iPad iOS 8 does not fix Safari Reloading tabs

Ok.

The bottlenecks for tabbed web browsing in the current iPad hardware are storage speed and RAM amount. One of these needs to happen this year:

• Upgrade the NAND flash storage to an SSD like Apple uses in other products (and enable paging). This increases sequential write speeds by more than 2000%, making paging a great way to keep apps and tabs in memory.
• Increase 1GB RAM to 2GB RAM. On the iPad Air, iOS 7 eats up 700 MB RAM, leaving 300 MB for the current app and recently used apps. If the iPad had 2GB RAM, 1.3 GB would be free for apps. In addition, when side-by-side multitasking is likely introduced for the iPad in iOS 8.1 or 8.2, 2GB of RAM is a must, because 300 MB of free RAM is not enough to run two apps at once.

 

Canonical response:

Now: duh, iOS 8 is a BETA!

8.0 release day: It'll be fixed in .1

8.1 release day: (A) It wasn't an issue to begin with, (B) you're a troll, (C) wait for 9.0

 

You have gotten it down to a science. This is exactly what was, is, and will continue to be the pushback from the fanbois, when it comes to the poor safari experience.

 

it's exciting for the tabs to refresh, your websites' versions will be on the bleeding edge!

 

I don't think a software update will increase the amount of RAM on board.

 

Some things never change? Uhg, and I was planning on getting one of the next ipads....

 

Ok, maybe this will help.

It didn't fully resolve the issue for me, but it made a huge difference.

Prior to this, even with only 2 tabs open, they would reload when I switched between them about 70% of the time. This went on for months. Even after iOS 7.1 came out. This is on a 4th gen iPad by the way.

I just went into settings and chose reset all settings. This helped immensely, and I don't know why. However, I do know that with no other apps open, tab reloading isn't much of a problem anymore. Now, they still do occasionally reload, and do reload more frequently if I have alien blue/google docs/pages/youtube/games etc open, but the problem is greatly reduced.

I don't know if this will help you or not, nor do I know the severity of this problem for you (all). All I know is it helped me a lot. Definitely worth a shot, since it doesn't erase any important content.

Hope this helps. I did this about 2 months ago, and the issue was definitely alleviated.

 

That'd be great, but SSD class memory is still too costly at this point.

Instead, phones use relatively inexpensive Flash memory, which also has a relatively low write cycle lifetime. It's more than enough for regular usage, like adding a few songs each day, but not for a situation where code is constantly writing web cache or doing OS paging.

Plus, the constant page refreshing causes extra online ad & website view counts, so you can claim personal web usage dominance!

 

Considering that no one on here has any say in the hardware specs for this or the next or any future devices, what other "pushback" do you expect?

I guess you can add "you're right, Apple hardware sucks. Go get an Android tablet or a Windows 8 device."

Happy?

 

Still find it odd this affects iPads and not iPhones if its a RAM issue.....

Though I suppose someone mentioned iPads having to cache larger pages and such so they take up more space.

I've had no problem with tabs reloading on my 5S, but I do run into this on my Air.

 

The iPad has a lot more pixels than the 5s. That impacts RAM quite a bit.

 

Gotcha. I guess that makes sense. Based on past trends, I would expect to see 2 GB RAM in this year's devices.

 

You are probably right... SSD memory costs about double the price of the NAND flash memory. For a 16GB iPad, that would add perhaps $10 to the BOM. Increasing RAM to 2GB would also add $10 to the BOM. So I guess Apple would probably add 2GB RAM before adding an SSD.

I know this, but thanks for posting it for everyone else!

That sure is one way for Apple to increase mobile safari market share.

 

The same thing happens to the iPhone and it already has more ram. Anytime I open Safari on my 5S, the currently open tab always reloads. How much ram would be needed to fix this if 2GB isn't enough because apparently, it's not.

 

Exactly 542 GB of RAM will solve this. Give or take a few megabytes.

 

Most places that measure browser share metrics go by unique visits, not raw page hits.

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The iPhone does not have 2GB of RAM.

 

theres nothing to fix

 

Well who an argue that? . But I'm sure many people here including myself don't see it that way.

 

Just let you know, iPad has only 1GB of RAM... Websites these day are getting bigger and bigger. It takes more RAM than it used to... Android with 1GB of RAM has same problem. So unless Apple decide to give us total refund for the device or adding more RAM for us, then we are stuck.

 

Yeah there's nothing quite as nice as when your iPad gobbles up data by refreshing all of your tabs. Not like it'd make a lot more sense if it just sat in the RAM or anything.

 

Can confirm on iPad Air, - no change in Safari tab reloading on iOS 8.

 

I think it's working as Apple intended which is why it's not "fixed" in 8.0.

Just like with chapters being removed for audiobooks, it's what Apple intended.

 

I've dissected a Chinese-branded Android tablet and it uses the same Crucial/Micron MLC ONFi NAND flash found in numerous SSD's (I checked the part numbers). The difference is unlike in SSD's, you only have one or two of these modules installed so not much parallelism going on and the controller logic is built into the CPU instead of having a separate CPU/controller. No DRAM cache either. Yes, I know the iPad uses eMMC which combines a relatively simple controller and NAND flash in a tiny package. Thing is a full SSD (even M.2 or mSATA) is just not particularly feasible for a device in the iPad's class as it would use up too much space and power (relatively speaking).

 

I believe really good software optimization could help here, give iOS 8 some time, but hardware is beginning to become a bottleneck.

I have read the arguments for and against the need of more RAM, but in the end 1 GB for a high functioning device in 2014 regardless of software is skimpy.