Folks,
Today I stumbled on a way to force Safari as well as other browsers *not* to automatically refresh the pages after switching out of the browser app into another app. Drawback is that the relatively minor effort needed to prevent it has to be done before you switch out each and every time. So you'll have to make it habitual, and thus this trick qualifies only as a trick, at best a work-around, but not a true fix. Still, it does suppress this very annoying behavior. I added it to my blog, which is a non-commerical personal blog (but nothing too personal, otherwise, I wouldn't link to it. 🙂). In addition, I am attempting to sell nothing on my blog and have no financial interest in Apple (well, except owning some mutual fund shares that undoubtedly have Apple stock in them), nor am I am an employee thereof. That said, the URL is:
http://mattablog.blogspot.com/2014/03/rejoice-keeping-iphone-based-browser.html
For those blocked from personal blogs at work, etc., I will for convenience's sake simply state the action to take:
In Safari or another browser app, touch and hold on a piece of text (a single word or letter is fine), then lift your finger off the screen. The word or letter will be selected and the familiar little pop-up that says "Copy | Define" appears. Touch "Define" and the screen that shows the word's definition or says it couldn't find a definition pops up. Now, do *not* touch anything else; not "Done", "Search the Web", or anything else. Now press the Home button (i.e., the one on the bottom portion of the front face panel of the iPhone with the square in it). You will be switched back to the springboard with all your app icons and from there can do anything else you want. Then, touch the browser icon for the browser you were in and you'll switch back into it. The definition screen covering the browser window will still be there. Touch "Done", and the screen drops away. Blessedly, the open browser window(s) will *not* reload.
So you see, you must remember to do this any time you need to suppress this behavior, but after it becomes habit, all that annoying lost productivity, dropped sessions, lost text typed into input boxes, etc., will be avoidable. I agree however that Apple really ought to fix this issue, as it makes many people very unhappy. There is also a great feeling of helplessness around it too since it affects every browser (that I am aware of) out there, not just Safari.
Hope this helps you all; it sure has made me feel better about using the iPhone to web-surf in less that a day's time.
