Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPad mini with retina. I know I saw a thread on this before but couldn't find it.

Does everyone else with this iPad have issues with tabs refreshing when you have more than 1 open? Sometimes it even does it when I only have two tabs open. Is this just something I will have to learn to deal with or is it a defect?

If you could, wait a year for 2Gb of RAM. I'm not sure if 7.1 fixes though.
 
If you could, wait a year for 2Gb of RAM. I'm not sure if 7.1 fixes though.
Well, yes. But then the iOS coders and developers will get sloppy and lazy with all that "extra" RAM. Then they'll find new uses for it and we'll be right back to this very topic again.
 
Well, yes. But then the iOS coders and developers will get sloppy and lazy with all that "extra" RAM. Then they'll find new uses for it and we'll be right back to this very topic again.

When 1Gb has been the norm for 3 years on iOS, developers won't make their apps RAM hungry when 2Gb comes along.
 
That's not a gaurantee and I've heard positive things about 7.1 which they are still working on. This is a software issue, not a hardware or RAM issue. The data points to software.

Do tell. What data are you talking about? What other a7 product, with an iPad retina display exists out there, that is NOT experiencing tab reloads?

Oh that's right, there isn't one.
 
That's not a gaurantee and I've heard positive things about 7.1 which they are still working on. This is a software issue, not a hardware or RAM issue. The data points to software.

I know, but 1Gb of RAM is going to get you C amount of years before you need to upgrade, 2Gb RAM would get you Y. With the iPad Air getting at the end of the ram cycle, it won't last as long as buying an iPad that gets at the start of a ram cycle. Look at the iPad 2 or 3, the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4.
 
Well, yes. But then the iOS coders and developers will get sloppy and lazy with all that "extra" RAM. Then they'll find new uses for it and we'll be right back to this very topic again.

There is a per process limit on ram, so no.
 
Does it reload sometimes immediately when switching between tabs? This really wasn't much of an issue for me until recently.

On 7.1 beta 4 I'm not getting anywhere near as many reloads, or crashes for that matter, compared to what I was getting on 7.0.4. It's been a big improvement for me.

I usually keep 5-8 tabs open and have no reloads usually between them after they're initially loaded. I'd have constant reloads under those conditions in 7.0.4.

Now if I go open up a couple of apps for a while, then come back to Safari, I will have some tabs that will reload, but I'm ok with that.
 
"Solution" to Safari tab reloading

Like most people, I am really disappointed in the browsing experience on my iPad Air due to aggressive tab reloading.

Anyway, I don't know if this has been posted already, a quick search didn't bring up anything, but please try this:

Go to Settings->Safari->Advanced-> set JavaScript OFF

After disabling JavaScript I can easily keep open seven pages from The Verge. Probably more, didn't bother to try. No reloads at all. I think I even played some game, came back, and everything was still there, no reloads!

I also tried opening three Big Picture pages at the same time (closed those The Verge pages). Again, no problems whatsoever. Normally, with JavaScript on my Air can barely load ONE Big Picture page.

Yeah, there is one huge problem in this "solution". Modern web relies heavily on JavaScript so lots of sites will not work correctly or practically at all :(

In any case, it seems that the JavaScript engine in Safari is a memory hog, or something in the way it is used causes these problems. So, there is some hope that this can be improved in future OS updates, assuming Apple does care. According to some, also on this forum, it is better on latest 7.1 betas, but I personally don't have access to those. Let's hope so.


(Still, putting just 1GB of RAM into a market leading premium tablet is just greedy and not very forward looking, from consumer's point of view...)
 
Last edited:
Aka youre holding it wrong? Hahaahahha.

Tab reloading is only a problem when you've entered some text in a web form or are on a slow internet connection.
 
I turned it off and all my tabs reloaded as I went to each of them.

Opened the verge.com, anandtech.com, vcdq.com, apple.com, xbox.com

Jumped out, opened infinity blade 3, played 2 fights. Came back, no reloading.

On iPad retina mini and iPad air.

JavaScript back on and I don't even get all of those open and it's reloading the pages, let alone hopping onto infinity blade 3.
 
Like most people, I am really disappointed in the browsing experience on my iPad Air due to aggressive tab reloading.

Anyway, I don't know if this has been posted already, a quick search didn't bring up anything, but please try this:

Go to Settings->Safari->Advanced-> set JavaScript OFF

After disabling JavaScript I can easily keep open seven pages from The Verge. Probably more, didn't bother to try. No reloads at all. I think I even played some game, came back, and everything was still there, no reloads!

I also tried opening three Big Picture pages at the same time (closed those The Verge pages). Again, no problems whatsoever. Normally, with JavaScript on my Air can barely load ONE Big Picture page.

Yeah, there is one huge problem in this "solution". Modern web relies heavily on JavaScript so lots of sites will not work correctly or practically at all :(

In any case, it seems that the JavaScript engine in Safari is a memory hog, or something in the way it is used causes these problems. So, there is some hope that this can be improved in future OS updates, assuming Apple does care. According to some, also on this forum, it is better on latest 7.1 betas, but I personally don't have access to those. Let's hope so.


(Still, putting just 1GB of RAM into a market leading premium tablet is just greedy and not very forward looking, from consumer's point of view...)
tried it and the browsing experience just sucked from there. funny how we paid 500+ for a device and we have to turn off features just to work half ass
 
Like most people, I am really disappointed in the browsing experience on my iPad Air due to aggressive tab reloading.

I re-downloaded the Atomic web browser. I originally bought it a long time ago because back then Safari did not have the "Open link in background tab" functionality, but stopped using it when Safari got that feature too.

Well, it seems Atomic is better than Safari when it comes to tab reloads. Based on short testing, I can keep a few pages open without issues.

Atomic uses the Apple provided web engine (like Chrome for example), which is apparently a lot slower (for JavaScript at least) than the one in Safari, but I doubt anyone can notice the difference in typical use, unless your typical use is running the Sunspider benchmark. Besides, not having to wait the browser to reload and re-render the page every time you switch tabs makes it irrelevant if rendering the page is some 0,2 seconds faster on Safari...

Atomic did reload everything after I visited AppStore though, but perhaps that is simply due to the puny amount of RAM in Air.

Sadly, Atomic hasn't been updated since late 2012, but there is some kind of limited "lite" version which can be tried for free.
 
I know, but 1Gb of RAM is going to get you C amount of years before you need to upgrade, 2Gb RAM would get you Y. With the iPad Air getting at the end of the ram cycle, it won't last as long as buying an iPad that gets at the start of a ram cycle. Look at the iPad 2 or 3, the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4.

An interesting point about the beginning of a RAM cycle. Even so, many people are having a great experience with their Air(like me) and will keep doing so for a while. Optimization of safari and a few other things would be a better fix IMO than just some RAM.
 
ya it's really bad. major over site. I find that you can open other apps and the multitask windows without reloading . it's moving to another safari tab that triggers the reload.

You know it really should do little with ram. Every page that is visited is put into safari cache. All safari has to do is hold the cached page for a bit. Maybe I'm wrong but that's how I see it.
 
To me the iPad Air definitely has iPad 3-itis... You know how the iPad 3 felt a little rushed out, and then the iPad 4 was the smoother, more polished version with Lightning and all that jazz? Yeah, that's how the iPad Air feels. It's got the speed, but that RAM issue is a KILLER.

Can't wait for the next iPad, and that's from an Air and mini with Retina display owner.

*sigh...*
 
Do tell. What data are you talking about? What other a7 product, with an iPad retina display exists out there, that is NOT experiencing tab reloads?

Oh that's right, there isn't one.

Not sure about other devices since I don't own those but my own experience has been positive. So have other people's. Now, I rarely have more than 2-3 tabs open at once but in some cases I have been entering data into a form, switched tabs, and come back without losing anything.

Is it site related? Is it device to device differences? And, as we've harped on many times before.... Why does everything else run so good? Just safari causes the problems.

Does people's wifi strength and connection quality come into play here? Hard to say.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.