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Can you open more than 1 browser?

O

OceanView

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 16, 2005
1,094
39
EDIT: Title should read: "Can you open more than 1 browser TAB?"
Sorry for the confusion.

I use Firefox on my laptop and desktops and often open more than 1 browser tab when I surf online.
Is it possible to do that on the iPad or with a browser App?
 
shady825 said:
Yes. Safari does have tabbed browsing.
Click to expand...

It's not tabbed browsing.

You can have multiple windows, thumbnails of which can be viewed by tapping the button on the toolbar. Tabbed browsing is where all your pages are collected along the top of the window like the dividers of a folder. A single tap on a tab switches between windows.

That's not how Safari on the iPad
works.
 
Eso said:
It's not tabbed browsing.

You can have multiple windows, thumbnails of which can be viewed by tapping the button on the toolbar. Tabbed browsing is where all your pages are collected along the top of the window like the dividers of a folder. A single tap on a tab switches between windows.

That's not how Safari om the iPad
works.
Click to expand...

However, Atomic Web Browser allowes for real-time tabbed browsing. Shame its really buggy right now. But hopefully, it'll be all patched up soon.
 
No, it's not the same. For real tabbed browsing ie Firefox, get the .99 app, Atomic Web Browser. You can even set it to identify as firefox 3, Safari desktop, all the IE versions practically and it's got Adblock. You can stream a movie in one tab, pause it and check on another page right beside in another tabbed page just like on a desktop web browser.

Only bug I encountered was a few crashes but it pretty much works great for me.
 
Surely said:
^^^^ it's pretty much the same thing. Just takes up less screen real estate this way.
Click to expand...

Really? Because you've been able to open multiple browser windows for years. Eventually they came out with "tabbed" browsing where you could keep multiple pages in the same window.

So no, they aren't pretty much the same thing.
 
Call it what you want but unlike tabbed browsing in a full browser it does not cache so when you move between windows they reload.
 
Atomic works for me

Tabs between webpages. I think it stores in cache, as opposed to Safari. Works well for $.99
 
Eso said:
Really? Because you've been able to open multiple browser windows for years. Eventually they came out with "tabbed" browsing where you could keep multiple pages in the same window.

So no, they aren't pretty much the same thing.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't equate it with simply having multiple browser windows open. That's quite an extreme. If that were the case, you'd have to click through a bunch of open windows that are piled up on top of each other to find the one you are looking for. In Safari on the iPad, you simply have to click one button, which shows you all of the windows (which could be thought of as tabs) for you to easily select.

Unfortunately, as Chupa Chupa has pointed out, the iPad is lacking in memory, and more than two or three of the windows/tabs won't stay cached at the same time. IMO, the lack of RAM is the iPad's greatest flaw. What, they couldn't spring for 512MB? What would that have done to the components cost- bring it up $5? :rolleyes:

So IMO, they are pretty much the same thing, except that Safari for iPad's method doesn't take up browsing window real estate.
 
Surely said:
So IMO, they are pretty much the same thing, except that Safari for iPad's method doesn't take up browsing window real estate.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, your opinion happens to be wrong, as it is based upon a verifiable fact. It may not take up window real estate, but you also can't switch right to the page you want with a single tap.

Tabbed GUI

In this example, notice the tabs which can be clicked to immediately switch the contents on the window (as opposed to a button which shows a thumbnail view of all open pages):

Gedit_tab_example.png

You can open multiple browser pages in Safari on the iPad, but it is not correct to say it has tabbed browsing.
 
Safari on the iPod uses Window browsing. Just look up the word tab in your Dictionary and you will see it's not using tabs.


tab 1 a small flap or strip of material attached to or projecting from something, used to hold or manipulate it, or for identification and information.
 
Jesus! Who cares!?
All the OP wanted to know is he could have more than one tab/page going at once.
The answer is yes.
Although the refreshing of the pages kinda defeats the purpose I suppose.
 
The differences are small, but they can be important if you want to squeeze as much "multitasking" out of the device as possible.

In Firefox it just takes one click to jump back and forth between different web pages. It does take up a little screen real estate, but for someone who wants to quickly jump back and forth it is very helpful. In addition with tabs you can get notifications within the tab. Right now I've got Firefox going with 15 different tabbed webpages (I've got a 24" screen so the screen real estate isn't an issue.)

Among those tabs I've got my gmail up and my yahoo mail up. When new mails come in the tab changes telling me about the mail, likewise if an IM comes in from one of those services it also visually alerts me.

And of course everything is cached, so just clicking different tabs instantly brings up the website. I even have a firefox plug-in that I can set for specific webpages to reload every x seconds. So if I want the most up to date webpage when I click back it already has been done in the background for me.

With the iPad you have to click on a small icon in the upper left corner of Safari, the page changes to show any other websites you have recently viewed. They look kind of like WebOS "cards", large icons of the web page itself. You tap on one of those to bring up the other page. I suppose it is possible that you could have so many web pages stored here that you'd have to swipe to find it, but I haven't seen that yet in action.

Still, to switch between web pages on the iPad you have to make at least two taps and possibly deal with a page reload. That might not seem like a big deal compared to a single click, but when you're used to a digital environment where you have a lot of data organized to be accessible almost instantaneously, and informing you of other incoming data, then moving to the iPad does feel like you're really putting on the breaks.

Whether that is good or bad really depends on the needs of the person. I love using Firefox and having all sorts of information to jump back and forth with, but it can easily become distracting.

I think for myself that low RAM of the iPad is the weak point. Not having tab browsing is ok with how they set it up, I can live with the two taps. The real problem is the reload. Whether it is realistic or not it makes me feel like I've been somewhat tossed back to dial-up times. I'm so used to everything being instantaneous at this point that any delay is painfully felt.
 
Thanks for the clarification.

I really wished that the iPad was similar to the tab experience of Firefox/IE but
The one thing that does bother me is the refreshing of the web pages and no caching in RAM. That means it will take longer and higher data usage when in 3G mode and it will be easy to go past the 250MB limit of the $15 plan.

I guess that's something Apple can work on for the next version (hopefully in OS).
 
To clarify, it's not that there is "no caching". There is some caching. But only with 2-3 tabs. When you open more tabs, it doesn't remember them all. Unfortunately, the iPad only has 256 MB of RAM to work with.
 
Can the iPad in a similar fashion have several word / pages documents open at a time? Also, same question for powerpoint / keynote?

Always find I have like 5 or 6 documents open at a time - would really be integral to me purchasing an iPad given my requirements / intentions with the device.
 
bobbytallant said:
Can the iPad in a similar fashion have several word / pages documents open at a time? Also, same question for powerpoint / keynote?
Click to expand...

It all depends on the app that is being used. Only one app can be run at a time (with limited core exceptions, like music running in the background while you do something else) so having multiple documents open at the same time has to be done within an app itself. As an example, for pdf reading Goodreader (at the moment) only has one pdf open at a time, whereas iAnnotate can have multiple pdfs open, all tabbed within the app itself.

I think over time more and more apps will be developed that would allow more of a "multitasking" experience, though the iPad's OS is always going to be more restrictive than a true desktop experience.

In the fall the iPad is going to get the new OS which will allow some multitasking, but it still isn't going to be a full blown desktop type of multitasking, instead basically opening up what currently can be done by the Apple apps to 3rd party developers.
 
bobbytallant said:
Can the iPad in a similar fashion have several word / pages documents open at a time? Also, same question for powerpoint / keynote?

Always find I have like 5 or 6 documents open at a time - would really be integral to me purchasing an iPad given my requirements / intentions with the device.
Click to expand...

iWork for iPad isn't all that great; it works but don't expect to be too impressed.

However, while it doesn't have tabor multiple windows like Safari, you can switch back and forth from document from document without losing your work. The iWork apps suspends one document to go to the next, saving it's state so you can switch.

Not true multitasking of course, but suspending one document so you can open others then switch back works pretty well.
 
harpy said:
It all depends on the app that is being used. Only one app can be run at a time (with limited core exceptions, like music running in the background while you do something else) so having multiple documents open at the same time has to be done within an app itself. As an example, for pdf reading Goodreader (at the moment) only has one pdf open at a time, whereas iAnnotate can have multiple pdfs open, all tabbed within the app itself.

I think over time more and more apps will be developed that would allow more of a "multitasking" experience, though the iPad's OS is always going to be more restrictive than a true desktop experience.

In the fall the iPad is going to get the new OS which will allow some multitasking, but it still isn't going to be a full blown desktop type of multitasking, instead basically opening up what currently can be done by the Apple apps to 3rd party developers.
Click to expand...

Cool thanks for the info. Really I was asking whether the iPad-designed apps Pages ($9.99) and Keynote ($9.99) could have several documents open at one time in a tabs like fashion. Not too dissimilar to the current Safari browser for example.
 
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