does a great job providing some of the best Arc features. You get a beautiful interface and a sidebar where you can create tabs and spaces (think of them as browser profiles), each with its own color code. You can even keep and open tabs in their own folder in each space.
It’s extremely snappy. Responsive windows and animations make every interaction feel more sophisticated than Safari. Even with six active spaces, each with nearly half a dozen (or more) active tabs, Beam never stuttered or crashed on my M4 iPad Pro. This browser, as its creator told me, is designed to be used with a keyboard connected, allowing you to scroll through tabs and perform actions using keyboard shortcuts.
What sets it apart?
Beam makes no secret of the fact that it was inspired by Arc. You get a familiar collapsible side panel that houses all your tabs. And here it has a functional advantage over Safari. You see, each color-coded sidebar is actually a specific area for a specific type of work.
You can create multiple spaces and switch between them with a swipe gesture. Each area can be customized with its own icon and theme color. Additionally, you can create custom folders in each section to manage tab clutter. I love this approach much more than tab groups.
There are a whole host of keyboard shortcuts you can use to accomplish your tab tasks, and you can customize them all. In addition to basic navigation tasks, you can also customize shortcuts for search and page-related tasks. I also love the built-in ad blocker, which you can also customize on three levels.
You can choose to automatically delete tabs daily, weekly, or monthly. And if you need your tabs active when you return to work, you can also decide how much memory you can allocate for tab caching. In my case, 2 GB was enough to do daily work without any problems.
You get the usual universal search, but in Beam there’s a command bar that serves as a unified hub for active tabs and history. When you’re working on a tab, all you need to do is enter identifying content (e.g. website name, keyword, or heading) and tap the action button to immediately go to the target tab.
There are many other small customization options that make it stand out from the heavyweights. Overall, Beam offers just the right mix of added flexibility that elevates the iPad browsing experience to a desktop experience while reducing design clutter.
Use AI sensibly
If you have been following the latest developments in the world of browsers, it seems that every player currently has a single focus – AI integration. It has spawned a whole new generation of “AI browsers” like Dia, ChatGPT Atlas and Comet. Additionally, Google is busy cramming Gemini into Chrome, while Microsoft has already built a sidebar into Edge, even in the iPad version.
Beam doesn’t overdo it. In fact, not even popular options like ChatGPT or Gemini are used. On the contrary, it is based on the Foundation Model framework and leverages Apple’s own AI models for basic tasks. For what purpose? First of all, the AI tools are bundled in a separate toolkit called Beam Intelligence.
Not everyone is a fan of AI in web browsers.
Apple Intelligence. Personal intelligence. Beam intelligence. Do you see the pattern?
“I know AI features in browsers aren’t for everyone, so everything is optional, switchable, and runs entirely on the device at no additional cost,” Singh told me. This is a pretty good approach, not only for cost reasons, but also because the AI functions can work even without an internet connection. You can also disable it completely if you’re not a fan of AI in the browsing experience.
So what can it do? Think of it as Apple Intelligence on steroids. In addition to the usual one-page summary, it provides quick actions to create a TLDR version, key points, a structured overview, an outline for notes, and a simple explanation. In addition to action items, a special Pros and Cons action is also available, which essentially reads a web page and extracts tasks, recommendations, and steps from it.
Most promising of all is the Chat With Page feature. Simply put, it’s like bringing in an AI and asking questions about the active tabs instead of relying on the built-in action presets. Beam Intelligence opens in its own window near the bottom right corner of the screen and disappears when the task at hand is completed. Unlike Gemini, ChatGPT or Copilot in the so-called AI browsers, it does not remain as a sidebar.
I love this approach. It uses AI without forcing a permanent presence. Singh tells me that Apple’s AI models are still fairly limited, but I’m hoping the situation will change with Apple’s upcoming Gemini revamp of its Foundation models. Singh has some AI-driven, ambitious ideas of his own.
“I plan to potentially support other on-device models (like Meta’s Llama models), cloud models with custom keys, and deeper features like AI-powered tab grouping,” he tells me. The ability to use AI for tab actions sounds convenient and familiar. The idea has already been implemented in all desktop “AI browsers” and I use it extensively.
Overall, the AI integration in Beam is pretty useful without exaggerating. I just wish there was an option to create a customizable keyboard shortcut to bring it up and hide the AI chat window. Another limitation of using an AI model on the device is that its intelligence is limited to the given context (read: the contents of the active tab) but, unlike Gemini, cannot retrieve new information from the Internet.
Overall, if you want to use the iPad for serious web-based work, especially with a keyboard, Beam offers by far the most worthwhile experience. It’s the closest thing to a desktop-style browser on Apple’s tablet in terms of aesthetics and depth of functionality. For intensive iPad users, the one-time purchase of $5 is definitely worth it.
Download Beam Browser from the App Store.
