So the iPad only has 256mb of RAM. Sure, this is fine for a lot of apps, and the iOS is highly optimized and streamlined. But for Mobile Safari, it really sucks. As I'm sure many of you know, tabs reload all the time. This rarely happens on my 3GS, but happened all the time on my iPhone and iPhone 3g.
So why wouldn't they include 512mb or 1gb? Well, the obvious answer is price. But doesn't that seem like a small price to pay for sacrificing the user experience?
This all leads me to believe that iOS 4.0 will support some sort of virtual (swap) memory to temporarily write these pages out to the flash memory, meaning that they wouldn't have to keep redownloading. Sure, this is a geeky feature that a lot of people probably won't think about, but I believe that it could be just as important as anything else for the user experience.
In addition, many people are expecting Apple to finally enable 3rd party multitasking in iOS 4.0. Using this technique of swapping data on and off of the flash memory could go a long way towards accomplishing that feat, though at a potential performance hit when switching. It is up to Apple to figure out a way to optimize all of this, but I'm sure that the A4 is capable of handling the extra workload. Perhaps this is why Apple advertised 10 hours of battery life and people (myself included) consistently get 11-12 hours? Perhaps it will be reduced down to 9-10 when multitasking debuts this summer.
Lastly, I want to briefly touch on something that I don't think a lot of people have thought about. Gestures. The iPad currently supports 10 (I've even heard some devs say 11) finger touches at once. If any of you have used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on iPad, you know how useful the three-finger tap and swiping is when it comes to navigating the various menus and interface elements. I can see Apple implementing this in apps like Safari, where a three-finger swipe can navigate forward/backward between pages, swipe up to enter an address and have the keyboard pop up, swipe down to bring down the bookmarks menu. Three finger spin to refresh the page? Ok, maybe that last one is a bit extreme, but as you can see, there are many possibilities.
For me, these are two of my top hopes for tomorrow. The tab reloading in Safari is my biggest gripe with the iPad, along with no way to run Pandora in the background. I'm also really hoping for some simple printing options: document and photo, along with a centralized file system and ability to upload in Safari. Lastly, user accounts that are easy to switch between on the lock screen. My wife and I frequently share the iPad and keeping our stuff separate would be nice. These are all features that will help me get things done on the iPad. Hopefully Apple will address at least some of these concerns tomorrow!
So why wouldn't they include 512mb or 1gb? Well, the obvious answer is price. But doesn't that seem like a small price to pay for sacrificing the user experience?
This all leads me to believe that iOS 4.0 will support some sort of virtual (swap) memory to temporarily write these pages out to the flash memory, meaning that they wouldn't have to keep redownloading. Sure, this is a geeky feature that a lot of people probably won't think about, but I believe that it could be just as important as anything else for the user experience.
In addition, many people are expecting Apple to finally enable 3rd party multitasking in iOS 4.0. Using this technique of swapping data on and off of the flash memory could go a long way towards accomplishing that feat, though at a potential performance hit when switching. It is up to Apple to figure out a way to optimize all of this, but I'm sure that the A4 is capable of handling the extra workload. Perhaps this is why Apple advertised 10 hours of battery life and people (myself included) consistently get 11-12 hours? Perhaps it will be reduced down to 9-10 when multitasking debuts this summer.
Lastly, I want to briefly touch on something that I don't think a lot of people have thought about. Gestures. The iPad currently supports 10 (I've even heard some devs say 11) finger touches at once. If any of you have used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on iPad, you know how useful the three-finger tap and swiping is when it comes to navigating the various menus and interface elements. I can see Apple implementing this in apps like Safari, where a three-finger swipe can navigate forward/backward between pages, swipe up to enter an address and have the keyboard pop up, swipe down to bring down the bookmarks menu. Three finger spin to refresh the page? Ok, maybe that last one is a bit extreme, but as you can see, there are many possibilities.
For me, these are two of my top hopes for tomorrow. The tab reloading in Safari is my biggest gripe with the iPad, along with no way to run Pandora in the background. I'm also really hoping for some simple printing options: document and photo, along with a centralized file system and ability to upload in Safari. Lastly, user accounts that are easy to switch between on the lock screen. My wife and I frequently share the iPad and keeping our stuff separate would be nice. These are all features that will help me get things done on the iPad. Hopefully Apple will address at least some of these concerns tomorrow!
