iPad Pro My biggest gripe with iPads...

[nStyle]

Is that my Safari tabs constantly reload. If I restart the iPad I am good for a day or so but then it happens again and I have to restart to get it to where I can have more than two tabs open without additional tabs reloading. Apps also crash or close in the background sometimes too.

I have the 10.5 iPP. 4GB seems like more than enough to keep tabs open in the background, so what gives?

I really have been liking my iPad lately and wanted to upgrade to a 12.9 eventually but why can they not fix this!? It happened as I was writing this and tried to go between a few tabs.

 

[Shirasaki]

Any browser will suffer tab reload one way or another, unless your device has 2TB of RAM lol.
4GB looks enough but apple’s 6GB memory bump to 2020 iPad Pro model says something otherwise.
I personally don’t encounter tab reloading that much but it happens from time to time, some of which saying “tab reload because of an error”.

 

[nStyle]

Not really (unless you’re referring to iOS-specific browsers). I can have as many tabs as I want in macOS or Windows. This seems to be iPad-specific and doesn’t really seem to be a RAM problem as much as they’ve simply coded the OS to behave this way.

The tabs are a minor annoyance but when things like YouTube or Spotify start closing it becomes more annoying. And this is all while using the iPad fairly lightly. I don’t even have many apps installed nor am I using too many at once.

I just think if they want to get more serious (and it seems like they do since they‘ve built a $350 accessory to make it more laptop-like) then they need to fix blaring issues like this.

 

[secretk]

This is gripe of mine as well. I have like psychological trauma because I can lose something I have written to post in some forum in Safari just because I dared to open another app. It really is annoying. And I do agree that every device has its limits (you have certain amount of RAM, it can take certain amount of tabs) but the limits on the iPad are reached far faster compared to other devices. And on top of it we as an end users cannot do anything to improve this.

Honestly this is one key factor for me to not consider iPad as serious productivity machine. Multi tasking is not just about the CPU power (that we know iPads have) it is about the user workflow itself. And as of now multi tasking is not really a thing on an iPad. I am not talking about split screen or slide view. I am talking about background processes. I am talking about being able to switch between different apps without the app being refreshed all the time.

 

[AutomaticApple]

Is that my Safari tabs constantly reload. If I restart the iPad I am good for a day or so but then it happens again and I have to restart to get it to where I can have more than two tabs open without additional tabs reloading. Apps also crash or close in the background sometimes too.

I have the 10.5 iPP. 4GB seems like more than enough to keep tabs open in the background, so what gives?

I really have been liking my iPad lately and wanted to upgrade to a 12.9 eventually but why can they not fix this!? It happened as I was writing this and tried to go between a few tabs.

You should get a 2020 iPad Pro. It has an extra 2GB of RAM, so you'll experience less refreshes.

 

[rui no onna]

Not really (unless you’re referring to iOS-specific browsers). I can have as many tabs as I want in macOS or Windows. This seems to be iPad-specific and doesn’t really seem to be a RAM problem as much as they’ve simply coded the OS to behave this way.

The tabs are a minor annoyance but when things like YouTube or Spotify start closing it becomes more annoying. And this is all while using the iPad fairly lightly. I don’t even have many apps installed nor am I using too many at once.

I just think if they want to get more serious (and it seems like they do since they‘ve built a $350 accessory to make it more laptop-like) then they need to fix blaring issues like this.

That’s only because Macs and PCs tend to have more RAM installed and they use SSD/HDD to extend it even more with virtual memory/pagefile.

I normally manually limit the pagefile size on my PCs and a few times I’ve encountered “not enough RAM, this program will be closed” messages (16GB RAM + 2GB fixed pagefile). Granted, I think the VMs had ~3GB dedicated/reserved at the time. Iirc, Chrome had multiple processes/instances running with total active RAM usage of ~8GB and probably more allocated.

 

[secretk]

That’s only because Macs and PCs tend to have more RAM installed and they use SSD/HDD to extend it even more with virtual memory/pagefile.

I normally manually limit the pagefile size on my PCs and a few times I’ve encountered “not enough RAM, this program will be closed” messages (16GB RAM + 2GB fixed pagefile). Granted, I think the VMs had ~3GB dedicated/reserved at the time. Iirc, Chrome had multiple processes/instances running with total active RAM usage of ~8GB and probably more allocated.

True that we can experience on a PC/laptop too. I personally have but even when it happens it is different. So say I have like 60 tabs open and yes some tabs might get reloaded but definitely not the ones I was using just a minute ago. The tabs that get reloaded are the ones that I have not interacted with for days.

On an iPad it manages to reload all of them and the tab I have interacted just 1 minute ago. It is absurd. That rarely happens to me on PC.

 

[rui no onna]

True that we can experience on a PC/laptop too. I personally have but even when it happens it is different. So say I have like 60 tabs open and yes some tabs might get reloaded but definitely not the ones I was using just a minute ago. The tabs that get reloaded are the ones that I have not interacted with for days.

On an iPad it manages to reload all of them and the tab I have interacted just 1 minute ago. It is absurd. That rarely happens to me on PC.

I think this still boils down to having plenty of RAM available.

On a PC with Windows 7 32-bit and 4GB RAM (needed for drivers and software for old equipment), I’ve actually had instances where the browser outright crashes.

4GB just isn’t gonna cut it. Maybe not even 6GB. Either Apple puts more RAM on the devices or they allow storage-backed virtual memory similar to macOS. With 32-64GB entry-level storage, I don’t see this happening but maybe they could allow it on iPads with 128-256GB+ of PCIe-based storage.

 

[marty1980]

There are lots of variables that decide what stays in memory and why. Most apps try to use up 400MB of RAM at once, but the desire is to use less. Obviously more “pro” apps will get greedy because they need to.

The challenge with a web browser is that each website has its own amount of data that runs on top of the app itself and that on top of the OS. So the RAM usage exponentially increases with each tab you open and how each page manages it’s content. Some of the RAM usage could the fault of the sites you visit. The part that could be Apple’s to fix would be how it manages which tabs to keep in memory and which ones to shuffle off.

I bought a 2020 11” Pro. I don’t have reloading problems. I don’t usually have more than 10 tabs open in a browser. Before this I had an iPad 2 as my main tablet and reloading was a big issue on it’s 1GB RAM.

If Safari is a culprit than you can try some other browsers that might work better. Seems to me that Apple looks at this issue as “it’ll work itself out as time goes on.” 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

[Bubble99]

There are lots of variables that decide what stays in memory and why. Most apps try to use up 400MB of RAM at once, but the desire is to use less. Obviously more “pro” apps will get greedy because they need to.

The challenge with a web browser is that each website has its own amount of data that runs on top of the app itself and that on top of the OS. So the RAM usage exponentially increases with each tab you open and how each page manages it’s content. Some of the RAM usage could the fault of the sites you visit. The part that could be Apple’s to fix would be how it manages which tabs to keep in memory and which ones to shuffle off.

I bought a 2020 11” Pro. I don’t have reloading problems. I don’t usually have more than 10 tabs open in a browser. Before this I had an iPad 2 as my main tablet and reloading was a big issue on it’s 1GB RAM.

If Safari is a culprit than you can try some other browsers that might work better. Seems to me that Apple looks at this issue as “it’ll work itself out as time goes on.” 🤷🏼‍♂️

I Think part of the reason the iPad does not want to slow non or crash.

With windows or Linux if too many things are running and eating up all the RAM it will just get really slow or crash.

Well Apple solution is just reaload.

The iPad with more RAM seem to reload less than the iPad with less RAM

Well in 5 years from now when the iPad has 16 GB of RAM apple may make it more like a PC and just get slow or give you a error message low on memory.

 

[Digitalguy]

It's not just a matter of RAM quantity... There are algorithms for RAM management, that sometimes change from version to version of IOS/IpadOS... It's not easy to infer them, but for instance RAM management seems to become more aggressive while the ipad is locked. And it affects some apps, like browsers, more than other (probably because they don't go above a certain RAM threshold...). Only Apple knows the algorithm.. On PCs and Mac it's a different story. If the pagefile is not manually set it's very hard to have apps that are closed or tabs refreshed... But the systems slows down more this way. Sure PCs have more RAM but people tent to think that RAM on ipads is worth 3-4 times that of a desktop system, which is false... 4GB RAM on ipad are not much more than 4GB on, say, Windows... it's just that it is managed differently... If ipadOS used paging, the ipad may feel slower but you would have much less reloads... Also if, like some Android devices, you could pin apps to RAM, they wouldn't reload or at least you would be asked first if it's ok...

 

[Bubble99]

It's not just a matter of RAM quantity... There are algorithms for RAM management, that sometimes change from version to version of IOS/IpadOS... It's not easy to infer them, but for instance RAM management seems to become more aggressive while the ipad is locked. And it affects some apps, like browsers, more than other (probably because they don't go above a certain RAM threshold...). Only Apple knows the algorithm.. On PCs and Mac it's a different story. If the pagefile is not manually set it's very hard to have apps that are closed or tabs refreshed... But the systems slows down more this way. Sure PCs have more RAM but people tent to think that RAM on ipads is worth 3-4 times that of a desktop system, which is false... 4GB RAM on ipad are not much more than 4GB on, say, Windows... it's just that it is managed differently... If ipadOS used paging, the ipad may feel slower but you would have much less reloads... Also if, like some Android devices, you could pin apps to RAM, they wouldn't reload or at least you would be asked first if it's ok...

I think probably the main problem is that 90% of the people who have iPad do not have enough RAM so Apple will put in algorithms to reload to not run low on RAM.

In today’s world 4Gb of RAM is not enough no matter if you running windows, Mac OS or a iPad or android.

And even 8Gb of RAM is not that awesome today.

Every thing is really bloated today and very much the internet.

Now days every thing should be 12GB of RAM or 16GB of RAM when buying new computer or iPad at minimum.

And if you hardcore gamer or pro go with 32Gb of RAM.

 

[Digitalguy]

I think probably the main problem is that 90% of the people who have iPad do not have enough RAM so Apple will put in algorithms to reload to not run low on RAM.

In today’s world 4Gb of RAM is not enough no matter if you running windows, Mac OS or a iPad or android.

And even 8Gb of RAM is not that awesome today.

Every thing is really bloated today and very much the internet.

Now days every thing should be 12GB of RAM or 16GB of RAM when buying new computer or iPad at minimum.

And if you hardcore gamer or pro go with 32Gb of RAM.

Absolutely, it's very possible that the algorithm does not always take into account the amount of RAM and just ejects some elements from RAM after a certain amount of time that the ipad has not been used....
Hopefully Apple is going to give more RAM to the next pros... My guess is that final cut will not even RUN on ipads with less than 6GB RAM... and will be made available on ipad only once at least 2 generations of pros can support it...

 

[riverfreak]

Consider using an on-device firewall like Lockdown to block all of the disgusting, memory hogging, pointless adware and cryptominers.