Well, I wouldn't underestimate the 'small minority of enthusiasts' who essentially forced Apple to return all Apple Pencil functionality for the iPad Pro after features were removed during the 9.3 beta.
"And most of the millions of people buying iPads" are buying it for basic web surfing, e-mail and facebook.
Because it became a necessity to run iOS at a time of purchase / during the model cycle
Not being future proof doesn't necessarily mean bad user experience for 1-2 years. I.e. until the time Apple wants you to upgrade
Indeed, it's not given that the next iPad 9.7" receives 4GB RAM upgrade.
We aren't talking about Android tablets, but 4GB of RAM makes multitasking with heavy applications much better than 2GB on Android, which is currently reserved for budget low-end phones. It's true about iOS as well because no matter how efficient the operating system's memory management is, application requirements are more or less the same on both platforms because they're being developed in a similar way, using similar techniques, same languages, libraries and sometimes even dev teams.
Oh I'm sure not going to wait for an proper iPad, I'll simply adjust my gadget portfolio to fit a properly specced Win10 tablet instead.
there's a theme around here of people simultaneously telling people they don't need this or that spec that apple decided to skimp on, and then chastising them for using "ancient" hardware when they are disappointed with performance or feature limitations in a year or two.
just smile and nod. they can't help themselves.
for what its worth, i DON'T care about specs for their own sake (or i'd never buy apple in the first place!). i care about experience, and for me its only about trying to make decisions that will retain a quality experience for more than a year. as an iPad 3 owner, i'm intimately familiar with apple hardware that is equipped to run its launch OS great, but was not forward thinking enough to handle evolving software.
its tough for me now, because like the iPad 3 with retina display, the 9.7 pro is the only device that mixes the features (pencil) and form factor i want right now, but i know its not a good future proof decision.
. I still feel like the A9X will offer a big enough performance boost over the Air 2 when using CPU-intensive apps. Looking forward to the additional speakers, pencil support, and the 4K camera may prove to come in handy as a backup from time to time.
It's not really the RAM that's the problem with the iPad 3, it's the weak A5X chip. Both iPad 4 and Air have 1GB RAM and they're far zippier compared the to the iPad 3.
So true!there's a theme around here of people simultaneously telling people they don't need this or that spec that apple decided to skimp on, and then chastising them for using "ancient" hardware when they are disappointed with performance or feature limitations in a year or two.
just smile and nod. they can't help themselves.
for what its worth, i DON'T care about specs for their own sake (or i'd never buy apple in the first place!). i care about experience, and for me its only about trying to make decisions that will retain a quality experience for more than a year. as an iPad 3 owner, i'm intimately familiar with apple hardware that is equipped to run its launch OS great, but was not forward thinking enough to handle evolving software.
its tough for me now, because like the iPad 3 with retina display, the 9.7 pro is the only device that mixes the features (pencil) and form factor i want right now, but i know its not a good future proof decision.
Honestly, I reckon the reason for 4GB RAM on the 12.9" iPP isn't to differentiate it from the 9.7" iPP. I expect it's because 4GB RAM is actually needed to support the higher resolution display. That's what, 5.6 million pixels on the 12.9" versus 3.1 million pixels on the 9.7"?
I'm very well aware what are the A5x limitations, and I didn't mention them. I was talking specifically on the RAM issue and how that hinders multitasking.
Someone wrote an almost identical response as yours and I explained my reasoning.
That's great, but I guess you can't read my already existing response to your question.
the issue with your iPad 3 wasn't the RAM but the SoC itself, underpowered for the Retina display.
You said "most"...
how ?
The iPad Air had a good lifespan? It's crippled compared to the Air 2.
If you're going to quote posts from previous pages, please quote the whole thing so we understand what on earth you're talking about.
Heavy editing apps can often use large amounts of memory, and maybe not now, but in a few years time these editing apps won't work at their best due to apps in the background consuming larger amounts of memory in addition to the app itself.
I'm not defending Apple. Just stating facts. RAM OP may not make programs zippier but the faster CPU/GPU on the iPad 4 and Air did making it obvious that the iPad 3 didn't have a RAM issue, rather it had a processor one.
