iPad Pro Ipad Pro 2018: Only 4gb of RAM

[stylinexpat]

Today you can see that when Apple makes people pay more for 2GB of RAM and increases their prices by a lot they also take a hit themselves. Not many people are not happy about price increase and just 4GB of RAM

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I still don't see 4GB of RAM being any sort of issue until maybe iOS 15. Affinity apps run totally fine for my fiancee on her 2018 iPad with 2GB of RAM. I just think it's a little silly to get all up in arms about, but this is a MacRumors forum we are talking about.

It can run and will run. It is just that when they charge you premium prices people expect premium specs
Today 4GB of RAM is not considered “Premium” when smartphone manufacturers out of China have 6-8GB of RAM in smartphones 1/3 the size.

 

[Donka]

Word and Excel, desktop class apps, work perfectly fine even going back to 2gb RAM.

I must admit I have never used Excel on an iPad but on the desktop, large Excel files will consume a lot of RAM. It is one of the main culprits for workstations locking up in our enterprise.

 

[macdaddy1991]

Must be Nostradamus or a time traveler. Seem to know a lot without even having said "desktop class" apps in hand on a 4gb RAM device.

Word and Excel, desktop class apps, work perfectly fine even going back to 2gb RAM.

And if trends continue with 1.5 years between iPads, so next in 2020, exactly what mythical iPads are these developers writing these "desktop class" apps for?

Did you really just compare word to photoshop and AutoCAD in terms of ram usage? Point is this smells of planned obsolescence. They ommited increasing the ram for these scenarios so that there is an upgrade for 2020. I push 6+ gb of ram use in photoshop regularly and I’m not even a power user of that program. Opening several raw photos takes up a lot of ram and there is no way around that no matter how good an OS is with management

 

[DNichter]

Today you can see that when Apple makes people pay more for 2GB of RAM and increases their prices by a lot they also take a hit themselves. Not many people are happy about price increase and just 4GB of RAM
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It can run and will run. It is just that when they charge you premium prices people expect premium specs
Today 4GB of RAM is not considered “Premium” when smartphone manufacturers out of China have 6-8GB of RAM in smartphones 1/3 the size.

That makes no sense to me. iOS devices don't need 6-8 GB of RAM and will perform better than any of the phones out of China. The extra 2 is literally just to help manage the TB. And stocks are dropping because of this? Come on, that's just a joke. Everyone on this site just cries and cries about every little thing. Just don't buy the product if you don't approve. Go grab all those phones in China and go wild.

 

[ThemePro]

If the new iPad Pro with 4GB RAM has the same memory management problems as the Google Pixel 3 is having (also 4 GB RAM), I'll return it but I doubt that very much.

 

[stylinexpat]

That makes no sense to me. iOS devices don't need 6-8 GB of RAM and will perform better than any of the phones out of China. The extra 2 is literally just to help manage the TB. And stocks are dropping because of this? Come on, that's just a joke. Everyone on this site just cries and cries about every little thing. Just don't buy the product if you don't approve. Go grab all those phones in China and go wild.

I have an iPhone,iPad Pro and MacBook Pro. I like Apple products also and have been an Apple fan for many years. Have bought all their devices over the years from the beginning. It may not make sense to but you must remember that to many others out there it also doesn’t not make sense to pay that much more for not a lot more either. This is not the only reason. Price and specs are two important reasons though. What will happen is people will hold off on upgrading and then sales will drop. If they upgrade every year they may hold off to two years. If they upgrade every 2 years they may hold of to 3rd year.
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If the new iPad Pro with 4GB RAM has the same memory management problems as the Google Pixel 3 is having (also 4 GB RAM), I'll return it but I doubt that very much.

I have an iPad Pro with 4 GB of RAM. It has no problems and runs well. It will not have any issues. I have had none. The problem is not here but rather with future sales where people will say why should I pay more for similar specs? People will then hold off if purchasing price is too high for them. In this case the prices are too much for many people. Now you have the rich upgrading and average people not upgrading and new people not buying.

 

[macdaddy1991]

That makes no sense to me. iOS devices don't need 6-8 GB of RAM and will perform better than any of the phones out of China. The extra 2 is literally just to help manage the TB. And stocks are dropping because of this? Come on, that's just a joke. Everyone on this site just cries and cries about every little thing. Just don't buy the product if you don't approve. Go grab all those phones in China and go wild.

you dont need 2GB of extra ram to manage 1TB, that's been discussed and it's generally accepted that you need 1mb of ram per 1GB of storage. That puts us at 1GB used for the controller which leaves 1.5GB more available to apps than on the 512gb model.

 

[DNichter]

you dont need 2GB of extra ram to manage 1TB, that's been discussed and it's generally accepted that you need 1mb of ram per 1GB of storage. That puts us at 1GB used for the controller which leaves 1.5GB more available to apps than on the 512gb model.

Okay, I was just going by what had been discussed on twitter from Troughton-Smith and the like. I'll just wait until it's confirmed as the back and forth on here about a number gets kind of dumb.
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I have an iPhone,iPad Pro and MacBook Pro. I like Apple products also and have been an Apple fan for many years. Have bought all their devices over the years from the beginning. It may not make sense to but you must remember that to many others out there it also doesn’t not make sense to pay that much more for not a lot more either. This is not the only reason. Price and specs are two important reasons though. What will happen is people will hold off on upgrading and then sales will drop. If they upgrade every year they may hold off to two years. If they upgrade every 2 years they may hold of to 3rd year.
[doublepost=1541174252][/doublepost]

I have an iPad Pro with 4 GB of RAM. It has no problems and runs well. It will not have any issues. I have had none. The problem is not here but rather with future sales where people will say why should I pay more for similar specs? People will then hold off if purchasing price is too high for them. In this case the prices are too much for many people. Now you have the rich upgrading and average people not upgrading and new people not buying.

Everyone needs to make their own buying decisions when it comes to a product and the value it brings them. If they don't want to buy it, don't buy it. I just think we go on and on about RAM when it's not all that critical. We don't even know at this point if the 2GB extra is usable. Everyone just needs to relax a bit.

 

[1144557]

Did you really just compare word to photoshop and AutoCAD in terms of ram usage? Point is this smells of planned obsolescence. They ommited increasing the ram for these scenarios so that there is an upgrade for 2020. I push 6+ gb of ram use in photoshop regularly and I’m not even a power user of that program. Opening several raw photos takes up a lot of ram and there is no way around that no matter how good an OS is with management

Word and Excel are desktop class apps. Those are the words you used for them, not me.

Anyone doing Photoshop or Autocad, who mainly are doing such for income to make money, have little quarrel upgrading every 2 years (selling old stuff spending a few hundred more) if the device is making them money. They make that much 100 times over having their iPad.

But that is NOT the AVERAGE iPad user, and probably the vast vast minority of users who push their ipad to the limit. And yes, they could offer a $4000 model with 16gb of RAM and 4TB of storage, but how many will they sell to cover stocking the parts and the production line space to make that model? Not enough to recoup I would bet. And "MO SPECS!" come with a price; battery life. RAM is well known to chunk battery life on mobile devices.

 

[TheralSadurns]

Millenials Oh how did you ever survive before smartphones came along



That is assuming that people dont just want a big screen modern device for content consumption. And that even 5% of total consumers even know what RAM is or does. People like my mother who is late 60s dont care if the ipad takes another 1 second to reload something, she doesnt know any better and is using a 2013 iPad. She has no clue what 4gb of RAM does differently. It's good enough for casual use and 4-5 years of use. THAT is the average person buying an iPad; most are not trading up every 1-2 years like phones because they have to wait 2 seconds more to reload an app due to RAM.

My guess is the average iPad buyer, even at the top Pro devices, is NOT a "pro" user in fact. I would guess the vast minority of iPad Pro users are "pro" users using it to anywhere near its real potential.

Regarding the buying a "pro" device aspect, buying a 9.7" tablet when owning a 5.8-6.5" phone really doesnt make a ton of sense; you're not gaining a TON of viewing area there. It's not like going from an old 4" screen to a 9.7" iPad difference. And the 9.7 screen being non-laminated is a SIGNIFICANTLY worse experience for content consumption. It's a good budget device to read books and web browse, or watch an episode on Netflix in bed.

So then what else do you buy? Apple doesnt make a "budget"/"content consumption" big screen tablet. The next size(s) up are those "pro" devices. They make nothing between $300 and about $700 (even if you take into account thr 10.5 still selling)

Nice try. I grew up long before the smartphone era. And didn't even have a mobile phone as a kid. But whatever.
I gave good examples. You just cannot seem to accept them. I literally don't care. If you have no actual arguments but have to belittle others... be my guest.

 

[rui no onna]

My guess is the average iPad buyer, even at the top Pro devices, is NOT a "pro" user in fact. I would guess the vast minority of iPad Pro users are "pro" users using it to anywhere near its real potential.

True. It's not like you can BTO iPads.

All I really care about are:

• A10 or faster
• 4GB RAM
• 1TB
• Fully Laminated Display (doesn't matter if it's 9.7, 10.5 or 11)
• TouchID
• LTE
• ~$1000?

Alas, there's the important caveat that only the storage controller on A12X could handle 1TB and they even needed a separate motherboard for it (although this I suspect is for cost savings—just $10 for 10 million units is a nice chunk of change).

 

[sunking101]

I still don't see 4GB of RAM being any sort of issue until maybe iOS 15. Affinity apps run totally fine for my fiancee on her 2018 iPad with 2GB of RAM. I just think it's a little silly to get all up in arms about, but this is a MacRumors forum we are talking about.

Yes but.... multitasking.

 

[DNichter]

Yes but.... multitasking.

Yup, no issues with 4GB of RAM when it comes to multitasking. You'll survive, I promise.

 

[macdaddy1991]

Yup, no issues with 4GB of RAM when it comes to multitasking. You'll survive, I promise.

until you start using photoshop using multiple raw photos with projects pushing over 4gb in size.

 

[DNichter]

until you start using photoshop using multiple raw photos with projects pushing over 4gb in size.

Have you had that issue? I’d imagine if you are doing this, you’d have the TB model with 6GB of RAM. How has your experience with the device been so far?

 

[darkarn]

until you start using photoshop using multiple raw photos with projects pushing over 4gb in size.

Which begs the question of whether you are using the right tools for the right workload...

 

[macdaddy1991]

Have you had that issue? I’d imagine if you are doing this, you’d have the TB model with 6GB of RAM. How has your experience with the device been so far?

I dont want to pay an extra 700$ to get the 1TB model when I would be offloading my projects anyways once completed.

 

[DNichter]

I dont want to pay an extra 700$ to get the 1TB model when I would be offloading my projects anyways once completed.

Okay so you have not used the product or have any issues with the product, making claims it will struggle based on nothing, about a workflow you likely wouldn’t even use. Got it. Sounds about right for MacRumors.

 

[macdaddy1991]

Okay so you have not used the product or have any issues with the product, making claims it will struggle based on nothing, about a workflow you likely wouldn’t even use. Got it. Sounds about right for MacRumors.

not based on nothing. Based on knowing how big my photoshop projects are and knowing that that has nothing to do with optimization/os. If you're using raw photos in PS it's a memory hog. Will be the same on the iOS version.

 

[Ambulater]

It just seems premature to say whether this is an issue or not. It could be that 4GB of RAM is insufficient for working with large PSD files in PS for iPad. On the other hand, it may be a mistake to equate how Mac OS manages memory with how iOS manages memory or to assume that PS for Mac OS has the same memory requirements that PS for iOS will.

I understand that the upcoming PS for iPad is being billed as “real PS”, but from everything I’m reading it sounds more like a PS that has been reimagined for a touch interface and that streamlines some of the bloat. It might use some of the same code, but it’s not going to just be a straight up port.

Just as proof of concept, consider Affinity Photo. Affinity is often referred to as a “PS competitor”. While that might be a debatable moniker, it does do many of the same things such as work with very large files with lots of layers, including PSD files. I’ve worked with PSD files and large TIFF files in Affinity on my 9.7” iPad Pro with no performance issues whatsoever......and the 9.7” iPP only has 2GB of RAM!

It may be that PS and autoCAD for iPad will not be the sleek, efficient apps (in terms of performance) that Affinity is, but it’s really to soon to say. We may just find out that these “desk top class” apps run very well on the iPad with a lot less memory than they would need if designed for a desktop. Don’t panic yet.

 

[DNichter]

not based on nothing. Based on knowing how big my photoshop projects are and knowing that that has nothing to do with optimization/os. If you're using raw photos in PS it's a memory hog. Will be the same on the iOS version.

I don’t think it’s a fair comparison until we actually use the device and app in question. Until then, it’s all speculation. If it’s a problem for you though, either don’t buy it or try before you buy.
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It just seems premature to say whether this is an issue or not. It could be that 4GB of RAM is insufficient for working with large PSD files in PS for iPad. On the other hand, it may be a mistake to equate how Mac OS manages memory with how iOS manages memory or to assume that PS for Mac OS has the same memory requirements that PS for iOS will.

I understand that the upcoming PS for iPad is being bullied as “real PS”, but from everything I’m reading it sounds more like a PS that has been reimagined for a touch interface and that streamlines some of the bloat. It might use some of the same code, but it’s not going to just be a straight up port.

Just as proof of concept, consider Affinity Photo. Affinity is often referred to as a “PS competitor”. While that might be a debatable moniker, it does do many of the same things such as work with very large files with lots of layers, including PSD files. I’ve worked with PSD files and large TIFF files in Affinity on my 9.7” iPad Pro with no performance issues whatsoever......and the 9.7” iPP only has 2GB of RAM!

It may be that PS and autoCAD for iPad will not be the sleek, efficient apps (in terms of performance) that Affinity is, but it’s really to soon to say. We may just find out that these “desk top class” apps run very well on the iPad with a lot less memory than they would need if designed for a desktop. Don’t panic yet.

Truth. Affinity apps are great from what I hear. My girlfriend uses them with the 2018 iPad and has no performance issues at all.

 

[1144557]

True. It's not like you can BTO iPads.

All I really care about are:

• A10 or faster
• 4GB RAM
• 1TB
• Fully Laminated Display (doesn't matter if it's 9.7, 10.5 or 11)
• TouchID
• LTE
• ~$1000?

Alas, there's the important caveat that only the storage controller on A12X could handle 1TB and they even needed a separate motherboard for it (although this I suspect is for cost savings—just $10 for 10 million units is a nice chunk of change).

They're overpriced. The old 12.9" released at $799; both generations. Even if you factor in Face ID (credit the Touch ID part amount) and retooling the display, ok raise the price $50. The former iPad Pro didnt change price when the CPU and RAM were upgraded; they even raised storage from 32gb to 64gb from Gen 1 to Gen 2. So I dont count the A12X and same 4gb RAM as the 10.5 in the price increase equation; and they start at the same 64gb storage as the last gen iPads.

Both Gen 1 and 2 were $799 for the 12.9" The new 12.9" should have started at $849 and the 11" and $699. Each of those prices is a $50 increase from the last gen.

Now it went up $150/200 respecitvely? Just because? They're each $100 overpriced easily, just like the XS/Max. The only appropriately priced product they have (minus the budget 9.7) is the XR IMO; at basically the same price the 7-8 Plus were ($769) but a lot bigger screen and tech. That is actually a pretty good deal if you ask me.

Have you had that issue? I’d imagine if you are doing this, you’d have the TB model with 6GB of RAM. How has your experience with the device been so far?

Be tough considering full iPad Photoshop isn't even released. But everyone "knows" apparently. Its mind boggling.

As if Adobe ONLY wants to sell Photoshop to people using the 1TB model, I mean I've heard conspiracies but cmon now.

 

[Ambulater]

not based on nothing. Based on knowing how big my photoshop projects are and knowing that that has nothing to do with optimization/os. If you're using raw photos in PS it's a memory hog. Will be the same on the iOS version.

You may be correct, but I don’t know if we know that yet, for three reasons:

1) iOS and PS for iOS might employ agressive forms of memory compression. A huge PSD file of 3GB (like the one in the Apple demo) may use less than 3GB of RAM when open due to memory compression.

2) The files for the iOS version of PS are not standard PSD files. They’re a type of PSD file optimized for Creative Cloud. Not sure what this means exactly, but could imply a difference in size and how they are handled.

3) I was listening to an interview on the Verge podcast with one of the leaders for the Adobe PS team. He said something to the effect that you would be able to edit your projects even on a plane with no internet connection because thumbnails (not sure if that was the term, but some type of small file) are stored locally that allow you to edit, then when you have a connection your edits will be sync’d with the cloud. This implies you will not need the entire full PSD file open in order to make edits and do work.

Again, you may be correct that 4GB of RAM just won’t be enough, but I think there are reasons to say, “wait and see”.

 

[Kal-037]

I’m actually now at the point that logic set in and I don’t care if the 1TB were to have 6GB storage. I would not be able to tell the difference as I have used computers and macs with lower or higher RAM, and usually the Apple product has 4-8 and the windows has 8+ but runs slower and performs worse even with more power and RAM.

4GB is a ton for an iOS device (even with auto cad, photoshop, and more) I say that because my Air two and IPad Pro 2016 with 2GB of RAM can handle large files and save background programs without constant refresh... so having 2x more memory on the newer iPads is just magic.
These, the 2nd, and the 1st gen 12.9” iPad Pros will run all the way up to iOS 17+, Apple will treat these devices good... as they now know how much backlash they can get if they mess with the current state of things (and all they wasn’t even a huge deal, all they did was slow the processor down to save the iphones battery life,) but people got so ticked and worked up enough, that Apple fixed that, and then made iOS 12 support devices from 5-years ago... So I don’t see them changing that in the future, as now there is a huge expectation from not just fans like us, but regular consumers which are starting to pay more attention (so Apple will NOT do anything to piss them off again, as they learned a lesson and that’s how they get their money) not from us, but the millions of regular folk.


Kallum.

 

[rui no onna]

They're overpriced. The old 12.9" released at $799; both generations. Even if you factor in Face ID (credit the Touch ID part amount) and retooling the display, ok raise the price $50. The former iPad Pro didnt change price when the CPU and RAM were upgraded; they even raised storage from 32gb to 64gb from Gen 1 to Gen 2. So I dont count the A12X and same 4gb RAM as the 10.5 in the price increase equation; and they start at the same 64gb storage as the last gen iPads.

Both Gen 1 and 2 were $799 for the 12.9" The new 12.9" should have started at $849 and the 11" and $699. Each of those prices is a $50 increase from the last gen.

The "~$1000?" was more my target price for the "BTO" iPad with the specs I listed (1TB and LTE being primary culprits in driving up price). I do expect to pay a premium for the storage.

However, an extra $700 for features I'm not particularly interested in has me strongly analyzing pros and cons of this year's model. Certainly, I'd be quite frustrated if a new iPad Pro is released in 15-18 months that has 1TB LTE $1299 and 2TB LTE $1699. Particularly so if I can get a refurb 1TB for $1K. Even storage junkie that I am, 2TB is pretty overkill for my tablet needs.