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tf397405

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 31, 2024
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So now that all of the M4 macs have 16gb standard ram, do we think that the current Ipad pro with get this jump shortly? The macbook air was given the jump earlier this week to 16gb standard with not much information. Will the ipad pro get 16gb standard now and not just on the 1TB+ models?
 

Sheepish-Lord

macrumors 68030
Oct 13, 2021
2,526
5,142
Definitely a possibility but you could argue the same for iPhones, which they didn’t do. Since macOS is far more capable I would guess that was an easy decision for them and maybe consumer feedback helped. Don’t think anyone is clamoring for 16gb mobile devices when the software has been shown to do nothing with it.

I’m still suspicious on why AI needs 8gb minimum anyway. Seemed more like an excuse for Apple to update their base RAM without saying we’ve been fleecing customers for years.
 
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Username-already-in-use

macrumors 6502a
May 18, 2021
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So now that all of the M4 macs have 16gb standard ram, do we think that the current Ipad pro with get this jump shortly? The macbook air was given the jump earlier this week to 16gb standard with not much information. Will the ipad pro get 16gb standard now and not just on the 1TB+ models?
While it's possible, I think they will wait until the next Pro model is due for any spec-change.

I suspect that bumping all the Macs to 16GB RAM minimum is for ensuring they all can run Apple Intelligence. It seems that on iPad, 8GB RAM is going to be sufficient for this, likely due to the smaller RAM footprint that iPadOS takes up compared with MacOS. Bumping the Mini 7 to 8GB from the Mini 6's 4GB RAM is a part of this thinking.
 

snipr125

macrumors 68020
Oct 17, 2015
2,006
3,122
UK
While it's possible, I think they will wait until the next Pro model is due for any spec-change.

I suspect that bumping all the Macs to 16GB RAM minimum is for ensuring they all can run Apple Intelligence. It seems that on iPad, 8GB RAM is going to be sufficient for this, likely due to the smaller RAM footprint that iPadOS takes up compared with MacOS. Bumping the Mini 7 to 8GB from the Mini 6's 4GB RAM is a part of this thinking.
Yes definitely this, IOS and iPad OS are far more efficient/tightly controlled in how they use their RAM as mobile OS's. Mac OS is a desktop OS with so many processes happening and not as tightly controlled (You can install Mac Apps from anywhere) that it generally needs more RAM to keep things flowing smoothly.
 

Pbwallstreet

macrumors member
Oct 15, 2024
37
63
iOS doesn’t need as much RAM as MacOS. So the answer is no, don’t expect to see 16 GB RAM in iPads or other iOS devices as standard. More RAM also uses more battery power.
 

Digitalguy

macrumors 601
Apr 15, 2019
4,640
4,468
I don't think that the OS (itself) RAM usage is necessarily much different (although nobody has exact data, so anybody here is speculating). However on MacOS apps can use much more RAM if they want, while iPadOS ejects stuff from RAM when necessary and the apps that use a lot of RAM are not many and the developer has to ask specifically to be allowed to use more RAM. Browsers for instance on iPadOS have a relatively low cap, that's why they reload exactly the same on 8GB and 16GB devices (I have both and have compared them several times).
How Apple Intellingence will impact reloads on 8GB devices is still too early to know.
 
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ctjack

macrumors 68000
Mar 8, 2020
1,546
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My bet goes for 12gb of base ram and 24gb for 1/2tb users.

Just to say notch below macbooks and 12gb of ram was already found in iPad pros but just deactivated. This is telling us that m4 comes with ram in 12gb increments but apple deactivates them.

I had panasonic headphones for 15 and 35 dollars: ifixit found they have the same speaker drivers but the cheaper one was awful sounding. Apparently what happened is panasonic still put expensive drivers into cheaper model but just drilled a hole in the body to let the bass out through that hole. User fix was to block that hole with a toothpick.
 

rkuo

macrumors 65816
Sep 25, 2010
1,308
955
Definitely a possibility but you could argue the same for iPhones, which they didn’t do. Since macOS is far more capable I would guess that was an easy decision for them and maybe consumer feedback helped. Don’t think anyone is clamoring for 16gb mobile devices when the software has been shown to do nothing with it.

I’m still suspicious on why AI needs 8gb minimum anyway. Seemed more like an excuse for Apple to update their base RAM without saying we’ve been fleecing customers for years.
The models take up quite a bit of memory, that's well understood. But perhaps the expectation is lighterweight models for mobile use cases.
 
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