Do iOS and iPad apps take up less ram than intel and proper native m1 applications?

[ww1971]

I’m just wondering if I run an iPad or iOS app on Mac m1 does it take up less or more RAM compared to intel applications running under Rosetta and true native m1 application?

one more question which is a bit off topic - would the true native m1 applications work on a iPad pro?

 

[tjtj]

No, applications will use the same amount of RAM, so no important difference.

 

[ArPe]

If you use an iPad app on macOS the memory footprint and installation size is the same.

Apps on iOS and iPadOS use slightly different frameworks and don’t use a window manager. They also save their state to disk when they are idle in the background so that they can free up memory.

Saved states is in macOS but it takes this transition to make it work properly.

An M1 app is a macOS app, they won’t work on an iPad. You can code an app to work identically on both, but then it would basically be an iPadOS app.

 

[ww1971]

If you use an iPad app on macOS the memory footprint and installation size is the same.

Take Microsoft office for example. microsoft office for iPad is a cut down version of the desktop version for mac, so with less features it could take up less RAM, or again would it make no difference regardless?

 

[jdb8167]

The operating system strategies for managing memory are very different though. MacOS Is designed for multitasking many processes that each determine, mostly on their own, when they need to run. Under iOS the operating system makes the determination on when a background process gets to run and many times those processes will be unceremoniously dumped out of memory and the process shut down. This means that while a well behaved application on iOS is running on the display it is likely using very similar amounts of RAM as compared to the same application running on MacOS, overall it is likely that MacOS will use more memory for the whole system. Hence, 6 GB on a top of the line iPad Pro versus 8-16GB on a M1 Mac.