This is a mobile world and website owners are targeting mobile users to get more traffic to their site. Generally, the desktop sites have sidebar and footer area with multiple widgets. These widgets and the website content needs lot of time to load on mobile connection. Since mobile users in many countries still use slow 3G and 4G connections, it is essential for website owners to show faster websites on mobiles.
Therefore, most of the websites show different version of the page to mobile users compared to desktop users. However, sometimes you may need to read the desktop site on mobile to get important information. If you are reading the webpage on Safari browser in iPhone and miss the desktop layout, here is how can you can view desktop websites in Safari iPhone.
When You Need Desktop Site – Examples
There are lots of good example we can tell why you need to view desktop pages.
- Wikipedia – by default Wikipedia will show you mobile version like “en.m.wikipedia.org” for English website.
- Google Search – when you tap on AMP pages, Google will show the AMP page within Google website unlike desktop sites that will show with the website URL in the address.
How to View Desktop Website in Safari iPhone?
Follow one of the below methods to view the desktop webpage in Safari.
- One time request for desktop site
- Permanently viewing desktop version of a site
- For older iPhone models and iOS versions
- Viewing AMP pages
1. Request Desktop Website in Safari iPhone (iOS 13 or later)
The iOS 13 and later versions have different way of viewing desktop site on Safari browser.
- Launch Safari app and open the website you want to get the desktop layout. Generally, you want to do this when you are already reading content on the site.
- The address bar on the Safari browser will show you the URL in the middle and the refresh button on the right. However, you can also see a font size change icon on the left side.
- Tap on the font size change icon to open a dropdown menu.
- Select “Request Desktop Website” option.
- Now, Safari will reload the webpage and show you the desktop layout of the website.
Permanently Viewing Desktop Version
When you like the desktop version of a website, it is inconvenient to every time request the desktop version. Safari also has a solution to permanently view the website in desktop mode.
- When you are viewing the website, tap on the font size icon.
- Choose “Website Settings” from the menu.
- Enable the slider against “Request Desktop Website” option.
- Safari will add this exception and always open the requested website in desktop version.
Related: How to disable in-app purchases in iPhone?
2. On Older iPhones and iOS Versions
If you are using older iOS versions or old iPhone models like iPhone 6 then follow the below method.
- When viewing the website in Safari, tap and long hold the refresh icon shown on the right side of the address bar.
- It will show an option at the bottom of the page.
- Select “Request Desktop Site” to reload the webpage using desktop layout.
3. Viewing Desktop Version of AMP Pages
AMP stands for accelerated mobile pages. As explained above, website owners use different technology to show faster version on the mobile devices. AMP is one of the popular and Google promoted technology that helps website owners to serve different page layout only for mobile devices. You can find the AMP pages in Google search results with the lightning icon.
Therefore, there are lots of possibilities you end up viewing AMP mobile pages of a website from Google search results.
- Whether you are viewing the AMP page within Google Search or outside, the above method of requesting desktop version should still work.
- In case if that is not working, you can check the URL of the website. Generally, AMP pages end with “/amp/” which you can remove and reload the page to see the desktop version. For example, the AMP version of the site could be with the URL “https://www.yoursite.com/page1.html/amp/”. In this case, you can use the URL “http://www.yoursite.com/page.html” to view the desktop version.
- The other option is to scroll down to the bottom and check whether the site offers a “View Desktop Site” link and tap on that. You can also tap on comments or any other links on the site which generally open with the desktop version.
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