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marcusalwayswins

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 23, 2021
440
83
This question is to all 2018 iPad Pro Users. with 4GB of RAM. I have seen tons of Video where all the so called Tech Guru YouTubers have said unless you want Thunderbolt Port and the Mini-LED Screen, there is no real reason for the 2018 iPad Pro users to upgrade their devices.

Almost everyone says there is nothing that the 2018 iPad Pro user cannot do which the 2021 M1 iPad Pro does. So I have a Use Case just the other day I was using Photoshop on the iPad, I was working on a project and editing it, making changes to it, refining it, editing it, making changes to the colour profile so on and so forth...And there was a time where Photoshop almost Freezed !! this is the First time in my use of 3 Years that I saw the 2018 iPad Pro Stutter, Struggle. It was taking time to process things, a Lag of I would say 10-15 secs

I would be really interested now what the 2018 iPad Pro users have to say about this since they keep defending their stance, position of not upgrading to the M1 iPad Pro.

What would you guys say about this ?
 

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
16,263
11,765
8GB memory boosts overall experience drastically in tons of small ways imo. Game can run at high speed for longer. Switching between apps feel smoother. Tabs load less often. On iPad Pro 2018 I could encounter an issue where the slide over app resets as soon as I dismiss it. No such thing happen on M1 iPad Pro yet. YouTube tech reviewers are just doing their usual stuff: downplaying certain devices in the name of “saving money”. Sure, when budget is a bit tight, one has to give up something. But when money is not an issue, why not going for better iPad?

I’d still say M1 iPad Pro right now is a bit overkill, but that’s the better problem to have than using an underpowered device. 8GB is very good.
 

Maven1975

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2008
1,014
275
If you can get a 2018 in good shape at a good price, you won’t be disappointed.

2021 is an upgrade across the board.

Processor
Ram
Screen
Cameras
Thunderbolt

If it’s a gaming and consumption device, I’d get the cheaper of the two.
 

MyopicPaideia

macrumors 68020
Mar 19, 2011
2,155
980
Sweden
This question is to all 2018 iPad Pro Users. with 4GB of RAM. I have seen tons of Video where all the so called Tech Guru YouTubers have said unless you want Thunderbolt Port and the Mini-LED Screen, there is no real reason for the 2018 iPad Pro users to upgrade their devices.

Almost everyone says there is nothing that the 2018 iPad Pro user cannot do which the 2021 M1 iPad Pro does. So I have a Use Case just the other day I was using Photoshop on the iPad, I was working on a project and editing it, making changes to it, refining it, editing it, making changes to the colour profile so on and so forth...And there was a time where Photoshop almost Freezed !! this is the First time in my use of 3 Years that I saw the 2018 iPad Pro Stutter, Struggle. It was taking time to process things, a Lag of I would say 10-15 secs

I would be really interested now what the 2018 iPad Pro users have to say about this since they keep defending their stance, position of not upgrading to the M1 iPad Pro.

What would you guys say about this ?
Hard to actually understand what you are expecting to hear. I use the 2018 11” 1TB (6GB RAM) iPad Pro daily as a finance professional. It is my main work machine. It continues to perform as new, with regular use seeing 3 different browser windows open with probably on average 10 tabs each with several other PDF, office, document editing and finance tool specific apps open. I get some reloads at times, and have had an occasional stutter here and there, but otherwise pretty buttery smooth performance since day one.

What I can tell you about iPadOS is that it is the limiting factor with these machines. The Photoshop issue you describe above probably would also have happened on an M1 iPad Pro as well, since iPadOS limits the amount of accessible RAM for individual programs to just under 5GB if I remember correctly. So even if you had the 16GB RAM M1 iPad Pro, you would still be limited to that same amount of RAM in Photoshop itself.

There is no doubt that the M1 iPad Pro is technically a better machine, but as a tool for work, utility, or play, the 2018 A12X iPad Pro‘s are essentially identical to their 2020 counterparts, and still probably not noticeably deficient in day to day use at all compared to the new M1 iPads Pro.

I myself am actually eyeing the iPad mini 6 though - if it comes with the new iPad Air design and an A15 chip, that is a compelling machine for my work - iPhone 12 mini and iPad mini 6 would be such a great combo for someone like me who commutes and travels, and can simply just plug it in to a hub for external keyboard, trackpad, and large 4k screen.

Give me full external monitor support and better background app memory management, and 99% of my use case for a Mac would disappear. Still need a Mac for desktop only niche use cases though, and that last 1% is a hard hurdel to get over.
 

PeteBurgh

macrumors 6502
Jun 25, 2014
289
663
There is no doubt that the M1 iPad Pro is technically a better machine, but as a tool for work, utility, or play, the 2018 A12X iPad Pro‘s are essentially identical to their 2020 counterparts, and still probably not noticeably deficient in day to day use at all compared to the new M1 iPads Pro.

This is an excellent response which says it all really. The M1 iPad offers some nice incremental upgrades, but it will perform most tasks almost identically to previous models.

In general, I really welcome the longevity of iPads - I spend enough on tech stuff as it is without upgrading mine every year!
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,920
13,266
What I can tell you about iPadOS is that it is the limiting factor with these machines. The Photoshop issue you describe above probably would also have happened on an M1 iPad Pro as well, since iPadOS limits the amount of accessible RAM for individual programs to just under 5GB if I remember correctly. So even if you had the 16GB RAM M1 iPad Pro, you would still be limited to that same amount of RAM in Photoshop itself.

Just a comment though, even if apps are limited to 5GB, that's still higher than I believe around 4GB limit for 2020 iPP and around 3GB limit for 2018 iPP.
 

Wando64

macrumors 68020
Jul 11, 2013
2,339
3,109
I have a 2018 11" iPad Pro and I've never experienced any slowdown whatsoever.
I do Lumafusion projects with 6 concurrent streams of hi-res video and never a hiccup.
I also do music projects with multiple apps running concurrently via Audiobus and iPad connected to an external audio interface. Again, not a problem.

I'd say that what you have experienced with Photoshop is probably down to a glitch in the software rather than the iPad not being able to cope.
 

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,032
While I had no complaints about my 2018 and 2020 .... the M1 is noticeably faster. UI is faster, tasks I do are faster, and I don't have anywhere near the reloads I did with the 2018 (basically none). Now, 2020 - I had almost no reloads as well.

For my usage case, the 2018 and the 2020 would have been perfectly fine. But the M1 is surprisingly pleasant to use - just instant everything. Like my M1 MBP. I'm enjoying both of them and looking forward to many years of heavy usage.

Even though I'm a light user - I'm noticing that when using Safari (6-10 tabs), taking notes (Notability, GoodNotes, Apple Notes), and/or doing Teams/Slack - reloads are much less on the M1 - and things are noticeably faster.

If I had a 2018, I'd look at the M1 just for the speed/ram alone. If I had a 2020, I'd keep it. If you're like me and can't decide - get the M1 - then keep it for at least a few years before thinking of upgrading again.
 

boss.king

Suspended
Apr 8, 2009
6,394
7,647
I bought a used 2018 iPad Pro earlier this year, right after the M1 iPads were announced. I basically use it as a paper replacement for work, as well as life planning, reading, and casual web browsing, and for those tasks it's great. For most other tasks I find myself reaching for either a more portable device (my phone) or a more capable device (laptop).

I don't see what a more powerful version would bring at this point as the bottleneck is the OS, not the hardware. Until iPad OS becomes a more capable OS, this is going to remain a sidekick device.
 

MyopicPaideia

macrumors 68020
Mar 19, 2011
2,155
980
Sweden
Just a comment though, even if apps are limited to 5GB, that's still higher than I believe around 4GB limit for 2020 iPP and around 3GB limit for 2018 iPP.
Yeah, the 2018’s got 4GB, and 6GB if you got the 1TB storage version. The 2020’s all came with 6GB. Both sizes the same.

Yes, so with the 2018’s Photoshop would have the extra 1GB if you didn’t have the 1TB storage.

Also the 5GB RAM limit was for single apps, so the extra RAM is not useless as it is utilized for keeping multiple RAM hungry apps running at the same time, so is useful for multitasking.

The RAM limit is there just for that purpose actually, since iPadOS doesn’t use a swap function to offload RAM data to storage for reloading, but just dumps out the oldest data when it gets full.

You will definitely see less reloading with 16GB RAM, but for single apps anything with 6GB or more, i.e. the latest 3 generations of iPad Pro (1TB 2018 machines included there) there will will be no difference.

Apple is reportedly raising this limit as an entitlement for certain apps to apply for when being submitted to the app store actually in the betas for iPadOS 15, so we’ll see where that goes.
 

rui no onna

Contributor
Oct 25, 2013
14,920
13,266
You will definitely see less reloading with 16GB RAM, but for single apps anything with 6GB or more, i.e. the latest 3 generations of iPad Pro (1TB 2018 machines included there) there will will be no difference.

Note, what I'm saying is on 6GB RAM iPads (actually, just the 2020 iPP since the 2018 1TB is treated as having 4GB), apps are only allowed to use around 4GB max so the 5GB limit is actually taking into account that the 2021 iPP has 8GB RAM minimum.

ProCreate

2017 A10X/4GB:
2048 x 2048 - 124 layers

2018 A12X/6GB: (same treatment as 4GB)
2048 x 2048 - 124 layers

2020 A12Z/6GB:
2048 x 2048 - 156 layers

2021 M1/16GB: (same treatment as 8GB)
2048 x 2048 - 196 layers

Extrapolating from the above, we can guess that Photoshop can use up to:

3GB RAM on the 2017 & 2018 iPP

4GB RAM on the 2020 iPP

5GB RAM on the 2021 iPP
 
Last edited:

Johnny907

macrumors 68020
Sep 20, 2014
2,150
4,007
Bought an M1 Pro at launch, tried it for two weeks, took it back. Anyone who claims it was noticeably faster than the 2018 Pro isn't being honest with themselves or others. I use my 2018 Pro to edit and proof photos in RAW format between shoots, quick edit videos to share on my social media accounts, tap out emails and website updates and watch downloaded movies on the long international flights I spend a third of my year traveling on. The difference in performance while performing these same tasks on the M1 Pro versus the 2018 Pro were negligible, and this is 100% due to iPadOS kneecapping the hardware. Even the 2018 Pro is capable of more than Apple allows it to be, and that is a shame. If you are happy with your 2018 Pro there is no reason at this time to upgrade to the M1 Pro.
 

Significant1

macrumors 68000
Dec 20, 2014
1,686
780
Bought an M1 Pro at launch, tried it for two weeks, took it back. Anyone who claims it was noticeably faster than the 2018 Pro isn't being honest with themselves or others. I use my 2018 Pro to edit and proof photos in RAW format between shoots, quick edit videos to share on my social media accounts, tap out emails and website updates and watch downloaded movies on the long international flights I spend a third of my year traveling on. The difference in performance while performing these same tasks on the M1 Pro versus the 2018 Pro were negligible, and this is 100% due to iPadOS kneecapping the hardware. Even the 2018 Pro is capable of more than Apple allows it to be, and that is a shame. If you are happy with your 2018 Pro there is no reason at this time to upgrade to the M1 Pro.
I saw a YouTube video comparing m1 iPad with 2018 or 2020 (can't recall which) running various benchmark. The m1 aced all the synthetic benchmark and won with a good margin, but then he finished off with a real life test exporting a video and the older model was fastest. I am sure, it is a matter of missing M1 optimization, but reflects your experience. Myself I bought a discounted 2020 model, because it is plenty for my need (4gb too little, 6gb good enough; usb 5 or 10 gbps good enough, don't need thunderbolt) and having a M1 16GB mba I wouldn't know how to use that power on iPad with ipadOS in it current form.
 
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eelpout

macrumors 6502
Oct 30, 2007
443
163
Silicon Valley
Note, what I'm saying is on 6GB RAM iPads (actually, just the 2020 iPP since the 2018 1TB is treated as having 4GB), apps are only allowed to use around 4GB max so the 5GB limit is actually taking into account that the 2021 iPP has 8GB RAM minimum.

ProCreate

2017 A10X/4GB:
2048 x 2048 - 124 layers

2018 A12X/6GB: (same treatment as 4GB)
2048 x 2048 - 124 layers

2020 A12Z/6GB:
2048 x 2048 - 156 layers

2021 M1/16GB: (same treatment as 8GB)
2048 x 2048 - 196 layers

Extrapolating from the above, we can guess that Photoshop can use up to:

3GB RAM on the 2017 & 2018 iPP

4GB RAM on the 2020 iPP

5GB RAM on the 2021 iPP

so even under iOS 15 the 2018 1TB/6GB is treated as having 4GB? If so, what is the extra RAM used for then? What was Apple thinking? Is that a limitation of the A12x?
 

BigDO

macrumors 65816
Dec 9, 2012
1,353
2,123
Very happy with my 2018 and not even considering an upgrade right now. It would take a serious overhaul of iPad OS and apps leveraging that to make me upgrade, or a significant design/technology change.
 

840quadra

Moderator
Staff member
Feb 1, 2005
9,489
6,388
Twin Cities Minnesota
Bought an M1 Pro at launch, tried it for two weeks, took it back. Anyone who claims it was noticeably faster than the 2018 Pro isn't being honest with themselves or others. I use my 2018 Pro to edit and proof photos in RAW format between shoots, quick edit videos to share on my social media accounts, tap out emails and website updates and watch downloaded movies on the long international flights I spend a third of my year traveling on. The difference in performance while performing these same tasks on the M1 Pro versus the 2018 Pro were negligible, and this is 100% due to iPadOS kneecapping the hardware. Even the 2018 Pro is capable of more than Apple allows it to be, and that is a shame. If you are happy with your 2018 Pro there is no reason at this time to upgrade to the M1 Pro.
Curious about your RAW workflow and editing tools.

I work social media for a magazine and other clients and have experienced otherwise. I always have to race competitors in getting race photos edited, posted, and sent to clients (often trackside). While using the publications M1 iPad, I found it significantly faster at most all Raw tasks.

Working with RAW images from my R5, the M1 I tested was significantly faster at pasting edits and completing exports from LR. For video editing in Lume Fusion, speeds were also significantly faster in 1080p and 4K tasks. The older iPad is no slouch, but it is not in the same league for export tasks.

All said, I still have my 2018 as like you said does well enough, but I disagree with it being as fast as the M1 in RAW processing. In my I am going to adapt my workflow to accept a Mini 6 which is far more portable, and is as fast as my 2018 11’ for nearly all tasks. I am hoping the portability will give me the edge I am looking for in getting photos off and processed faster than fetching my bag or heading to the media center to use a larger device.
 
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