iOS 4.3 features: Mobile Safari getting Nitro JavaScript engine, big performance improvements with iOS 4.3

By Andrew Wray, Friday, Mar 4, 2011 a 9:25 am

During Apple's iPad 2 announcement yesterday Scott Forstall announced that Mobile Safari was getting a 2x performance boost, in part by porting over Mac OX's Nitro JavaScript engine.

As you surf the web, your fingers will love the responsiveness of the new Nitro JavaScript engine powering Safari. It runs JavaScript up to twice as fast as in iOS 4.2.2 Which means you get more speed behind each page load. And sites with lots of interactive features can appear on your screen even faster.

Users should see noticeable speed improvements under iOS 4.3 when visiting highly-interactive and complex websites across iOS devices, and when paired with the A5 chip and (presumably) more RAM on the iPad 2 it should really scream. Mac OS X Lion has recently been given a WebKit2 boost as well but there's no word yet on whether that will be carried over to iOS or when.

Are you looking forward to the Safari performance boosts coming in iOS 4.3? Let us know in the comments below!

[Apple]

Andrew Wray

Andrew Wray is a Salt Lake City, Utah based writer who focuses on news, how-tos, and jailbreak. Andrew also enjoys running, spending time with his daughter, and jamming out on his guitar. He works in a management position for Unisys Technical Services, a subsidiary of Unisys Corporation.

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There are 19 comments. Add yours.

dloveprod says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 9:34 am - 2 years ago

It does seem a little snappier loading we pages.

ghostface147 says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 9:34 am - 2 years ago

I guess build 4.2.2 was an internal build.

jiden77 says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 10:04 am - 2 years ago

I'm sure that was a typo and you never make mistakes.

ghostface147 says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 5:03 pm - 2 years ago

I nevur mayk misstakes wen i rite stuf

Ilovegeorgia says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 9:56 am - 2 years ago

Yah I want to get my hands on that because I do most of my surfing on my iPhone 4.

DRHughes says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 9:57 am - 2 years ago

I'll see how fast it really is come next Friday. Loading up ESPN desktop version!

ghostface147 says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 10:03 am - 2 years ago

I just tried it over 3G. Took it less about 8 seconds. Full version, not the mobile gimped crap. I hate sites that set mobile sites by default and I can't change it. Cult of mac, BGR....

Muero says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 9:58 am - 2 years ago

I hope TiPb does a comparison video of 4.2.1 vs 4.3 so we can see real-world results.

zeagus says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 10:20 am - 2 years ago

I just tested Sunspider (have two iPhone4s here), results below:
iPhone 4 iOS 4.2.1 -
Total: 10509.4ms +/- 1.8%
iPhone 4 iOS 4.3.0 GM -
Total: 4101.2ms +/- 3.6%
Nicely quicker.

Garz says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 10:42 am - 2 years ago

Loaded 4.3 GM last night. Safari is so much faster than 4.2.1!!!

francolasalsa#im says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 11:46 am - 2 years ago

I hope this is for the 3Gs also as I skipped the iPhone 4 in favor of the iPhone 5

Shrike says:

Mar 4, 2011 at 2:42 pm - 2 years ago

It's (iOS 4.3) available for the iPhone 3GS. Essentially all iOS devices with 256 MB of RAM or greater.
However 3GS owners, be prepared for de-featuring in the iOS 5 update. We may get everything actually, as the iPhone 4th gen and iPad 1 have 256 MB of RAM and should be capable of running all of the features in iOS 5, but Apple is ruthless with letting older generations of hardware go.

Sirius-XM says:

Mar 5, 2011 at 8:46 am - 2 years ago

This brings up the question of how Apple will treat the iPad customers? Phones pretty much have a two year life span because of contracts. The iPad will probably have a longer lifespan. Will Apple make them orphans at 2 years.