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4.3 makes the iPad's browser much, much better!

B

BruiserBear

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 24, 2008
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Not only does 4.3 make Safari on the original iPad much faster, it also seems to be making much better use of the original iPad's paltry 256mb of RAM!

I've been playing with 4.3 for a couple days now, and this morning I wondered what other improvements they made. I'm sure many of you have loaded up an image heavy web page, only to see the iPad's browser stop loading images at some point down the page. In place of the missing pics it would leave these little blue ? icons.

A few months ago I came across a particularly image heavy page showing the best pictures of 2010. I remembered the iPad Safari only loading about 3/4 of the images. Well, this morning I found that page again and to my surprise every single image loaded! I tried it again, and they all loaded a second time!

So it seems there are some substantial improvements in 4.3, and this really gives me one less reason to want the iPad 2, as I always figured the originals 256mb of memory were the reason for this picture problem. Apparently that was not then case, as it appears to have been fixed with a software update.

Here is a link to that photo thread I mentioned. Those of you still browsing on 4.2.1 can see how many of the pics load for you.


http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/2010_in_photos_part_1_of_3.html
 
BruiserBear said:
Not only does 4.3 make Safari on the original iPad much faster, it also seems to be making much better use of the original iPad's paltry 256mb of RAM!

I've been playing with 4.3 for a couple days now, and this morning I wondered what other improvements they made. I'm sure many of you have loaded up an image heavy web page, only to see the iPad's browser stop loading images at some point down the page. In place of the missing pics it would leave these little blue ? icons.

A few months ago I came across a particularly image heavy page showing the best pictures of 2010. I remembered the iPad Safari only loading about 3/4 of the images. Well, this morning I found that page again and to my surprise every single image loaded! I tried it again, and they all loaded a second time!

So it seems there are some substantial improvements in 4.3, and this really gives me one less reason to want the iPad 2, as I always figured the originals 256mb of memory were the reason for this picture problem. Apparently that was not then case, as it appears to have been fixed with a software update.

Here is a link to that photo thread I mentioned. Those of you still browsing on 4.2.1 can see how many of the pics load for you.


http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/2010_in_photos_part_1_of_3.html
Click to expand...

Are there any improvements over the refreshing problem?

Can you finally open all 8 tabs and switch between them without a refresh of the page?
 
iMattcotv said:
Are there any improvements over the refreshing problem?

Can you finally open all 8 tabs and switch between them without a refresh of the page?
Click to expand...

8????

With 4.2, I couldn't open 2 tab's, check email, and still not have it reload.
 
iMattcotv said:
Are there any improvements over the refreshing problem?

Can you finally open all 8 tabs and switch between them without a refresh of the page?
Click to expand...

No, I don't believe that is any different. I felt it got slightly better with the last update, but I think for that to get any better you're going to need that extra RAM the iPad 2 will provide.
 
BruiserBear said:
No, I don't believe that is any different. I felt it got slightly better with the last update, but I think for that to get any better you're going to need that extra RAM the iPad 2 will provide.
Click to expand...

Agreed, the update to safari on the iPad in 4.3 didn't really have anything to do with the page refreshes with many tabs open. The update really focused on taking advantage of a new javascript engine to allow pages to load faster.
 
I think the $65,000 question everyone wants to see answered: Does Safari refresh tabs that you return to browsing from other tabs? The browser loses context when you are looking at multiple pages, and this is the #1 most annoying thing about iPad, from what I understand.

Edit: Misread the last 2 posts.
 
This is why I wont get the iPad 2 if it has 256mb ram.

It drives me completely insane having to wait 2-3 seconds every/ single/ time I want to switch over between tabs...

timepressure.jpg
 
iMattcotv said:
This is why I wont get the iPad 2 if it has 256mb ram.

It drives me completely insane having to wait 2-3 seconds every/ single/ time I want to switch over between tabs...
Click to expand...

I don't think you have to worry about iPad 2 having 256mb of RAM. If the iPhone 4 got 512mb in June of 2010, I can't see any way they wouldn't put that much in the iPad 2 in March of 2011.
 
iMattcotv said:
Are there any improvements over the refreshing problem?

Can you finally open all 8 tabs and switch between them without a refresh of the page?
Click to expand...

No, switching tabs still sucks in Safari iOS 4.3
There is a.99 cent app caled Atomic Web Browser that has a tab bar an switching between tabs takes you right back to where you were. Many other nice features as well.
The only downside is that it is slower than Safari on iOS 4.3
 
Nascar Dog said:
No, switching tabs still sucks in Safari iOS 4.3
There is a.99 cent app caled Atomic Web Browser that has a tab bar an switching between tabs takes you right back to where you were. Many other nice features as well.
The only downside is that it is slower than Safari on iOS 4.3
Click to expand...
Yet faster than Atomic on 4.2, and that's before Atomic release an upgrade...
 
So if Atomic works great, doesn't that simply show that the issue with browsing isn't Ram related directly? Or it's an issue of Safari not using the memory properly? Basically is it feasible that Safari on iPad 2 with more Ram could still have the refreshing issues?
 
iserian said:
Without refreshing fixed its still a pita. I am loving the tab support on my xoom shame apple can't get the browser right in 4.3.
Click to expand...
You go ahead and love your Xoom. The rest of us will enjoy more than adequate browsing and a plethora of great apps.
 
iserian said:
Without refreshing fixed its still a pita. I am loving the tab support on my xoom shame apple can't get the browser right in 4.3.
Click to expand...

Now if only the Xoom would fix their crappy tap to zoom in their browser. I still prefer to browse on my iPad 1 then the Xoom.
 
To be honest, I see no difference in speed using the GM release in Safari performance. It may be there, I just don't see it.
 
This is actually pretty interesting. I can't try that link on my iPad because I sold it in anticipation of the new one, but my iPhone 4 on 4.2.1 had no trouble with that link. I wouldn't think it would be a ram thing though because if you have no other apps in the background, the iPad should be able to handle it
 
Hope they fixed the YouTube<->Safari bug (where you follow a web page link to YouTube and when you return to Safari, it is masked out white).
 
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