Presupun ca stiti cu totii despre existenta browserului iCab Mobile, unul dintre cele mai bune browsere pentru iOS. Nu stiu cati dintre voi l-au folosit insa eu am facut-o si va pot spune ca este un fel de Firefox al iOS-ului deoarece contine o sumedenie de functii pe care Safari nu le are si probabil nici nu le va avea in curand. Problema cu acest browser sta in faptul ca incarca paginile mai greu decat Safari si experienta de navigare pe web si interactionare cu paginile este mai slaba decat in cazul browserului Safari. iCab Mobile este desigur construit pe platforma webkit folosind doar API-uri puse la dispozitie de catre Apple. Sa fie oare acesta motivul pentru care iCab nu are performante la fel de bune precum Safari? Iata ce discutie a avut un italian cu dezvoltatorii browserului iCab :
You probably noticed that all the alternative browsers to Safari lately they are becoming more and more jerky and especially in heavy scroll pages. I use iCab and I was more than satisfied, after version 4.6, however, has become heavy, thinking it was a bug I’ve been looking forward to the next update to see this problem solved, but to my surprise I saw that despite being released about 5 updates, the scroll is still scattosissimo. I decided to write an email to the developer to ask information and, to my surprise was the response is follows:
Unfortunately we were forced to make this change because Apple asked him to. There is a big problem with the object “Web View” we need to see web pages, since Apple does not allow the use of engines other than their own website and this is the basis of the problem with the scrolling jerky, especially in those web pages heavier. This is a problem that we know from the outset and has never been fixed by Apple, in spite of our emails. Safari has no problem of this type, although uses the same engine, because it uses a private call in the iPhone OS that allows smooth scrolling. Apple, therefore, does not seem to want to solve this problem differently, and why developers have started to use the same private call, even if the SDK forbids it. Apple, however, if they have noticed and asked us, as must other alternative browsers (Earth, Atomic, Mercury, Perfect Brwoser, etc …), to immediately upgrade the app to delete that one call and not allowed. Therefore, at present we have no other solutions and scrolling will slow!
Italianul se plangea ca scroll-ul in paginile web incarcate cu iCab se facea foarte greu si update-urile succesive ale aplicatiei nu au rezolvat problema. In fapt Apple i-a obligat pe cei de la iCab sa nu foloseasca un API privat disponibil numai pentru Safari care facea ca scroll-ul sa fie foarte fluent in pagini. Prin aceasta limitare performantele browserului iCab au scazut simtitor si multa lume a observat acest lucru. Din pacate Safari incarca paginile mai repede decat orice alt browser 3rd party din App Store si totul se datoreaza limitarilor impuse de catre Apple pentru a mentine Safari in topul celor mai folosite browsere pentru iOS.
iCab Mobile a fost prima aplicatie instalata de mine pe iPad 2 insa vazand ca paginile se incarca mai greu decat pe Safari am fost nevoit sa renunt la el in scurt timp.