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007p

macrumors 6502a
Mar 7, 2012
992
662
100% Bet Money all the Reviews are based off the 16GB RAM models.
Is it going to make that much of a difference at this point? Unless they specifically detail how to hit the ram limit, I’d be surprised if any of the reviewers notice having that much more additional ram. At some point, still on an iOS based operating system with limited pro apps available, it’s just not going to be noticeable.
 

Susurs

macrumors 68000
Jun 18, 2010
1,609
11,017
They’d really need to make some justification (show what is the big advantage) in order to make me pay the price difference for the 16GB version on iPadOS.

Any guesses how software on iPad / iPadOS could make benefit from the 16GB?

That would also be a shift in policy and kind of seem really wierd if speed / performance of the iOS/iPadOS would depend on the ram.
 

JayMysterio

macrumors 68000
Apr 24, 2010
1,534
32,961
Rock Ridge, California
Having 16 GB of RAM would be nice, but $1800 for a 1 TB and $2200 for the 2 TB is a pretty pricey purchase. Who am I kidding? Sign me up.
I paid a little less than that for my 2018 at the time from Apple with Apple Care I believe. With the price hike for the screen it's understandable.

For all those people who keep making the argument about being some kind of replacement device, 16GB makes that a little more convincing and the M1 chip.
 

thisismyusername

macrumors 6502
Nov 1, 2015
476
729
Any guesses how software on iPad / iPadOS could make benefit from the 16GB?

Allow users to run Final Cut/Logic/Xcode on it, get some real virtualization apps on it, etc and you'll not only see folks using all that RAM, you'd probably start hearing folks asking for 32GB. 16GB is obviously not for folks who just want a basic tablet. It's for professionals who want to move their workflows from a traditional computer to an iPad Pro but can't yet.

I sure hope iPadOS 15 really blows us all away but I'm prepared to be disappointed. Still though, I can't see them supporting 16GB if they didn't have something big planned for this year's WWDC.
 
Last edited:

richpjr

macrumors 68040
May 9, 2006
3,763
2,594
Allow users to run Final Cut/Logic/Xcode on it, get some real virtualization apps on it, etc and you'll not only see folks using all that RAM, you'd probably start hearing folks asking for 32GB. 16GB is obviously not for folks who just want a basic tablet. It's for professionals who want to move their workflows from a traditional computer to an iPad Pro but can't yet.

I sure hope iPadOS 15 really blows us all away but I'm prepared to be disappointed. I can't see them allowing a 16GB option if they didn't have something big planned.

16 GB is pretty essential for those professional apps.
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,921
13,273
I believe what that poster was getting at was not blindly buying a certain model and it having the 16GB of RAM, it’s buying a model with 16GB blindly expecting Apple to make iPadOS and macOS more parity and bringing apps like FCPX and LPX to the iPad Pro.

Post was edited just before my reply was posted. The original post asked where the 16GB RAM was confirmed.
 
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Apple Mac Daz

macrumors 68040
Jun 2, 2011
3,211
3,730
Manchester
hopefully the reviews might have some indication 8GB vs 16GB when they are out. always gone for the 256GB cellular but am really tempted to go 1TB to get the 16GB. I don’t really use any pro apps but obviously it’s a big chunk of money either way and I don’t wanna regret it if I went for the 8GB down the line
 

profets

macrumors 603
Mar 18, 2009
5,165
6,313
Having 16 GB of RAM would be nice, but $1800 for a 1 TB and $2200 for the 2 TB is a pretty pricey purchase. Who am I kidding? Sign me up.

Been wondering about this. Makes the $2K for 1TB 5G more palatable.

Seriously. Price is right where I thought it would end up... $2400 for an iPad kind of seems absurd, haha. But given the power... yeah. Definitely tempted.

And honestly... with those specs... just let us throw MacOS on there! I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

I miss the days of the $499 iPad, lol.

Don’t get me wrong. The iPad Pro is my primary device, and I love that its grown into a larger lineup and really pushing the edge with features, design, etc. Totally understand how they’ve slowly grown it to really be another computer option in the lineup, so the price really isn’t surprising to me in a sense.
 

Digitalguy

macrumors 601
Apr 15, 2019
4,656
4,493
16GB RAM is a 100% Signal of MacOS running on iPad Pro XDR models. 8GB Standard on base models is even further proof.
Nah, but if they want the 16GB to be used they just need to let people open as many Windows as they want and resize them, both on the iPad and on a external monitor. You can even do this on Android with Dex. You don't need MacOS to fill 16GB.
IMO it's more an indication that the iPad pro will decouple from other iPads in what it is allowed to do and capable of doing (contrary to now, where basically all iPads run the same things).
 

Traverse

macrumors 604
Mar 11, 2013
7,711
4,491
Here
I'm just surprised they listed it honestly.

I remember when the MacBook Air and Mac mini came out there was all the concern about 8GB vs 16GB and "shared memory" and the answer, even from tech-forward people like on the ATP podcast, was that 8GB really is fine for most uses. You can benefit from 16GB in some areas, but it's really not limiting.

For me personally, even if I could upgrade separately to 16GB, I wouldn't. I doubt most iPad Pro users aside from those who push illustrating to the max or maybe video edit (is that RAM intensive?) won't see much use. And my guess is that Safari still refreshes :p since that seems to be pard of the iOS process purge.
 

one more

macrumors 603
Aug 6, 2015
5,158
6,574
Earth
hopefully the reviews might have some indication 8GB vs 16GB when they are out. always gone for the 256GB cellular but am really tempted to go 1TB to get the 16GB. I don’t really use any pro apps but obviously it’s a big chunk of money either way and I don’t wanna regret it if I went for the 8GB down the line

It all depends on how you use your iPad. Right now, given iPadOS limitations, there is no big difference between 4 GB, 6 GB or 8 GB RAM. As iPadOS evolves (hopefully!) there might be more benefit of having more RAM. However, since Air 4 has 4 GB, we should expect Apple to optimise iPadOS for this amount of RAM for at least three more years from now. How long to you intend to keep your iPad for? This is the question.
 
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Apple Mac Daz

macrumors 68040
Jun 2, 2011
3,211
3,730
Manchester
It all depends on how you use your iPad. Right now, given iPadOS limitations, there is no big difference between 4 GB, 6 GB or 8 GB RAM. As iPadOS evolves (hopefully!) there might be more benefit of having more RAM. However, since Air 4 has 4 GB, we should expect Apple to optimise iPadOS for this amount of RAM for at least three more years from now. How long to you intend to keep your iPad for? This is the question.

my current iPad is a Gen 2 12.9 but I have held on to that longer than normal. it’s fast enough and the structure of the newer ones always put me off
 

iamMacPerson

macrumors 68040
Jun 12, 2011
3,488
1,927
AZ/10.0.1.1
hopefully the reviews might have some indication 8GB vs 16GB when they are out. always gone for the 256GB cellular but am really tempted to go 1TB to get the 16GB. I don’t really use any pro apps but obviously it’s a big chunk of money either way and I don’t wanna regret it if I went for the 8GB down the line
I think you have to have some perspective here. Apple has had devices with split RAM capacities but never treated them differently. Think iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. The Plus got 3GB of RAM whereas the 7 got 2. They have remained feature parody and I doubt the 7 would be dropped before the 7 Plus would. macOS Big Sur still runs on some MacBook Airs that shipped with 4GB of RAM. It’s fine for basics but don’t expect to have a lot of tabs open.

It would be very un-Apple to say later that ‘Oh, only 1 and 2TB iPad Pros from 2021 can do this. The rest cannot. Sorry’. They’re just gonna leave the 2021 iPad Pro out of that feature or software update altogether. If you’re not planning on doing a lot of pro work on it, I wouldn’t sweat getting 16GB.

To add, I have the 16GB M1 in my Mac mini. I was running Final Cut, Pixelmator Pro and Safari all at once using 10GB of RAM. I can see myself doing all of those on my iPad… but never at the same exact time.

Is that true for the iPad Pro 11" too?
Yes.
 
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