iPad WIFI vs. MacBook Pro

[profmjh]

My MacBook Pro (Retina, Late 2013) has been driving me crazy recently. Despite having extremely fast broadband (which even it confirms when I run speed tests) it can be painfully slow at loading web pages on Safari and Mail often complains of a connection error.

I've noticed that my iPad Air 2 has no such problems. Indeed, the two of them can be sitting side-by-side, and the iPad will ping to let me know mail has arrived, and the MacBook will sit there grumpily doing nothing.

Is my nearly three-year old MacBook just old and past it now? Is there any explanation for this difference in performance? Is it part of some secret built-in obsolescence, designed to make me upgrade?

 

[geraldem]

I am seeing the exact same thing between the IPP and rMB. So not just old MacBooks. Not sure why, but I haven't really dug into it yet either.

 

[Dukeie]

Are you running the latest is?

 

[profmjh]

Are you running the latest is?

I'll try not to be offended by that, ahem.

Yes, I am.

 

[Dukeie]

Lol sorry wasn't trying to offend anyone. Just trying to cover all the bases

 

[profmjh]

Lol sorry wasn't trying to offend anyone. Just trying to cover all the bases

It was a fair question. It's just, as an Apple Fanboy, I upgrade within the first 30 seconds of upgrades being available.

I've kept blaming my router because the problem seemed to start when I got a new one from my ISP. But I'm increasingly thinking it's a software problem. My iOS devices seem fine and speedtest.com keeps claiming my rMBP is getting download speeds of 70Mbps with a ping of 12ms, despite the webpage itself taking an age to load.

 

[Ghost31]

Yes I saw you in the other thread. Have you tried just deleting your mail accounts in settings and then re adding them?

 

[profmjh]

Yes I saw you in the other thread. Have you tried just deleting your mail accounts in settings and then re adding them?

No, because I think there's more going on than that. Safari is playing-up, too, with the slow page loading. I don't think it's an app-specific thing. And I no longer think it's a router or WIFI problem because my iOS devices are being well-behaved.

The sensible thing is probably to do some kind of clean reinstall or whatever. But that sounds traumatising.

[Posting this thread failed the first time I clicked on Post Reply. I guess it timed out. This is really quite annoying.]

 

[whtrbt7]

iOS and OSX are completely different nowadays. My experience has been that iOS has been MUCH more reliable and quick compared to OSX. iPads have hardware that is paired with software to give the fastest response. Macs have components cobbled together from different manufacturers to form a system. The difference now is that Macs have a lot of parts directly from Apple so a Mac built post 2013 with SSD storage, will work much faster than an older Mac. iPads however will function faster as long as they are at least an iPad mini 2 or later.

The other thing I've noticed with OSX is that the Mail app is now WAY dated and really hokey. That's why it keeps having problems with IMAP accounts and sometimes even Exchange accounts. I wish Apple would just completely rewrite the Mail app but that's probably not going to happen. Safari also suffers from several hiccups due to its need to buffer things on a hard drive. The main reason for a lot of Safari slowdown I feel is from the hard drive (which doesn't really make a huge amount of sense in today's tech). The other side of the story is with iOS, it will reload pages if you don't have enough space in memory/RAM for the website to fit. anyways, long story short, iOS devices normally handle content for email and web browsing better than OSX now.

 

[Badrottie]

But OS X and iOS runs differently I suppose Mail app on iOS is faster than OS X Mail app. No? Am I super wrong?

 

[profmjh]

I may have solved my WIFI problem, thanks to stackexchange, where I found the following fix. So far, it seems to be working.

Which is awkward because not only I am currently the proud owner of a new iPad Pro, I've also ordered a new MacBook. Of course, I'm free to return either or both of them.

 

[cynics]

It was a fair question. It's just, as an Apple Fanboy, I upgrade within the first 30 seconds of upgrades being available.

I've kept blaming my router because the problem seemed to start when I got a new one from my ISP. But I'm increasingly thinking it's a software problem. My iOS devices seem fine and speedtest.com keeps claiming my rMBP is getting download speeds of 70Mbps with a ping of 12ms, despite the webpage itself taking an age to load.

I see you may have fixed it, but being a fanboy you reset SMC and PRAM first correct?

In El Cap I get some odd Safari behavior and the annoying solution is to just close safari and reopen it. It will keep getting slower and slower until typing is lagged by seconds.

 

[profmjh]

I see you may have fixed it, but being a fanboy you reset SMC and PRAM first correct?

In El Cap I get some odd Safari behavior and the annoying solution is to just close safari and reopen it. It will keep getting slower and slower until typing is lagged by seconds.

I was on the phone to Apple and they were giving me the instructions to reset SMC but I'm not sure I actually managed it successfully. I think they got the instructions wrong. We then got cut off. When I went to Apple's own site, it said resetting the SMC is the last resort, so I didn't try again. I've always thought resetting the PRAM is a bit of a scam, so I didn't bother.

All I know I've done for sure is the instructions from stackexchange. Since then, Safari and Mail have been performing flawlessly with no delays on web pages. In the hours before then, my MacBook was driving me insane: web pages were loading so slowly (if at all) to the point of uselessness.

 

[whtrbt7]

If you're hanging on Safari, it's normally a TCP/IP stack that's corrupted or damaged. Easiest fix for that is to create a new location and then reconnecting to your router. iOS doesn't seem to have these same issues since it's written differently. Apple maybe should rewrite the mail app for OSX from scratch but then we have another iPhoto to Photos App transition which was kind of a nightmare. Personally I think the Mail app for iOS is written better and hence gets performance gains. It's one of the reasons why I'm normally on my iPad rather than hash out stuff on a MacBook Pro Retina. I just TeamViewer into the MacBook Pro when I HAVE to use something on it like DxO, full Photoshop, PTGui, or any of the scripting software that isn't out for iOS.