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iPad Pro Safari not always slick on iPad Pro

fonemio

fonemio

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 14, 2010
32
12
Had my iPad Pro a few days now. So far so good. Beautiful piece of hardware and haven't touched my laptop since getting it (MacBook Retina - which I still plan to keep and use when necessary).

My only concern so far is running Safari. Most of the time pages load fast and scroll buttery smooth. I was really happy to see that as I scrolled down long articles everything had already been rendered. None of that choppiness you get on older iPads (where as you scroll down and then the remaining page appears white until half a second later the contend will display -- does that make sense?).
Problem is, this experience didn't last for very long. Sites will scroll smoothly with no additional loading and then, for no reason, 15 minutes later it becomes a choppy experience until I shut the browser completely and reopen it.
I've tried making sure no other apps are running in the background, restarted the iPad, have 100GB free...

Anyone know why this is? It's really putting me off browsing, especially picture heavy outlets like MailOnline.com.

Is there not enough memory being allocated to Safari? A stupid bug that'll get fixed? So far this is my only problem with an otherwise awesome device.

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Updated post with video to illustrate: https://sendvid.com/f98l6t63
 
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Never seen this happen before, personally. You're saying that if you let it sit on a web page for 15 minutes that it will suddenly become choppy/laggy when scrolling? That's very odd behavior.
 
ZombiePete said:
Never seen this happen before, personally. You're saying that if you let it sit on a web page for 15 minutes that it will suddenly become choppy/laggy when scrolling? That's very odd behavior.
Click to expand...

Not sit. Say if I've been clicking through pages on the MailOnline, the stories (even those with 30+ photos) all smoothly scroll to the bottom of the post with no additional loading/rendering... Then, for no reason at all (and still just one tab open) after 5-15 minutes, pages will load as if they're on an older less powerful iPad. I'll scroll down and the page will look white before displaying the rest of the conten a few milliseconds later.
It's happened to me on any regular site I visit: The Verge, Mail, UsMagazine.com, Polygon, eBay...
 
Forgive the low quality video but here's the front page of Mail Online running on Safari (via iPad Pro 128GB/cellular model with iOS 9.2). First time scrolling perfectly, six minutes later running like sh*t...

https://sendvid.com/f98l6t63

It's incredibly annoying because this type of device only works as a laptop replacement for those who use their devices for browsing, emails, documents, light photo/video editing etc. To be offering a buggy browsing experience is inexcusable.
 
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I've never seen Safari behave that way before, and I do a fair amount of browsing on my iPads. Are you running a content blocker by chance?
 
ZombiePete said:
I've never seen Safari behave that way before, and I do a fair amount of browsing on my iPads. Are you running a content blocker by chance?
Click to expand...

Not at all. It was like this out the box. I've experienced it on lesser powered iPads before many times, but this thing is technically superior to my rMB, and that thing browses like a dream with 20+ Safari tabs open.
 
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Yeah, Safari on iOS just isn't as good as it could be. Sometimes, third party browsers end up having smoother scrolling. Is it the same with FireFox and Chrome?
 
Michael Goff said:
Yeah, Safari on iOS just isn't as good as it could be. Sometimes, third party browsers end up having smoother scrolling. Is it the same with FireFox and Chrome?
Click to expand...
I really don't know how to respond except to say that I've never had a smoother, more reliable browsing experience than with Safari either in OSX or iOS.
 
ZombiePete said:
I really don't know how to respond except to say that I've never had a smoother, more reliable browsing experience than with Safari either in OSX or iOS.
Click to expand...

Have you used FireFox on iOS? The scrolling on that browser is actually better in my opinion.
 
It's safari and memory usage. With my iPad Air, and it's pathetic 1 gig of RAM, I get the browser experience you speak of, all the time. What I don't know for certain is if Safari has a max allowable amount of ram it can use. Since you have 4 times the amount of ran, I'm guessing that there is a limit(1, 1.5, 2 gigs), and you are hitting it.
 
fonemio said:
To be offering a buggy browsing experience is inexcusable.
Click to expand...

To be fair sometimes it's the website. When browsing a site that has so much stuff to load it takes awhile to render.

Not trying to excuse Safari.. Because I've experienced it when loading certain sites, but it's not a situation I've dealt with often. Safari is generally smooth & a fluid browser.

Try using Chrome on Android then come back and share your experience
 
Ludatyk said:
To be fair sometimes it's the website. When browsing a site that has so much stuff to load it takes awhile to render.

Not trying to excuse Safari.. Because I've experienced it when loading certain sites, but it's not a situation I've dealt with often. Safari is generally smooth & a fluid browser.

Try using Chrome on Android then come back and share your experience
Click to expand...

I can tell you that the whole "Chrome on Android sucks" thing isn't true on high end hardware. I've used it. Maybe it was true at one point. It isn't true now.
 
Michael Goff said:
I can tell you that the whole "Chrome on Android sucks" thing isn't true on high end hardware. I've used it. Maybe it was true at one point. It isn't true now.
Click to expand...

Well, I know Chrome has made some great strides to become a better browser on Android.

They get plenty of updates.. From Chrome Dev to the regular Chrome with Chrome Beta resting between the two. But when comparing browsers I'd go for Safari on iOS before Chrome on Android.

I have a S6... And Chrome on Android is a solid browser, I wouldn't say it "sucks." I just think the web browsing with Safari on iOS is a better experience.
 
Ludatyk said:
Well, I know Chrome has made some great strides to become a better browser on Android.

They get plenty of updates.. From Chrome Dev to the regular Chrome with Chrome Beta resting between the two. But when comparing browsers I'd go for Safari on iOS before Chrome on Android.

I have a S6... And Chrome on Android is a solid browser, I wouldn't say it "sucks." I just think the web browsing with Safari on iOS is a better experience.
Click to expand...

We're going to have to agree to disagree. While I do think that Safari provides a good enough experience, the S6 I have with the most up to date version of Chrome Dev seems faster and smoother to me than Safari on my Air 2. And that's just sad.
 
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Michael Goff said:
We're going to have to agree to disagree. While I do think that Safari provides a good enough experience, the S6 I have with the most up to date version of Chrome Dev seems faster and smoother to me than Safari on my Air 2. And that's just sad.
Click to expand...

Fair enough... Using iOS 9 ad blockers on both my iPad & 6s Plus is a faster & smoother experience TO ME compared to Chrome on Android with the S6.

I'm kind of disappointed that Google don't allow ad blockers for their Chrome browser, unless I'm missing something.
 
Ludatyk said:
Fair enough... Using iOS 9 ad blockers on both my iPad & 6s Plus is a faster & smoother experience TO ME compared to Chrome on Android with the S6.

I'm kind of disappointed that Google don't allow ad blockers for their Chrome browser, unless I'm missing something.
Click to expand...

That's probably why we see a difference. I don't use Content Blockers aside from sometimes turning off Web Fonts with Focus. I can't keep it on all the time, though, because the speed comes at an expense. You're probably right that Safari with no ads is going to be better. As for why Google doesn't allow ad blockers, it's because Chrome doesn't have any extensions. I wouldn't expect an ad company to allow them anytime soon.
 
Safari is a good browser but UC browser is even better for certain tasks, the issues you have with safari will occur with any ios device with safari due to its programming and rendering codes. I have a ipad pro too and agree with the op's issues, but I recommend you to use another browser to prevent certain issues. I use safari and UC browser depending on what I'm doing, if I'm browsing a site full of photos or long winded text UC browser is much better, if I'm not safari does a good job and has a faster loading time on less memory intensive websites. UC browser+ hd is able to access more ram than safari so you wont see the rendering lag or blank spaces/blackish screen. If you need to split screen with 2 browsers, use chrome but I use sidefari for that typically....
 
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Settings -> safari -> advanced -> website data -> "remove all website data"

That should clear up the issue for sometime.
Note: you won't lose any history but you'll lose cache / cookie info
 
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I have not seen such thing neither. Can you provide the site URL? Perhaps other can try the very same site. It could be the site itself. Does it happen on every web site?
 
beernut said:
Settings -> safari -> advanced -> website data -> "remove all website data"

That should clear up the issue for sometime.
Note: you won't lose any history but you'll lose cache / cookie info
Click to expand...
Was just about to say this. Also, maybe the website is not efficiently designed? I know some websites that consistently take forever to load no matter the connection/platform.
 
double329 said:
I have not seen such thing neither. Can you provide the site URL? Perhaps other can try the very same site. It could be the site itself. Does it happen on every web site?
Click to expand...
Will this stop the horrible lag when scrolling through a web page? If I scorll up or down I see the background but the content takes a few seconds to appear and I do find that pretty annoying.
 
Goatllama said:
Was just about to say this. Also, maybe the website is not efficiently designed? I know some websites that consistently take forever to load no matter the connection/platform.
Click to expand...

I hate to say this, but try loading those sites with Focus or AdGuard installed and activated.
 
i had the same problem in some certain pages but after i install the adguard the scrolling is smooth.
 
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