Q: Safari crashes on iPad after ios 5 update

And NOT only Safari!!! Everything crashes. Theres no way (that I know of) to revert to an earlier OS. I have had at least 20 crashes today alone. Apple - This Must Be Fixed!  I am just 'bout ready to chuck all my apple products (yes - it affects my ipods also).  Thank goodness Windows 8 tablets will be available soon. Heck I've already pretty much gone to my Fire as my go-to tablet. Get it together Apple - you're gonna lose us.

No, I didn't have either of those apps. I find it interesting that a new ipad also did not work for you. It sure sounds like one or more of your apps just don't play well with ios5. The only thing I can think of to do, and I know its a real pita, would be to start over and erase the flash and setup your ipad again. I would then just use the native apps for a while and see if they are stable, then load your favorite apps one at a time to see if you can isolate which app is causing the problem.  When I restored mine, I deleted at least 10 apps that I wasn't really using. I could have deleted the offending app and that is waht fixed my problem.  I sure wish Apple would allow a down grade, so people could at least revert back until these issues are resolved.

Hi Tom--I agree...between Reminders, iCal & sometimes Safari, ever since iOS 5, this has been a very un-Apple like experience.  I am very diasappointed that these apps crash EVERY time I open them after some idle time (overnight), are VERY slow in responding the rest of the time & the idea that I should be deleting other apps or rebooting is absurd.  I am using less than 50% of the space (32GB total).  It's more than an inconveninece--I have personally "sold" several iPhones, iPads & iMacs to friends that come to me with their issues & questions.  To drive 2 hours one-way to a retail store to have a Genius tell me there is nothing they can do is not why I buy Apple.

Tom,

I did a full factory restore of my iPad 1 back to stock with no apps and iOS 5 still crashed Safari. This is definitely an iOS 5 issue, not an app compatability issue. iOS 5 is not managing memory correctly and when memory allocations are exceeded, whatever app is active crashes.

Incidentally, I have since restored all my apps from my iTunes profile and iOS behaves exactly the same.

Apple just doesn't want to admin that, amongst battery management issues, there iOS 5 operating system is a POS. Instead, they're too busy trying to integrate Facebook into iOS 5.1 instead of working on the 4S battery issues and the iPad memory crashes.

This is the last Apple product I will ever buy.

--Sean

Hi all--I deleted all of the 3rd party apps that I dont use (most of them were free any way...), did the restore and after a full day of using iCal & reminders, it seems to be much more responsive & has not crashed YET.  I'll keep pushing it to see if it is a real fix & will keep y'all updated! 

Sean,

Unfortunately I have to agree - I won't be buying any more Apple products until this MAJOR problem is addressed by Apple and fully resolved. Nor will I recommend buying their products to anyone else. Quite the contrary I will be recommending they NOT buy Apple. This is a sorry situation from a company who has been so good in the past. Hopefully they will take the bull by the horns and get this mess cleared up in the very near future.

Tom

CJB14,

I'm happy to hear that procedure seems to be working for you but I have to tell you it appears that you are an exception! I, along with thousands of others, have tried the exact same procedure and have gotten exactly zero results from it. The truth is this problem is Apples fault and they need to get moving on a solution and do it quick. I personally do not feel that third party apps have anything at all to do with this 'crashing' problem. Doesn't Apple check out the apps before they post them? One would think they would at least do that just to protect their reputation (which has certainly taken a downturn with me). i hope the real problem is addressed quickly as I am leaning to an Android system if it isn't.

Tom

Hi Tom--for once, I get to be the exception on the plus side!  Joking aside, I am also disappointed in the way iOS5 functions.  My iPhone 4 is fine but iCal & reminders on my iPad2 are not good.  So far, iCal is OK but Reminders is slow to react to gestures, etc.  Clearly, Apple has missed the design intent of a "just works" OS. 

It proves that it was always Jobs, not Apple.

And as an update, I have not heard back from the folks at AppAdvice. It's been two weeks since I wrote them about this. So they either don't know what to say, don't care, are still looking into it, or are just too dependent on Apple for their survival to do anything.

It's a shame, because there are "official" Apple genius bar employees wrongly blaming them for this problem. If they spoke up, it could go a little way toward Apple taking responsibility for the iOS problems.

Frustrating that this hasn't been nailed down yet.

Does anyone in Apple read these posts?  Is there a chance of getting this fixed anytime soon?  My iPad1 is getting progressively slower and slower with these updates.  It takes ages for the keyboard to pop when typing in something and there is now an annoying lag when I type anything (it seems to buffer the keystrokes so it's still usable).  Safari crashes a lot and some of my apps (both paid and free) just plain don't work after the iOS5 update.  Please, can this be fixed as my iPad used to be much better than this and I'm not going to buy an iPad2 so if this is intentional, it's only driving me away from Apple.

I dont get it, I have done this for dozens of people whom I work with and friends and family. I believe the last count was over 70 people that I know and all their ipads are working fine now. My ipad and my wife's also was victim to this. If you do it right it works.

Now I dont work for apple, so I couldnt care less if anyone buys their product or not. I dont own shares etc...

But as annoying that this problem is/was, it is correctable if people simply followed the things that seveal people posted including myself.

George

Unfortunately, George, it doesn't work for everyone. Glad you were able to get yours working though, along with other peoples'.

Mine was "fixed correctly" by Apple, at the Genius Bar. Three times. No go.

After three failed tries, they finally replaced the iPad with a new one. They set it up. They made sure they did it correctly. Yet the issues keep coming up and apps and Safari still crash.

If Apple can't do it "right", then I'm guessing there's more to it than what we're getting at here. So, we need to keep communications open, and keep helping each other out, like we've been doing, and hope it gets resolved for all owners. It's a weird problem, that's for sure.

Agreed.  Think four things are clear from this thread:

1. There is some kind of memory problems with the iPad1 (and 2?) following the iOS 5 upgrade
2. For many people, various workarounds help (deleting iCloud, turning off Spotlight, deleting and reinstalling mail accounts, closing background apps, etc., etc.).  For more extreme cases, or where people want to use those apps, the "wipe back to factory settings and rebuild as a new iPad" option seems to clear the problem for another group of people
3. For some people, even that option doesn't work, whether they do it themselves or take it to a Genius Bar and get it done by a Genius.
4. There is a real problem here, which needs to be fixed by Apple.  However, it is elusive - what fixes it for some people doesn't fix it for others.  So it's the hardest kind of bug for engineers to fix (or to pick up pre-launch).

There is a consistent sub-theme in this thread, of people refusing to accept one or all of these three points, and that's generating considerable heat from time to time (to be clear, not pointing at George here, who has several times helpfully detailed a solution that works for some people).

Suggest we all accept points 1-4 and move on, in the hope that the next upgrade will fix this.

(For anyone following this thread closely, I posted on Jan 3 to say I'd tried everything short of George's proposal without success.  Can confirm I have now also tried George's solution with the same result - I can still 100% repeatably crash Safari by launching in landscape the OS X Lion video on the Apple website.  Incidentally, curiously it's ok in portrait.)

Bingo. Great job laying it out so well, Alick. Thanks. With consistent and open communication this will get worked on and fixed.