Most iPad browsers still feel like stretched phone apps. Beam was built to feel closer to a real desktop productivity browser, with features like:
- Persistent sidebar with vertical tabs - Spaces, favourites and pinned tabs - Command bar and full keyboard shortcut support - Memory-efficient tab lifecycle (active, warm, suspended tabs) - Desktop-grade tab management designed specifically for iPad hardware limits
A big part of the work went into managing web views efficiently. iPads have much tighter memory constraints than desktops, so Beam unloads inactive tabs while keeping switching between active ones instant.
It’s a paid app ($4.99) with no subscriptions, no accounts, and no tracking beyond basic anonymised usage metrics.
App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beam-browser/id6756218494
I’d really appreciate any feedback, especially from people who use iPads heavily with keyboards.
Happy to answer questions.
More info: beambrowser.app
vintagedave•3w ago
This uses Safari under the hood, since it's iOS?
henrikdev•3w ago
On iPadOS everything uses WebKit, so yes, Beam is Safari/WebKit under the hood.
The difference is tab management. Tabs have explicit states (active, warm, suspended), so inactive tabs are unloaded to save memory while keeping their navigation state. That makes large tab sets usable without killing performance.
You get a persistent sidebar, vertical tabs, spaces, pinned tabs, and complete keyboard shortcuts - things common on desktop browsers but mostly missing on iPad.
If you take Arc for example, the only Arc app on iPad is Arc Search, which is just the iPhone app stretched for iPad. Therefore, it's optimised for quick, on-the-go searches rather than the kind of workflow you would have on a Mac. This works for some kinds of users, sure, but I personally am trying to be able to switch to use my iPad as a laptop when I'm travelling or something, and I really miss having any sort of browser anywhere like what we have on desktop - Zen / Arc / even SigmaOS or any other browser with a sidebar.
That's what I mean by desktop-grade - does that make sense? Sorry if it was confusing!