Hi Klaus,
I have also run into this problem on the ipad. We built a native app that included a webkit browser and still experienced the same issue, so it appears not to be an issue just with Safari, but with how webkit is handling JS and image sizes. This causes a memory leak that grows with each pano loaded.
With Safari we would crash the browser every 3rd pano loaded, without fail. With our webkit app we are able to load between 10-20 panos before the crash (we've tried to come up with creative ways of managing the memory, but still haven't been able to find a way around it).
One "solution" is to lower the resolution of the tablet images to 512. Mobile Safari can then load around 20 panos before crashing. We're currently testing our native app to see if we have an equal gain in performance. We lose some of the resolution, but at least we don't have the crashes.
More info on the webkit bug:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/57396…iew-loadrequest
Thanks,
Daniel