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iPad Why do Safari tabs keep reloading on my iPad Air?

S

saintforlife

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 25, 2011
1,046
329
I barely will have 3-4 tabs open and maybe 4-5 other apps 'paused' in the background, but when I switch from one app to Safari or from one tab to another, my pages reload more than 50% of the time. It is getting pretty annoying. I never had this problem on my iPhone 5 on which I don't ever close paused apps and have 10-12 tabs open sometimes.

I don't understand why my iPad Air is performing worse than my iPhone 5? Shouldn't the iPad perform better since it has newer hardware? Is there something wrong with my iPad? Please note that this is my first ever iPad, so I don't have any experience with older models. I set up my iPad as new and have only installed Netflix, Youtube and the Apple apps on it so far. I have the 16GB model with 5.5GB free space.

Any advice is welcome.
 
The iPad Air has a 64bit architecture & larger resolution than the iPhone 5, yet both have the same 1gb of RAM. This means the Air will run out of RAM sooner & need to refresh sites/apps more often.
 
saintforlife said:
I barely will have 3-4 tabs open and maybe 4-5 other apps 'paused' in the background, but when I switch from one app to Safari or from one tab to another, my pages reload more than 50% of the time. It is getting pretty annoying. I never had this problem on my iPhone 5 on which I don't ever close paused apps and have 10-12 tabs open sometimes.

I don't understand why my iPad Air is performing worse than my iPhone 5? Shouldn't the iPad perform better since it has newer hardware? Is there something wrong with my iPad? Please note that this is my first ever iPad, so I don't have any experience with older models. I set up my iPad as new and have only installed Netflix, Youtube and the Apple apps on it so far. I have the 16GB model with 5.5GB free space.

Any advice is welcome.
Click to expand...

I have the same thing on my iphone 5. I barely use tabs, but when i switch between tabs and apps, it seems to reload (goes blank for a moment, then comes back but right up the top of the tab/app). Its very annoying, and only happened after iOS7.
 
herdnerfer said:
The iPad Air has a 64bit architecture & larger resolution than the iPhone 5, yet both have the same 1gb of RAM. This means the Air will run out of RAM sooner & need to refresh sites/apps more often.
Click to expand...
So will Apple release a SW fix since we are out of luck with the RAM? This is unacceptable. I had high hopes for my first iPad after holding out for so long.
 
in march 2014 a revolutionary iPad air 2 with ...

you guessed it

2gb ram will be released. the iPad air was my first tablet and i took it back after 7 days of usage. non stop crashes and safari reloads. its not worth 500 bucks. hopefully they get it right next time
 
There has to be some software issue or memory leak problem with Safari. No way should it crash as often as it does. Hopefully everyone has the setting turned on where diagnostic logs get automatically sent to Apple.

iOS 7 really needs a lot of work for the iPads. It's embarrassing quite frankly that they have such great products hardware-wise that are crippled by buggy, pre-mature software. It's like it didn't even get QC tested...
 
Because Apple needed a reason to come out with a new "revolutionary" iPad in six months with the proper 2-3 GB ram that every other 64bit device is using these days.
 
saintforlife said:
So will Apple release a SW fix since we are out of luck with the RAM? This is unacceptable. I had high hopes for my first iPad after holding out for so long.
Click to expand...

They may provide some improvement via software, but fundamentally this is a part of iOS. There is no ability to cache anything out of ram to disk, so eventually, no matter how much ram you have, you will run out. I think that they could improve this in software by being a lot more intelligent about how Safari tabs are treated, but it will never go away entirely.

Many people end up switching to alternative browsers which tend to hold on to pages for longer because of this. I agree that it is one of the biggest irritations in my otherwise favorite computing device.
 
zhenya said:
They may provide some improvement via software, but fundamentally this is a part of iOS. There is no ability to cache anything out of ram to disk, so eventually, no matter how much ram you have, you will run out. I think that they could improve this in software by being a lot more intelligent about how Safari tabs are treated, but it will never go away entirely.

Many people end up switching to alternative browsers which tend to hold on to pages for longer because of this. I agree that it is one of the biggest irritations in my otherwise favorite computing device.
Click to expand...
But why don't I have the same problem on my iPhone 5? It is a one year old phone and still works like a champ even on iOS 7. I can't remember the last time I had a low memory issue or a safari reload/crash issue on the iPhone 5.

Is the 64-bit processor on the iPad Airsomehow to blame for this crash issue?

If I go to the genius bar, how will they help me? Will they offer a free replacement?
 
isephmusic said:
in march 2014 a revolutionary iPad air 2 with ...

you guessed it

2gb ram will be released. the iPad air was my first tablet and i took it back after 7 days of usage. non stop crashes and safari reloads. its not worth 500 bucks. hopefully they get it right next time
Click to expand...

Lol... They're not going to release an iPad in March, but ok.
 
The.Dude said:
Because Apple needed a reason to come out with a new "revolutionary" iPad in six months with the proper 2-3 GB ram that every other 64bit device is using these days.
Click to expand...

Funny how it is probably true, apple will release next iPad with more ram and call it the greatest iPad ever
 
saintforlife said:
But why don't I have the same problem on my iPhone 5? It is a one year old phone and still works like a champ even on iOS 7. I can't remember the last time I had a low memory issue or a safari reload/crash issue on the iPhone 5.

Is the 64-bit processor on the iPad Airsomehow to blame for this crash issue?

If I go to the genius bar, how will they help me? Will they offer a free replacement?
Click to expand...

I have never really had this issue on my phones to the extent that I have on all iPads. I think that it is partially that we don't really open as many tabs, in general on phones, and that the webpages are often lighter-weight, mobile friendlier versions. Otherwise, I don't have a good answer for you. Replacing it will just be a waste of everyone's time. It is what it is.
 
saintforlife said:
But why don't I have the same problem on my iPhone 5? It is a one year old phone and still works like a champ even on iOS 7. I can't remember the last time I had a low memory issue or a safari reload/crash issue on the iPhone 5.

Is the 64-bit processor on the iPad Airsomehow to blame for this crash issue?

If I go to the genius bar, how will they help me? Will they offer a free replacement?
Click to expand...

I noticed the same thing. Is it fair to say that iOS 7 for iPhones >>>>>>> iOS 7 for iPads?

It really does need some optimization.
 
alex2792 said:
Because Apple is too cheap to include sufficient ram.
Click to expand...

No, while that makes a good sound bite that's far from the full story. RAM is easy to get today, but it also makes for lazy developers. By keeping the RAM tight and not allowing paging, it keeps iOS responsive on relatively underpowered (compared to a full computer) equipment and keeps the battery life consistently good because there isn't a lot of room for bugs.

Try using a Windows tablet like the Surface Pro. Despite far more computing power and 4x the RAM, the overall experience isn't even as smooth as what you get on an iPad. Scrolling, multitasking, wake from sleep, etc. all are not as good. So while Apple may have pushed the boundaries this time, realize that there are sound reasons for not just giving an unlimited amount of RAM to work with.
 
Low amount of RAM. Memory leaks will cause this to happen sooner and sooner over time, but the Air has less effective RAM that the ipad 3 and 4.
 
zhenya said:
No, while that makes a good sound bite that's far from the full story. RAM is easy to get today, but it also makes for lazy developers. By keeping the RAM tight and not allowing paging, it keeps iOS responsive on relatively underpowered (compared to a full computer) equipment and keeps the battery life consistently good because there isn't a lot of room for bugs.

Try using a Windows tablet like the Surface Pro. Despite far more computing power and 4x the RAM, the overall experience isn't even as smooth as what you get on an iPad. Scrolling, multitasking, wake from sleep, etc. all are not as good. So while Apple may have pushed the boundaries this time, realize that there are sound reasons for not just giving an unlimited amount of RAM to work with.
Click to expand...

Uh I'm using surface 2 and the browser is light years ahead of mobile Safari. Smooth as butter with flash so I can use hulu to watch TV shows without subscription. Apple is simply trying to increase their margins at the cost of user experience. Btw, surface 2 is Far better than iPad, take it from a former iPad owner.
 
I noticed this a few days after I bought it. Even two tabs it kept reloading. I turned it off and back on and it's been fine.

It might be a memory leak after Safari crashed a couple of times. Rebooting it fixed it. I'll pay attention next time Safari crashes again to test this theory.
 
isephmusic said:
in march 2014 a revolutionary iPad air 2 with ...

you guessed it

2gb ram will be released. the iPad air was my first tablet and i took it back after 7 days of usage. non stop crashes and safari reloads. its not worth 500 bucks. hopefully they get it right next time
Click to expand...

You had a faulty unit most likely. I had similar problems and one exchange later its as sturdy as a horse.
 
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