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iPad, iOS 4 and RAM

i think the iPad with iOS4 will be just as great as my 3GS, but with my iPhone 4 with its 512MB of ram, yesterday morning i played Gangstar for a hour before work and then going to work using my iPhone alot like push email, sms, browsing with safari, some shazam in the car, iCal, updating facebook and iTeleport app through the app store, and then back home at my bed night time at 8 PM, i decided to continue playing Gangstar and when i launched it, i'm right back where i left of and i was shocked, dang! this 512MB really helps alot :D
 
aleni said:
i think the iPad with iOS4 will be just as great as my 3GS, but with my iPhone 4 with its 512MB of ram, yesterday morning i played Gangstar for a hour before work and then going to work using my iPhone alot like push email, sms, browsing with safari, some shazam in the car, iCal, updating facebook and iTeleport app through the app store, and then back home at my bed night time at 8 PM, i decided to continue playing Gangstar and when i launched it, i'm right back where i left of and i was shocked, dang! this 512MB really helps alot :D
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That would be the frozen state of the game. It will be the exact same on the iPad.
 
EthanNixon said:
That would be the frozen state of the game. It will be the exact same on the iPad.
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when iOS4 needs memory to open app, it will exit the apps that are in the frozen states (saved in RAM). that's what my 3GS did. at the end of the day, i cannot resume the app i used in the morning after i heavy use my iPhone 3GS all day long, and with iPhone 4, i can.

that's what lack of ram means.
 
aleni said:
when iOS4 needs memory to open app, it will exit the apps that are in the frozen states (saved in RAM). that's what my 3GS did. at the end of the day, i cannot resume the app i used in the morning after i heavy use my iPhone 3GS all day long, and with iPhone 4, i can.

that's what lack of ram means.
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I bet it will be optimized a whole lot better for the iPad, hence why it is taking so long to be released.
 
aleni said:
when iOS4 needs memory to open app, it will exit the apps that are in the frozen states (saved in RAM). that's what my 3GS did. at the end of the day, i cannot resume the app i used in the morning after i heavy use my iPhone 3GS all day long, and with iPhone 4, i can.

that's what lack of ram means.
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Thats not completely true, especially in case of games (the Gangstar scenario couple of posts back)! For games, the states are frozen and absolutely nothing is stored in RAM once the game exits! So technically, its going to perform same on iPhone 4 as it would on a 3GS with 256 MB RAM! However, the A4 chip helps iPhone 4 in resuming from frozen state quicker than the proccy on 3GS!!

One thumb-rule to remember, a better processor is any day more important than having more RAM with relatively weaker processor. Just my $0.02 :)
 
Pat123 said:
Thats not completely true, especially in case of games (the Gangstar scenario couple of posts back)! For games, the states are frozen and absolutely nothing is stored in RAM once the game exits! So technically, its going to perform same on iPhone 4 as it would on a 3GS with 256 MB RAM! However, the A4 chip helps iPhone 4 in resuming from frozen state quicker than the proccy on 3GS!!

One thumb-rule to remember, a better processor is any day more important than having more RAM with relatively weaker processor. Just my $0.02 :)
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u can prove all you want, but my experience with 3GS and iPhone 4 is that iPhone 4 tends to keep more apps in suspended state than 3GS. a good example is safari keeps more tabs than 3GS.
 
aleni said:
u can prove all you want, but my experience with 3GS and iPhone 4 is that iPhone 4 tends to keep more apps in suspended state than 3GS. a good example is safari keeps more tabs than 3GS.
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Well that's because the iPhone DOES indeed keep more apps suspended, because it has more RAM! If you're jailbroken, you can see the RAM count down with SBSettings the more apps you open and close. The 3GS won't keep up after a while...., and neither will the iPad when iOS4 is released for it.
 
WilliamG said:
Well that's because the iPhone DOES indeed keep more apps suspended, because it has more RAM! If you're jailbroken, you can see the RAM count down with SBSettings the more apps you open and close. The 3GS won't keep up after a while...., and neither will the iPad when iOS4 is released for it.
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+1
 
About the apps background freezing, I read in different developers forums that applications in background are stored in the Flash memory, to free RAM.

Could this be true? Actually I think only apps that play music in the background or does some tasks like finishing a process occupy a portion of the RAM.

Personally, what I'm looking for with Multitasking on the iPad, is to switch between applications without having to re-open and re-launch them entirely when I come back.

For example, I don't need to run 3 or 4 full processes in the background. The iPad can show one app at a time, and I don't need to leave in the background Final Cut Pro or Photoshop rendering or exporting — like I do on a Mac.
I just want to leave an app without bothering to find it close when I'm back, losing the "checkpoint" in Flipbook or else.
 
lozpop said:
About the apps background freezing, I read in different developers forums that applications in background are stored in the Flash memory, to free RAM.

Could this be true? Actually I think only apps that play music in the background or does some tasks like finishing a process occupy a portion of the RAM.

Personally, what I'm looking for with Multitasking on the iPad, is to switch between applications without having to re-open and re-launch them entirely when I come back.

For example, I don't need to run 3 or 4 full processes in the background. The iPad can show one app at a time, and I don't need to leave in the background Final Cut Pro or Photoshop rendering or exporting — like I do on a Mac.
I just want to leave an app without bothering to find it close when I'm back, losing the "checkpoint" in Flipbook or else.
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That's exactly what ios 4 does on the iPhone 4 and 3GS. But RAM is definitely used.
 
WilliamG said:
That's exactly what ios 4 does on the iPhone 4 and 3GS. But RAM is definitely used.
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I don't know, because on an iPhone 3GS I've seen eight of apps in the background, and only with 256MB RAM.

On the iPad if you open up three applications (jailbreaking) the RAM is almost totally occupied.

So I think Apple managed very well the apps in the background if an iPhone 3GS can manage almost ten apps and return to them without closing them.

I think the Flash memory could be effectively used in this process. I ain't see any other explanation. Where is the app stored, otherwise?
 
Hopefully that's what the Boffins at Apple are doing right now, tweaking iOS 4 to perform better on a faster processor to compensate for the RAM shortage.
Or hopefully that are tweaking the way inactive apps are "frozen" in the background, like the guy a couple of posts back made, maybe they could be stored on Flash memory. Either way as the iPad is one of Apples 'Killer Devices' I'm sure they'll make it work like a dream. If iOS gimps the iPad like it did the 3G, people will not be happy.
 
In all honesty, most of the time when I use multitasking, it is simply to go in between two apps. I have rarely ever used 3 on the go, and think I have never user 4.

I think the iPad will be fine with iOS 4, my 3GS coped fine, and with the A4, it is going to be that much sweeter.

Yes, we would have all liked the iPad to have 512MB of ram instead of 256MB, however, it doesn't, so there is nothing we can do about it.
 
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.
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The iPhone 4s extra RAM is probably mostly due to graphics. Images will be twice as large in memory, so you'll need more memory. The iPhone 4s screen is 640 x 960, which is huge. I've got a 13" macbook with 1280x800 resolution - when I run the iPhone simulator at 100% scale,it takes half the screen horizontally and goes off the screen vertically. Even turned on it's side it just about fits. The iPhone 4s screen would be huge at laptop PPI.

That's why it needs so much RAM. It's going to be loading really high resolution images. The iPad will fare much better because of the lower PPI and larger physical size. I would have preferred more RAM, but I'm sure it will cope.
 
What I'm concerned with is given the iPad can't even keep a few Safari tabs in memory without having to reload them, just how many apps will we be able to multitask with before the device falls over? Apple can clearly do some tweaking to ensure apps use as little memory as possible, but there must come a point where you can tweak no further, and you have to add more RAM? I feel like we were at that point the moment the iPad was released. I still have my fingers crossed that iOS 4 will fix all the memory problems on the iPad. Browsing is my main use for the iPad, and sadly it's gimped right now due to the lack of RAM!
 
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