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Is having only 256MB of RAM going to put you off buying an ipad

MacRumorUser said:
3) can't run iMovie? You do not know if it's inability to run iMovie is hardware limited at all. You are grasping at rumors and conjecture. It may simply be a case that Apple see no point in releasing iMovie for the iPad simply because it has no camera and therefore can not capture movie footage in which you therefore could edit with iMovie. That is far more a logical reason than many have provided for Apples decision.
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Steve Jobs is dreaming about editing videos on the iPad.


Walt: So you made iWork for the iPad. Do you see things that the iPad can't do?

Steve: Well, you can imagine all sorts of things for the iPad. Video editing, content creation...

Walt: Does it require a faster processor?

Steve: Well time has a way of working these things out.
 
The iPad will get iMovie just like iPhone got iBooks and netflix. This is the reason why apple does not tell you the specs because they don't matter. And safri is the only browser that has the reloading issues.
 
The iPad is blazing fast, and that's because of the processor, not the RAM.

Anyway, it will be a shame in the future because iMovie probably won't be released for the iPad, because it requires 512MB, and when the next iPad will be introduced in april or may, it will have 512MB at least, so maybe a lot of developers will release a lot of apps requiring 512MB.

That would be a shame for me. What d'you think?
 
Mr Ski 73 said:
As above really, it probably will me.
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Why?

Can't say I'm a big fan of the ipad anyway, but I don't see what difference this will make - its either adequate for what you want to do now or it isn't. Unless there's a specific app you need to run that this is preventing you from doing - imovie from the iphone 4 might qualify here - then the amount of ram is irrelevant.
 
nexsta said:
The iPad 2/pro will probably get a Full HD resolution = 1920x1280 thats exactly 4times the pixel of the iPhone 4= 960x640 seems like a logical step for me.

I think we also gonna see a front facing camera for Facetime, 1gb ram and the new iLife10 for iPad.

I think then the iPad will show what a device like this really can do and nobody will ever question the use of this device, it will be an usefull sci-fi like device and not just a very nice consume based tech toy for rich people.
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Ummm.... riiiiiight. Except that 1920 x 1280 isn't the same screen ratio as the existing 1024 x 768 display so you end up without easy backwards compatibility with existing iPad apps. Plus you've got the exact same problems you'd have with increasing the resolution up to iPhone PPI, just ever so slightly scaled back. 2,457,600 pixels versus 786,432 which is over three times the total number of pixels the iPad has to push now. It's ever so slightly more realistic but it's still WAY past what most mobile hardware can comfortably drive while doing 3D gaming (and not killing battery life), and that has to be the benchmark here. I really don't think you're going to see an increase in resolution and frankly I don't think it needs it either. It's a nice to have, not an essential feature.

1Gb of RAM on a mobile OS would be utterly pointless as things stand right now. Even 512Mb is only really needed to handle HD video (note the 3GS has every function of iOS4 running quite happily on 256Mb) and then only when assembling full-on projects in iMovie.

Front facing camera seems at least possible IF they can figure out a way to get it to play nice with the iPad's form factor.

Oh, and people will ALWAYS question the need for the device, side-effect of fanboys run wild. Frankly though I'm already finding that the existing iPad is quite capable of replacing my laptop for 99% of tasks and it'll never do the remaining 1% because they're inherently suited to a different form factor.
 
Of course the announcement doesn't really change anything about the iPad, but it does seem odd. Why would Apple think a phone needs more ram than a tablet? Since they have stated it's place lies between the iPhone and a MacBook it would make sense for the hardware to reflect that.

Given how long these products take to develop I'd guess there was plenty of overlap between the ipad and the iPhone 4 before they were feature locked. Again, this doesn't really change anything, but it is a source of curiosity.
 
Mom: How's your dinner, Billy?
Billy: Great, mom! This is delicious! Mmmm! What's in it?
Mom: It's broccoli.
Billy: BROCCOLI!? I hate broccoli! Yuck! Bleah! Gross! I'm not eating this anymore!
 
smiddlehurst said:
Frankly though I'm already finding that the existing iPad is quite capable of replacing my laptop for 99% of tasks and it'll never do the remaining 1% because they're inherently suited to a different form factor.
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Ditto. I've not turned my laptop on since i got the iPad.
 
I had initially been put off by the idea of the iPad only having 256mb, but having used a friends 32g WiFi model for a couple of hours I've been really impressed by the snappy speed of the pad. So much so that I might go and pick myself one up tomorrow. Of course, I'll never see it. Bloody wife will be on it all the time. :mad:
 
They are really different products, the spec on the iPhone doesn't change how I feel about the iPad. I think that if in the next couple of months a new iPad comes out with much better spec that might bother me. But the spec on a different product doesn't bother me.
 
Those who won't buy it won't buy it coming up with excuses. I was going to wait till 2g, but I love this much already. Enjoy the device for what it is. You are not buying the specs. Unless it is causing issues that you notice, specs are specs. It is no more healthier than pixel peeping digital photos.
 
I just bought one. My first Apple product. And must say I'm disappointed to find out it only has 256mb of ram--not that in isolation, but that Apple felt compelled to double that for the new iPhone . . running the *new OS*. So, what are we going to have to live without that the new iPhone gets with double the memory?

I think the iPad should be their most powerful device (at least "touch" device), but here, only two months later, it's the red headed step child.

On more than a few occasions, I've thought: "wow, I can't do that on the iPad, and yet I can do it on my one year old Android 1.6 phone . . . well, I'm guessing the new OS will fix a lot of deficiencies . ." but now I'm not so sure. If the new OS *needs* 512meg (and certainly Apple wouldn't add it if it didn't), then just how crippled with the iPad version be?

Pretty lame IMO. Especially for 600 bucks.

Yes, it is fast--doing the one thing at a time that I'm forced to do. But what about with the new OS?
 
Grievous Angel said:
Pretty lame IMO. Especially for 600 bucks.

Yes, it is fast--doing the one thing at a time that I'm forced to do. But what about with the new OS?
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If the iPhone 3GS has been approved for iOS 4, there is absolutely no reason to presume that it will not run brilliantly in the current iPad.

There are some things to keep in mind.

First, (as has previously been stated) the cheapest iPad is cheaper than the cheapest iPhone 4. There were certain cost things in the iPad that had to be taken into consideration that are not relevant in the phone market due to subsidies.

Second, the devices are on different refresh cycles. At some point in the iPad will have higher specs than the iPhone.

Third, there is a reason that Apple does not release specs such as memory on the websites of devices. Most people dont really care.

Simply, if an iOS iteration does not run well on a specific piece of hardware, that hardware is no longer supported.

Second
 
Simply put! NO!

I wouldn't care if it had one byte of memory! All I would care about is, does it work, does it function as advertised and the answer is an astounding YES! So there you go, Happy waiting;)
 
Maziar said:
I have an iPad 64GB and its pretty fast.I don't care if iPhone has 512MB RAM because they are 2 different devices.
Even though iPhone has more RAM and a Retina display,its still not fair to compare them because iPad is superior in web surfing,watching movies,reading PDFs and books because of having a much bigger screen,whereas iPhone is pretty well for what you expect from a "Phone".
iPad is iPad and iPhone is Phone,they are in completely different leagues IMO.
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Well said. They are indeed two different devices from the use case perspective. I'll have both of them and enjoy them for what they're good at.
 
Is having only 256MB of RAM going to put you off buying an ipad

, since you read about the iphone 4 yesterday...all you spec whores disappoint me. Quit thinking like a windows person, you are living in the light now, just enjoy it. :D
 
My only problem with speed is JQuery on sites. Things like lightboxes and image sliders are very slow. I'm sure that's because whoever wrote it left a lot of unnecessary code, but some major sites like Gizmodo have terribly slow lightboxes on the iPad. If Apple is going to support Javascript, they should have enough RAM to run some of the most common applications.

I'm fairly positive this is a RAM issue, and while it doesn't ruin the iPad, it is frustrating for a device that's supposed to be the best way to view the internet.
 
MacRumorUser said:
1) Safari's reloading is not indicative of anything. Try another browser like atomic, icab or life browser. They don't have the issue.

2) potential? Err well that's ridiculous to argue a point of reason that you don't even know exists yet as no-one has run IOS4 on iPad. I'm sure the new background API's that apps have to abide by will sort any potential problems and the vast majority of people who are using ipads now are not that 'hindered, as it currently stands, so even if they can only multitasking with one or two extra apps open I'm sure they will be happy. Some people however seem to thank that because it can multitasking that you need to have a staggering array of apps open...

3) can't run iMovie? You do not know if it's inability to run iMovie is hardware limited at all. You are grasping at rumors and conjecture. It may simply be a case that Apple see no point in releasing iMovie for the iPad simply because it has no camera and therefore can not capture movie footage in which you therefore could edit with iMovie. That is far more a logical reason than many have provided for Apples decision.
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No point in releasing iMovie for the iPad? LOL...oh man. Riiight. That nice big screen couldn't possibly be used for editing anything. Much better on the small screen of a phone. :rolleyes: Guess what? My Mac-mini doesn't have a camera on it either and yet I still edit stuff with iMovie. And editing movies takes what to do???? That's right folks...it takes MEMORY.
 
Jaro65 said:
Well said. They are indeed two different devices from the use case perspective. I'll have both of them and enjoy them for what they're good at.
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I somewhat disagree. One is smaller, and has mobile communication built in. One is larger. But they both share the same interface, and in many, many applications run the same or similar productivity and entertainment apps.

It stands to reason that Apple's tablet PC should be better at running said apps than its (more) portable devices.
 
Grievous Angel said:
I somewhat disagree. One is smaller, and has mobile communication built in. One is larger. But they both share the same interface, and in many, many applications run the same or similar productivity and entertainment apps.

It stands to reason that Apple's tablet PC should be better at running said apps than its (more) portable devices.
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I agree. I still haven't read anyone reply with the reason they think a phone needs more ram than a tablet. Again, I'm not saying the iPad is bad or in any way magically worse now that the iPhone's specs are public. I'm just curious in regards to the thinking that went behind it.
 
Mike Reed said:
I agree. I still haven't read anyone reply with the reason they think a phone needs more ram than a tablet. Again, I'm not saying the iPad is bad or in any way magically worse now that the iPhone's specs are public. I'm just curious in regards to the thinking that went behind it.
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I was complaining after I found out the ipad has only 256. I can't tell you how many times an app simply wont load due to lack of memory. I am talking to you Weather Channel App!

But in anycase, Apple put 512 into the iphone to better compete with Android. They just put 256 in the ipad because they could with no tablet competition. Typical Apple
 
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