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Wayland · Jun 26, 2009, 10:35 AM

I have a first generation ipod touch. Will safari be faster if I upgrade to iPhone OS 3? Currently, most pages take quite a while to load and I frequently get the checker board while scrolling.

I've seen a couple of speed tests suggesting there maybe some speedup, but I am wondering about real world usage.

ibook_steve · Jun 26, 2009, 12:55 PM

I haven't seen much of an improvement with it on my 2nd-gen iPod Touch. Maybe a little less checkerboarding, but not much on long web pages.

Steve

Wayland · Jun 29, 2009, 12:03 AM

Thanks for the info. I'll probably skip this upgrade, for now.

Simon · Jun 29, 2009, 01:43 AM

I would say it's a tad faster in OS 3.0 on my iPhone 3G. But I think the main difference is that it now supports opening links in tabs and also loads tabs properly when they're in the background. That way I find myself waiting a whole lot less for stuff to finish loading than in Safari on OS 2.2.1.

Wayland · Jul 12, 2009, 01:05 AM

I recently fell into an itunes giftcard and took the plunge to iphone os 3.0.

I think there is a modest speed improvement. Scrolling in safari updates slightly faster, ie the checkerboard updates faster. Loading links in a new window is also a big plus. Overall, I don't think the update is worth the $10, even with copy and paste, but there is a minor speed improvement.

ghporter · Jul 12, 2009, 09:20 AM

I don't think the speed of Safari's rendering is the reason it seems to be slow. I've seen speed differences, really amazing ones, during a single download when I went from WiFi to 3G to Edge and back to 3G. It may be that Safari in 3.0 does render faster, but it's still dependent on how fast the data comes in for how fast it can draw the page.

Simon · Jul 12, 2009, 09:59 AM

Don't underestimate rendering requirements.

I got a very good impression of the iPhone's limited CPU power and memory when I started tethering my iPhone 3G. Safari has certainly improved in OS 3.0, but it's still very slow compared to a regular Mac. Over the same 3G connection my Leopard Safari loads way faster on the C2D with 4GB RAM than the iPhone. Just goes to show how much work a CPU has to do to load a modern webpage.

richwig83 · Jul 12, 2009, 10:03 AM

No.. its no quicker and the caching is still abysmal!!

ApertureValue · Jul 12, 2009, 12:30 PM

I haven't noticed a big difference. For me, it all depends on whether I'm surfing via WiFi or 3G as to how fast or slow Safari runs.

DigitalEl · Jul 12, 2009, 12:53 PM

Seems significantly faster for me and I'm in an area with a very weak AT&T signal. On wi-fi, Safari 3 on the 3GS flies. Whenever I pick up my original 2G iPhone (which my wife now uses), it feels crazy-slow in comparison.

Biggest win for me .. and I don't know whether it's an OS 3.0 thing or an iPhone 3GS processor bump thing .. is that when using multiple tabs (say in Google Reader), switching between tabs no longer causes the page to refresh. That alone is worth $299 and two more years of AT&T misery in my book.

Bearsfan34 · Jul 13, 2009, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by DigitalEl

Biggest win for me .. and I don't know whether it's an OS 3.0 thing or an iPhone 3GS processor bump thing .. is that when using multiple tabs (say in Google Reader), switching between tabs no longer causes the page to refresh. That alone is worth $299 and two more years of AT&T misery in my book.

THIS

Gotta say, this was a MAJOR annoyance for me personally, as a heavy user of Google Reader. I think the actual GR tab/window has refreshed on me maybe TWICE since I got the 3GS. A friend of mine has a 2G iPod Touch, and he tells me Safari does seem better/faster to him. On the "older" hardware (iPhone 2G, 3G, older Touch models), there may not be a TON of readily noticeable improvements in 3.0, but with the 3GS and the 2G Touch, there are.