Introduction to Safari 26.2 Update

Safari 26.2 has introduced significant updates that enhance the user experience and provide site owners with more accurate performance metrics. The latest version adds support for measuring Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) and the Event Timing API, which is used to calculate Interaction to Next Paint (INP). This enables site owners to collect LCP and INP data from Safari users through the browser Performance API using their own analytics and real user monitoring tools.

LCP and INP in Apple Safari Browser

LCP is a Core Web Vital and a ranking signal. It measures how long it takes for the largest visible element to appear in the viewport during page load. Interaction To Next Paint (INP), also a Core Web Vitals metric, measures how quickly your website responds to user interactions. Native Safari browser support enables accurate measurement, which closes a long-standing blind spot for performance diagnostics of site visitors using Apple devices.

Importance of INP

INP is a particularly critical measurement because it reports on the total time between a user’s action (click, tap, or key press) and the visual update on the screen. It tracks the slowest interaction observed during a user’s visit. INP is important because it enables site owners to know if the page feels “frozen” or laggy for site visitors. Fast INP scores translate to a positive user experience for site visitors who are interacting with the website.

Impact on Performance Monitoring Tools

This change will have no effect on public tools like PageSpeed Insights and CrUX data because they are Chrome-based. However, Safari site visitors can now be included in field performance data where site owners have configured measurement, such as in Google Analytics or other performance monitoring platforms.

Compatible Analytics Packages

The following analytics packages can now be configured to surface these metrics from Safari browser site visitors:

• Google Analytics (GA4, via Web Vitals or custom event collection)
• Adobe Analytics
• Matomo
• Amplitude (with performance instrumentation)
• Mixpanel (with custom event pipelines)
• Custom / In-House Monitoring

Real User Monitoring (RUM) Platforms

Apple Safari’s update also enables Real User Monitoring (RUM) platforms to surface this data for site owners:

• Akamai mPulse
• Cloudflare Web Analytics
• Datadog RUM
• Dynatrace
• Elastic Observability (RUM)
• New Relic Browser
• Raygun
• Sentry Performance
• SpeedCurve
• Splunk RUM

Official Documentation

According to Apple’s official documentation, Safari 26.2 adds support for two tools that measure the performance of web applications, Event Timing API and Largest Contentful Paint. The Event Timing API lets you measure how long it takes for your site to respond to user interactions. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how long it takes for the largest visible element to appear in the viewport during page load.

Conclusion

Safari 26.2 provides new data that is critical for SEO and for monitoring the user experience, information that site owners rely on. Safari traffic represents a significant share of site visits. These improvements make it possible for site owners to have a more complete view of the real user experience across more devices and browsers. With the ability to collect LCP and INP data from Safari users, site owners can now optimize their websites for a better user experience, leading to improved engagement and conversion rates.