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iPad Pro Practical Uses of 16 GB of RAM?

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PrettyWings

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Nov 3, 2016
505
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Hey all,

So here it is. iPads are out. One of the novel features this time is 16 GB of RAM. A very compelling upgrade, but what is it's purpose right now? What does it change about your experience? There have been reports about apps not having to refresh while they're all open at once, though that's even being seen in the 8 GB iPad Pro models.

So what does that mean for us right now? Is this all about what we may be able to do in the future as iPad OS is upgraded?

What are your thoughts?
 
None of you want a practical use of 16GB you just spent $1500 on a 1TB 16GB iPad If you want to use 16GB of RAM wait and get a 14” M1X MacBook Pro
 
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PrettyWings said:
A very compelling upgrade, but what is it's purpose right now?
Click to expand...
I think/hope/expect Apple to make that purpose very clear at WWDC.

iPad Pro with M1 has been designed with whatever Apple have planned for the next couple of years with iPadOS. So it's not the iPad for now, it's the iPad for iPadOS 15 and above.
 
PrettyWings said:
Hey all,

So here it is. iPads are out. One of the novel features this time is 16 GB of RAM. A very compelling upgrade, but what is it's purpose right now? What does it change about your experience? There have been reports about apps not having to refresh while they're all open at once, though that's even being seen in the 8 GB iPad Pro models.

So what does that mean for us right now? Is this all about what we may be able to do in the future as iPad OS is upgraded?

What are your thoughts?
Click to expand...
At this point 16GB only benefit is less reloads, there is zero other difference, other than having more storage space...
The future is only speculation...
 
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PrettyWings said:
A very compelling upgrade, but what is it's purpose right now?
Click to expand...
Steve121178 said:
I think/hope/expect Apple to make that purpose very clear at WWDC.
Click to expand...
Hm… if you haven’t made up a purpose now, finding purpose depending on the WWDC/the future/the pope/tea leaves pattern on the bottom of your cup can be applied, but is it really something one should do?
 
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Developers are confirming that the 16gig models are making a max of 5 gigs of ram available to an individual app. If Apple doesn't address this, it's a huge damn mess for people who bought these for apps like Procreate
 
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nicetriangles said:
Developers are confirming that the 16gig models are making a max of 5 gigs of ram available to an individual app. If Apple doesn't address this, it's a huge damn mess for people who bought these for apps like Procreate
Click to expand...
This is normal since up until now the maximum RAM was 6GB and you need to leave 1GB to the OS. My guess is that this will now move to 7 for M1 iPads, but I don't expect this to move to anything more, since so far IOS and IPadOS have never been able to distinguish 2 iPads based only on RAM. So, for instance 6GB A12X iPads are treated just like 4GB ones. And the 4GB A9X ipad is treated like the 2GB A9X...
Which doesn't mean, before someone misunderstands this, that the RAM is wasted. The OS uses the RAM, just not single Apps.
 
Slartibart said:
Link?
Click to expand...
https://twitter.com/x/status/1395755668200640518
https://twitter.com/x/status/1396061108205723649

I've also tested it on Nomad myself and sure enough, in their available ram reading in the viewport it was showing exactly 5 gigs. I talked to the devs in their support discord and they've said that there's nothing about how Nomad is coded that would impose that limitation, it's the OS doing it.

Procreate is currently capping the new iPads at 2gigs because they configure their app to limit to 2 gigs when it does not recognize the model of iPad. They've said will be updating the app soon to use as much ram as the OS lets it.
 
Digitalguy said:
This is normal since up until now the maximum RAM was 6GB and you need to leave 1GB to the OS. My guess is that this will now move to 7 for M1 iPads, but I don't expect this to move to anything more, since so far IOS and IPadOS have never been able to distinguish 2 iPads based only on RAM. So, for instance 6GB A12X iPads are treated just like 4GB ones. And the 4GB A9X ipad is treated like the 2GB A9X...
Which doesn't mean, before someone misunderstands this, that the RAM is wasted. The OS uses the RAM, just not single Apps.
Click to expand...
That would be a huge steaming bile of BS if Apple advertised 16gigs knowing fully that people have been begging for more ram for apps and then limit apps to well below 16. MacOS can do it. People paid a lot of extra money to get these 16gig models.
 
nicetriangles said:
That would be a huge steaming bile of BS if Apple advertised 16gigs knowing fully that people have been begging for more ram for apps and then limit apps to well below 16. MacOS can do it. People paid a lot of extra money to get these 16gig models.
Click to expand...
That's how it has been working since the iPad pro exists... iPads have been treated the same if they had the same SOC, regardless of RAM... including by the OS, not just by apps.... (some OS functions allowed on 3GB iPads are not allowed on the 4GB 1st gen pro, because of the 2GB variant). MacOS is a different OS and uses paging anyway, so it works differently...
Will Apple make iPadOS able to differentiate 16GB M1 devices from 8GB ones? And allow apps to access more RAM and have higher settings for 16GB devices?
I don't think that things will change, but we'll see. Again the 16GB are not wasted anyway, since apps can stay in RAM longer
 
Digitalguy said:
That's how it has been working since the iPad pro exists... iPads have been treated the same if they had the same SOC, regardless of RAM... including by the OS, not just by apps.... (some OS functions allowed on 3GB iPads are not allowed on the 4GB 1st gen pro, because of the 2GB variant). MacOS is a different OS and uses paging anyway, so it works differently...
Will Apple make iPadOS able to differentiate 16GB M1 devices from 8GB ones? And allow apps to access more RAM and have higher settings for 16GB devices?
I don't think that things will change, but we'll see. Again the 16GB are not wasted anyway, since apps can stay in RAM longer
Click to expand...
Not true. The 2020 opens up more ram to apps than the 2017 did which opens more ram to apps than other models with less RAM.

And yeah it is a waste if your usecase for the device is using heavy PRO apps and not just keeping a boatload of apps open at all times.
 
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nicetriangles said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1395755668200640518
https://twitter.com/x/status/1396061108205723649

I've also tested it on Nomad myself and sure enough, in their available ram reading in the viewport it was showing exactly 5 gigs. I talked to the devs in their support discord and they've said that there's nothing about how Nomad is coded that would impose that limitation, it's the OS doing it.

Procreate is currently capping the new iPads at 2gigs because they configure their app to limit to 2 gigs when it does not recognize the model of iPad. They've said will be updating the app soon to use as much ram as the OS lets it.
Click to expand...
so image processing composites willl be restricted to 5GB? That’s 2.5times of what‘s possible now on a iPP 2020… what was the problem exactly? Maximum memory budgets on iOS/iPadOS are known for quite some time, so it’s more for M1 iPads it the same as for the 2020 iPPs, your point?

EDIT: factual corrections after being pointed out in this thread
 
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nicetriangles said:
Not true. The 2020 opens up more ram to apps than the 2017 did which opens more ram to apps than other models with less RAM.

And yeah it is a waste if your usecase for the device is using heavy PRO apps and not just keeping a boatload of apps open at all times.
Click to expand...
Not true? You must have misunderstood. Of course the 2020 opens up more RAM, because it HAS more RAM, but there is ONLY 1 RAM amount.
The 2020 allows for 5GB since it has 6GB, the 2017 only has 4GB so it only allows 3GB. But there are no RAM variants for either model...
Only the A9X and A12X have 2 RAM variants, in addition to M1 iPads... And what happens is just what I explained above...(both variants are treated like the lower one).
As for PRO apps, we'll see when they arrive...
 
Someone should tell the Wallstreet Journal coders that if you add a new tab, go away from Safari and back, or turn off the screen and back on again that the page does NOT need to be refreshed every frickin time.

More RAM just doesn’t help everything when people are the negating factor.
 
nicetriangles said:
False. Nomad sculpt can access a max of 3 gigs of ram on my 2017 model pro and on my 2021 it can access 5. That's not even 2x a device from 3 generations back and the 2021 has 4x the total ram.
Click to expand...
My bad. if you want please run this and report your numbers. I stand corrected regarding my previous post - memory budget on iPadOS 14.5.x seems to be restricted to a higher amount as previous versions of iPadOS (on the same hardware). I did the factor wrong for the 2020 iPPs.
 
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