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iPad, iOS 4 and RAM

L

lozpop

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 6, 2006
487
0
First of all, this thread is not a "troll" post about the "lack of RAM" in the iPad or "What can we expect from iOS 4 for the iPad".

My question, maybe, is for developers or hi-tech guys.
The iPad has the same amount of RAM of the iPhone 3GS, but the iPad has a huge screen and I think dedicated apps force the iPad more than iPhone apps. I'm not a developer, so correct me if I'm wrong.

How do you think the iPad will "manage" iOS 4 with his hardware specs? — Considering that the iPad has a full 1GHz processor, not an underclocked 833MHz.

D'you think it will suffer a little bit with Multitasking?

With all the rumors of these days, it seems that Apple could launch a new iPad together with the iOS 4 only to fully support it. I really hope I'm wrong about this one.
 
lozpop said:
First of all, this thread is not a "troll" post about the "lack of RAM" in the iPad or "What can we expect from iOS 4 for the iPad".

My question, maybe, is for developers or hi-tech guys.
The iPad has the same amount of RAM of the iPhone 3GS, but the iPad has a huge screen and I think dedicated apps force the iPad more than iPhone apps. I'm not a developer, so correct me if I'm wrong.

How do you think the iPad will "manage" iOS 4 with his hardware specs? — Considering that the iPad has a full 1GHz processor, not an underclocked 833MHz.

D'you think it will suffer a little bit with Multitasking?

With all the rumors of these days, it seems that Apple could launch a new iPad together with the iOS 4 only to fully support it. I really hope I'm wrong about this one.
Click to expand...

The iPad was introduced with the intention of its running iOS4. You can speculate all you like about what may be but it's pretty damn unlikely that Apple would be willing to go out on that limb without a clear plan. iOS4 for the iPad is obviously not iOS4 for the iPhone.
 
Hopefully it handles it better than my iPhone 3G which can't manage to send an SMS without crashing.
 
poloponies said:
The iPad was introduced with the intention of its running iOS4. You can speculate all you like about what may be but it's pretty damn unlikely that Apple would be willing to go out on that limb without a clear plan. iOS4 for the iPad is obviously not iOS4 for the iPhone.
Click to expand...

While that's what we hope, it was also probably not Apple's intent to release a flawed iPhone 4, either.

I really do wonder just how well the iPad will run iOS 4. I know when I do a full reboot on my jailbroken iPad 4 3.2.1 (with just SBSettings installed), there's only about 150MB free RAM. Open Safari and it's easy to lose another 100MB. With my jailbroken iPhone 4, there's roughly 360MB free RAM. I wonder if Apple really screwed up with the iPad. I hope to be proven wrong, though...
 
poloponies said:
The iPad was introduced with the intention of its running iOS4. You can speculate all you like about what may be but it's pretty damn unlikely that Apple would be willing to go out on that limb without a clear plan. iOS4 for the iPad is obviously not iOS4 for the iPhone.
Click to expand...

I really hope this. But the question is: If Apple — and I do believe it — really developed the iPad thinking about the iOS 4 and its functionalities, why the device has only 256MB RAM? It doesn't seem so incredible to me to add 512MB.

Now, if we are all wrong and at Apple they knew what they were doing, the iPad will be spectacular with iOS 4, without regretting 512MB RAM.
 
lozpop said:
I really hope this. But the question is: If Apple — and I do believe it — really developed the iPad thinking about the iOS 4 and its functionalities, why the device has only 256MB RAM? It doesn't seem so incredible to me to add 512MB.

Now, if we are all wrong and at Apple they knew what they were doing, the iPad will be spectacular with iOS 4, without regretting 512MB RAM.
Click to expand...

Have we really run out of real topics? Do we need to worry ourselves over things that may never materialize? The iPad works great. iOS4 should enhance that experience. I may be in a vocal minority, but I think my iPhone 4 is great and I have not experienced the problems that "everybody" seemed to be having (how come all the hysteria died down? where's the outrage over the flaw in its design? shouldn't 2 million people be returning these things for refund?)

IF iOS4 is released for the iPad AND it turns out to be the Edsel of mobile OSes on the iPad THEN feel free to give me an "I told you so." Worrying over what will likely not be a problem is a waste of energy.
 
What would happen if you could upgrade the amount of RAM you have. They have it for computers and they have the battery replacement thing, all you would have to do is pay a fee (£79) like the battery program and they will give you a boost in RAM and if they release a new iPad with a front facing camera (highly doubt the new iPad but just an idea) you'd get the camera as well for maybe a little bit more extra.

Just an idea
 
lozpop said:
I really hope this. But the question is: If Apple — and I do believe it — really developed the iPad thinking about the iOS 4 and its functionalities, why the device has only 256MB RAM? It doesn't seem so incredible to me to add 512MB.

Now, if we are all wrong and at Apple they knew what they were doing, the iPad will be spectacular with iOS 4, without regretting 512MB RAM.
Click to expand...

Two things:

First, my iPod touch 3G is running ios4 just fine. No issues encountered so far, although I use my iPad far more. In any event, there's an example of a device that uses less than 512 ram running ios4 with folder support, so-called multitasking and so on using less capable hardware than the iPad.

Second, there were a few ios4 features introduced with the iPad. Not major features, but again, seems like the iPad's ios4 lineage has been factored in. I do expect that the iPad's version of ios4 will differ to some degree from the iPhone/iPod version to take advantage of the screen real estate, just as the Apple-supplied apps were rewritten specifically for the iPad and not just the iPhone versions blown up to fit the iPad screen.

I don't think anyone has clearly defined what exactly the extra memory in the iPhone 4 is for. It's just there and whether it's for accommodating the display, or the facetime features - who outside Apple knows?

It's not there for web browsing or email or music or multitasking or folders, because the iPod touch 3G handles all of that no problem.
 
Merthyrboy said:
What would happen if you could upgrade the amount of RAM you have. They have it for computers and they have the battery replacement thing, all you would have to do is pay a fee (£79) like the battery program and they will give you a boost in RAM and if they release a new iPad with a front facing camera (highly doubt the new iPad but just an idea) you'd get the camera as well for maybe a little bit more extra.

Just an idea
Click to expand...

Apple would rather you just buy a new one. The RAM is soldered into the A4 so replacing it is impossible with replacing all of the guts of the iPad.
 
poloponies said:
Have we really run out of real topics? Do we need to worry ourselves over things that may never materialize? The iPad works great. iOS4 should enhance that experience. I may be in a vocal minority, but I think my iPhone 4 is great and I have not experienced the problems that "everybody" seemed to be having (how come all the hysteria died down? where's the outrage over the flaw in its design? shouldn't 2 million people be returning these things for refund?)

IF iOS4 is released for the iPad AND it turns out to be the Edsel of mobile OSes on the iPad THEN feel free to give me an "I told you so." Worrying over what will likely not be a problem is a waste of energy.
Click to expand...

Simply untrue. While the iPhone 4 antenna issue never really bothered me, my neighbor was dropping calls all day on it till he got a case. It IS that simple, for some people.

With regards to the iPad, it does NOT work flawlessly. I open a couple of web pages, and flicking back and forth between then requires a full reload of the page. How is that great?

I own and am "happy" with my iPad and iPhone 4, but I won't turn a blind eye to their deficiencies.
 
Any chance at all that the iPad actually has 512mbs of ram, but iOS 3 wasn't made to handle it, so Apple told developers to optimize it for or maybe Apple wants it to be an unannounced feature(Bluetooth on iPod touch comes to mind)?
 
I love my iPad, but I have been wondering about the decreased RAM, iOS4 did not work well for me on my 3G. I too have been wondering about how it will work. Could it be that Apple did put in 512MB into the iPad but they have done something to not enable the other 256??? Is that even possible, could they be hiding what's really there??
 
JohnRN said:
I love my iPad, but I have been wondering about the decreased RAM, iOS4 did not work well for me on my 3G. I too have been wondering about how it will work. Could it be that Apple did put in 512MB into the iPad but they have done something to not enable the other 256??? Is that even possible, could they be hiding what's really there??
Click to expand...

Well the iPhone 3G only has 128MB, so no wonder it sucks with iOS4.
 
appleguy123 said:
Apple would rather you just buy a new one. The RAM is soldered into the A4 so replacing it is impossible with replacing all of the guts of the iPad.
Click to expand...

That's a good point but doesn't the iPhone 4 have 512mb of RAM. As long as it's not underclocked everything should be good.
 
JohnRN said:
Could it be that Apple did put in 512MB into the iPad but they have done something to not enable the other 256??? Is that even possible, could they be hiding what's really there??
Click to expand...

A teardown of the device demonstrated it has 256MB inside.
 
256mb vs 512mb

Don't all modern CPU's use virtual memory?
We have anywhere from 16 to 64GB of high speed SSD memory available for paging. It's solid state - very fast by human standards!

I don't see a problem with IOS4 on the ipad.
 
Arnieaz said:
Don't all modern CPU's use virtual memory?
We have anywhere from 16 to 64GB of high speed SSD memory available for paging. It's solid state - very fast by human standards!

I don't see a problem with IOS4 on the ipad.
Click to expand...

I hope this is true, of course. We'll see in due course! Currently the iPad's OS shows its issues in Safari with its reloading of pages constantly. Hopefully not for much longer...
 
Even though it's not as much RAM as the iPhone 4, 256mb is still nothing to sneeze at, especially for a mobile device. The 3GS handles ios 4 very well, and I expect the iPad to do the same if not better due to the 1ghz a4.
 
My initial reaction is that the increased size of the iPad screen shouldn't make much difference to the memory usage. If we assume a 32bit colour depth then the iPad screen buffer will be 3MBs in size. While that isn't an insignificant amount of memory it's still a small proportion of 256MBs.

With the way that iOS operates more memory will always be useful however I don't see any need to panic. From what I've heard iOS4 works well on a 3GS; if that's true then I don't see why it shouldn't also work well on an iPad.
 
It doesn't really matter what they do with iOS4 on the current iPad. 256mb is 256mb and on a 10" device the apps are larger and I want to run more of them simultaneously. Nothing in the world can change that. There is no 'magic' upgrade outside of a pagefile that can change this and apple isn't going to add one for lifecycle reasons (perceived imo).

It is going to be rather comical if they release a 7" device that puts my real-sized unit to shame in performance. Terrible marketing if that happens imo.

I doubt my current ipad will ever see stock 4.x. There would need to be crazy changes to get me to dump the functionality of jb3.1.2. I can multitask, pagefile and document share between apps. There is nothing more this hardware platform can handle and I have more confidence in the jb devs to enhance their code/performance than I do in apple to release anything vastly different than iPhone iOS 4 in the next update.
 
I'll tell you.. The ipad will going to scream on ios4. They have the same processor (ip4) but apple maximized the A4 on iPad..

I am excited actually.
 
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