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Safari pages refresh in Lion?

Mad Mac Maniac

Mad Mac Maniac

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 4, 2007
4,808
2,110
A little bit of here and a little bit of there.
Ok, this is going to sound really silly... but I was just reading about all the people in the iPad forum complaining about their pages in safari reloading. Of course this is due the 512mb of RAM and the way the OS is designed to free up any older space whenever it needs more space.

That got me thinking... I know that Lion is being designed to run more iOS-like, where the OS is in charge of handling RAM. Does this mean that with Lion is there the potential to have the same situation? Obviously Macs have more RAM so the chance of it happening is reduced.

Or along those lines, say I have itunes (or any app) open and "running". If I run enough RAM intensive apps over the next few days without again using iTunes, would Lion ever get to the point where the window would actually close and shut down the app? I know that if you don't have any windows open the app could shut down, but what about if you leave the window open?
 
djrod said:
This MacOs-becoming-iOS fear thing is getting out of your hands people!
Click to expand...

Haha, well I think it's a valid concern!! I mean I would hope that Apple wouldn't do that to us, but honestly I wouldn't be too surprised.

A HUGE part of Lion is the OS doing the multitasking so we don't have to think about it. That's why apple took away the little light below the apps. There is no "open" or "close".

Although, I suppose another thing about Lion is that every state gets saved. So if a window or safari tab were to close, then hypothetically it would open back exactly how it was??

I would assume that any open windows stay open (and no safari refreshing!) but can any of you Lioners out there confirm this?
 
Mad Mac Maniac said:
Haha, well I think it's a valid concern!! I mean I would hope that Apple wouldn't do that to us, but honestly I wouldn't be too surprised.

A HUGE part of Lion is the OS doing the multitasking so we don't have to think about it. That's why apple took away the little light below the apps. There is no "open" or "close".

Although, I suppose another thing about Lion is that every state gets saved. So if a window or safari tab were to close, then hypothetically it would open back exactly how it was??

I would assume that any open windows stay open (and no safari refreshing!) but can any of you Lioners out there confirm this?
Click to expand...

You're comparing an orange to an apple, actually more like a tiny grape to an apple.

They are both based on the same OS X core but the code is much more optimized and slimmer on the iPad with much tighter hardware restrictions.

If the iPad devices are as powerful as our computers, we would not be experiencing any issues in Safari. You're talking about just 256MB of RAM in the first-gen iPad and 512MB in second-gen iPad which are able to handle the sites in Safari much better than it does in the first-gen iPad. Add 2GB-4GB to the iPad, Mobile Safari would be able to handle 20 sites without any refreshing required.

Secondly, Apple didn't take open/close lights away, it is now an optional setting in the Systems Preferences. The reason Apple did this is because they want to remove the idea of "open"/"closed" states. The software are starting to catch up to the hardware in terms of speed that we can leave applications and return to it in the same state. Apple wants to be able to introduce the concept of *resuming* apps, not *closed*. When you restart Lion with open apps, Lion will restart with the same open apps in the same state. This is the future on Mac OS X. No more closing required, especially with a fast SSD.

The hard drive/ssd in today's computers are much faster than the NANDs in the current iPad. Resuming an app is much faster than it would be on a modern computer. Look at how fast apps are resuming from the previous state in the iPad 2 and you can see how much the hardware difference is affecting the performance.

Also, the multitasking isn't a huge part of the OS, it's actually tiny. If you remove Cocoa, all the apps/framework and the GUI, the OS is probably less than 512MB (based on the open source darwin's binary iso size).

The other thing that you need to consider is the memory swap. Mac OS X have swap, iOS doesn't. Even if you run out of free memory on the Macs, you'll begin to switch to the harddrive/ssd to use as virtual memory.
 
Resume feature

MikhailT said:
I love this feature, of resuming the apps to their open state . I have to close Mail before I reboot because a bug keeps me from using until I close and reopen Mail - I know because of the preview status I have to expect that. I cannot wait until the next update- I wonder if it will be the GM 1 as it has been rumored. Any one having this issue with Mail or any other app?

Secondly, Apple didn't take open/close lights away, it is now an optional setting in the Systems Preferences. The reason Apple did this is because they want to remove the idea of "open"/"closed" states. The software are starting to catch up to the hardware in terms of speed that we can leave applications and return to it in the same state. Apple wants to be able to introduce the concept of *resuming* apps, not *closed*. When you restart Lion with open apps, Lion will restart with the same open apps in the same state. This is the future on Mac OS X. No more closing required, especially with a fast SSD.
Click to expand...
 
OK MikhailT, I'm not sure if you didn't actually read my posts, are just an unhelpful person, or if I was unclear in some way. Let me break it down.

MikhailT said:
If the iPad devices are as powerful as our computers, we would not be experiencing any issues in Safari. You're talking about just 256MB of RAM in the first-gen iPad and 512MB in second-gen iPad which are able to handle the sites in Safari much better than it does in the first-gen iPad. Add 2GB-4GB to the iPad, Mobile Safari would be able to handle 20 sites without any refreshing required.
Click to expand...
Yes, I acknowledged that Macs have significantly more RAM than the 512mb of iPad 2's, but that doesn't remove the possibility. If the iPad had 2gb of RAM it would conceivably happen eventually. Say on my macbook running lion I were to open 30 safari tabs (for some people that is not uncommon), then my wife comes and uploads pictures, edits them in Lightroom, then plays some angry birds. Then my (hypothetical) kids come along and play a few hardware intensive games, and maybe open a new safari window to browse the internet. Then I come back and write some word documents and excel spreadsheets. I go to bed, then go to work the next day (who knows what all my wife and kids do on the computer). EVERYTHING is left "open" because we are on Lion so nobody closes anything. I come home and go back to my safari tabs. Is it even POSSIBLE to have some of the tabs disappear or need to be refreshed to view? Would some of my full screen "spaces" apps disappear as well? What if my macbook only has 1gb of RAM? That's only double the iPad 2. I don't think it's that inconceivable

Secondly, Apple didn't take open/close lights away, it is now an optional setting in the Systems Preferences. The reason Apple did this is because they want to remove the idea of "open"/"closed" states.
Click to expand...
I know why they did it. And that is the way Apple wants it, that's why it's default. If it were up to Apple the option to put it back would be gone. But they were smart enough to anticipate the "outrage"

The software are starting to catch up to the hardware in terms of speed that we can leave applications and return to it in the same state. Apple wants to be able to introduce the concept of *resuming* apps, not *closed*. When you restart Lion with open apps, Lion will restart with the same open apps in the same state. This is the future on Mac OS X. No more closing required, especially with a fast SSD.
Click to expand...
This is my point of concern. No closing could cause apps to "close" that you didn't want them to. Now most of them would be able to *resume* as left with no issue. But would 30 safari tabs be handled the same way?

The hard drive/ssd in today's computers are much faster than the NANDs in the current iPad. Resuming an app is much faster than it would be on a modern computer. Look at how fast apps are resuming from the previous state in the iPad 2 and you can see how much the hardware difference is affecting the performance.
Click to expand...
speed of resuming has nothing to do with what I'm talking about...

The other thing that you need to consider is the memory swap. Mac OS X have swap, iOS doesn't. Even if you run out of free memory on the Macs, you'll begin to switch to the harddrive/ssd to use as virtual memory.
Click to expand...
Well finally we get to something that might actually be helpful. This would help to explain why Macs don't do this. But are there any issues/concerns with this?

Pressure said:
If you had tried running Lion, you would know by now that this is simply not the case.
Click to expand...
Well, I obviously haven't. That's why I'm asking.


Sky Blue said:
No, it's quite ridiculous in fact.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:
 
You weren’t clear about your questions, you keep going back and forth about Safari’s refreshing thing on iOS and iOS vs. Lion. I tried to explain everything from the beginning.

Mad Mac Maniac said:
Well finally we get to something that might actually be helpful. This would help to explain why Macs don't do this. But are there any issues/concerns with this?
Click to expand...
The NANDs (flash storage) in the mobile devices are too slow to constantly swap out between the system memory and the NANDs. The other problem is that the more you swap out from the NANDs, the faster it dies. The smaller the capacity, the faster it can die as well. NANDs have a very limited write lifespan, it can’t handle the brutal write-intensive swap page. RAM doesn’t have this problem, which is why it is used for memory tasks.

Mad Mac Maniac said:
I know why they did it. And that is the way Apple wants it, that's why it's default. If it were up to Apple the option to put it back would be gone. But they were smart enough to anticipate the "outrage"
Click to expand...
It doesn’t have anything to do with a potential outrage from customers, Apple usually do not care about this. The biggest reason that it is optional is because the auto-resume/auto-save/versions are not mandatory and each app have to be written to take advantage of those features. It’ll be a long time before every apps on your Mac can take advantage of this.

Mad Mac Maniac said:
This is my point of concern. No closing could cause apps to "close" that you didn't want them to. Now most of them would be able to *resume* as left with no issue. But would 30 safari tabs be handled the same way?
Click to expand...
You can still close the applications the same way as you do on Snow Leopard. If the system becomes slow, the OS will not start to close apps, it’ll just be slower as it adapt to using your hard drive. Safari is the same way, you close Safari and once it opens, it’ll start in a new tab waiting for you to visit a site. As far as I am aware, it doesn’t resume *yet* from your previous session.

The only major difference between Lion and SL in terms of resuming is how the apps open back up and how it automatically save your files.
 
yeah i dont know why this behaviour continues on lion it makes no sense, I like to go down a page and open up in new tabs as i go down and then read them after they have loaded or even leave them there for hours/days before i get back to them and now i cant do this becaue the page will just auto refresh

or if i want to load something up while being tethered for later reading while im on the move or something i cant do this either

ill probably jump ship to firefox if a hack doesnt turn up to stop safari refreshing tabs when you go back to them after a while:eek::eek:
 
proxtoyz said:
yeah i dont know why this behaviour continues on lion it makes no sense, I like to go down a page and open up in new tabs as i go down and then read them after they have loaded or even leave them there for hours/days before i get back to them and now i cant do this becaue the page will just auto refresh

or if i want to load something up while being tethered for later reading while im on the move or something i cant do this either

ill probably jump ship to firefox if a hack doesnt turn up to stop safari refreshing tabs when you go back to them after a while:eek::eek:
Click to expand...

Wait... On lion or iOS?
 
lol. This thread is a merge of 'Mac OS X becoming more like iOS' and 'Safari eating up RAM! HELP!'
whoa whoa whoa, chill down man. It's not like the change is killing anyone.
 
seong said:
lol. This thread is a merge of 'Mac OS X becoming more like iOS' and 'Safari eating up RAM! HELP!'
whoa whoa whoa, chill down man. It's not like the change is killing anyone.
Click to expand...
It kills me inside every time a page reloads for NO REASON, bandwidth is wasted, my time is wasted, processing power is wasted, it makes no sense, it hurts me more that safari was fine and then it was CHANGED to this inferior method of operation and finally and more importantly it kills me inside to know that this change was made and thought to be positive by the company I support in no small way
Mad Mac Maniac said:
Wait... On lion or iOS?
Click to expand...

im talking about Lion, the topic title is "Safari pages refresh in Lion?". I don't mind it on iOS as I understand the technical need for them to do it but it was never a problem on the desktops and really unnecessary.
 
Last edited:
seong said:
lol. This thread is a merge of 'Mac OS X becoming more like iOS' and 'Safari eating up RAM! HELP!'
whoa whoa whoa, chill down man. It's not like the change is killing anyone.
Click to expand...

Actually this thread is intended to be neither of those. This was a question that I posed before Lion was released. (I still don't have Lion, so I haven't been able to experience it one way or the other for myself) It is frusterating when responses in this thread have continuously minced my words and intentions. This was my thought process.

iOS - Manages RAM on it's own. Apps automatically shut. Pages refresh in safari

Lion - Adopting RAM managing techniques similar to iOS. Apple (by default) removes the light under the apps to create the same illusion that there is no difference between running and not running.

(note I am in no way referring to any graphical similaries or that safari in Lion eats up RAM)

So my question was simply, how far does this RAM managing technique go? Could it hypothetically cause open windows to close? Could it hypothetically cause old safari pages to refresh?

The emphatic response I got from everyone was "NO WAY!! GOSH, LION IS NOT IOS!@!!!11!"

So I assumed that it wasn't an issue at all which now really surprises me when I read....

proxtoyz said:
It kills me inside every time a page reloads for NO REASON, bandwidth is wasted, my time is wasted, processing power is wasted, it makes no sense, it hurts me more that safari was fine and then it was CHANGED to this inferior method of operation and finally and more importantly it kills me inside to know that this change was made and thought to be positive by the company I support in no small way


im talking about Lion, the topic title is "Safari pages refresh in Lion?". I don't mind it on iOS as I understand the technical need for them to do it but it was never a problem on the desktops and really unnecessary.
Click to expand...

So Proxtoyz you'll have to excuse me for asking if you meant Lion, because all the other responses so confidently dictate that this does NOT occur...
 
Mad Mac Maniac said:
So I assumed that it wasn't an issue at all which now really surprises me when I read....

So Proxtoyz you'll have to excuse me for asking if you meant Lion, because all the other responses so confidently dictate that this does NOT occur...
Click to expand...

ha sorry I didn't know you were the OP and I'm sorry that my post was the first legitimate response in this thread and I did not realise this thread was made before lion was released. It seemed the most fitting place for my rant though.
 
proxtoyz said:
ha sorry I didn't know you were the OP and I'm sorry that my post was the first legitimate response in this thread and I did not realise this thread was made before lion was released. It seemed the most fitting place for my rant though.
Click to expand...

Haha no worries. Yes I agree this is a very fitting place for your rant. I'm glad you did, because otherwise I probably wouldn't have noticed.

Why is no one else talking about this?
 
derbothaus said:
They are. It is real. The system can shut down your open windows and relegate memory as it see's fit.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars/8#process-model
Click to expand...

Well that page was a good read. But of course that was deeply embedded into a 19 page ginormous review. But still aside from that I haven't seen any reviews or MR complainers talking about apps closing or safari pages refreshing. Especially when everyone seemed so convinced that it Lion didn't do that... I, ashamedly, feel some pride looking back at some of these smug responses from people that seemed to know.

djrod said:
This MacOs-becoming-iOS fear thing is getting out of your hands people!
Click to expand...

Pressure said:
If you had tried running Lion, you would know by now that this is simply not the case.
Click to expand...

Sky Blue said:
No, it's quite ridiculous in fact.
Click to expand...

MikhailT said:
The only major difference between Lion and SL in terms of resuming is how the apps open back up and how it automatically save your files.
Click to expand...

sigh... :rolleyes:
 
Y'know, I've been wondering why Safari keeps auto-refreshing pages with Lion.

As far as iOS replacing OS X, I don't see it happening. It's called progress – all these complaints about Lion are just making me think back to OS 9 / Cheetah days.

"My open lights are gone! How am I supposed to work with apps?!" sounds a LOT like "Where did the Chooser go?! How will I handle printers and AppleTalk now?!"
 
DJLC said:
Y'know, I've been wondering why Safari keeps auto-refreshing pages with Lion.

As far as iOS replacing OS X, I don't see it happening. It's called progress – all these complaints about Lion are just making me think back to OS 9 / Cheetah days.

"My open lights are gone! How am I supposed to work with apps?!" sounds a LOT like "Where did the Chooser go?! How will I handle printers and AppleTalk now?!"
Click to expand...

I do agree that most of the complaints about Lion are, to me, very superficial and that some things will just take some getting used to. But this issue of Safari reloading every time I switch between open browser windows, doesn't make sense to me and doesn't seem to serve a purpose. If there is I'd love to know what it is, because it is driving me nuts.
 
MikhailT said:
You can still close the applications the same way as you do on Snow Leopard. If the system becomes slow, the OS will not start to close apps, it’ll just be slower as it adapt to using your hard drive. Safari is the same way, you close Safari and once it opens, it’ll start in a new tab waiting for you to visit a site. As far as I am aware, it doesn’t resume *yet* from your previous session. The only major difference between Lion and SL in terms of resuming is how the apps open back up and how it automatically save your files.
Click to expand...

actually lion does autooclose apps when it thinks it needs the resources. it's in the new framework. it is also whhy the 'on' lights in the dock are disabled by default. lion forces the app to quit and the new autosave/resume thingy is supposed to bring everything back once you restart the application. you won't actually know it quit since the signal lights are gone from lion.
 
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