iPad Pro Ram management

[EugW]

My iPad is still snappy, probably due to how great the A10 is, but yes in RAM related tasks, it has limitations. Would not invest in 2GB in 2020.

I've been telling people since at least early 2019 not to buy 2 GB iPads if they could afford to wait a while. The usual response was basically that Apple is magical and iPad OS doesn't need more than 2 GB.

What a difference 1 year makes.

BTW, iPads went to 2 GB all the way back in 2014. If anything it's impressive that 2 GB iPads have done this well for so long, but times change.

 

[marty1980]

I’m going to attribute these issues to growing pains of iPadOS. The latest update added keyboard and mouse support and it’s likely that is contributing to any reloading/RAM mngmt issues. Because it’s a system wide change and needs memory to operate.

I’m on a 2020 iPad Pro so I don’t notice any issues. In fact, I’m pretty impressed with the lack of reloading I see on this device compared to my iPhone X. Our iPad mini 5 doesn’t seem to have much issues with reloading either and it’s a 3GB RAM device, but that ones used mostly be my kids so maybe the issue is there and I just have witnessed it.

 

[EugW]

I’m going to attribute these issues to growing pains of iPadOS. The latest update added keyboard and mouse support and it’s likely that is contributing to any reloading/RAM mngmt issues. Because it’s a system wide change and needs memory to operate.

I’m on a 2020 iPad Pro so I don’t notice any issues. In fact, I’m pretty impressed with the lack of reloading I see on this device compared to my iPhone X. Our iPad mini 5 doesn’t seem to have much issues with reloading either and it’s a 3GB RAM device, but that ones used mostly be my kids so maybe the issue is there and I just have witnessed it.

I started noticing memory related issues a couple of years ago (yes, before iPadOS 13) on our iPad Air 2s with 2 GB RAM.

My wife and I passed those iPad Air 2s to our two young kids in 2018/2019. I got an iPad Pro 10.5" with 4 GB RAM last year (a refurb for cheap after Apple launched the iPad Air 3) and the lag and reloads diminished greatly. My wife didn't really care that much about the reloads, so I got her an iPad 7 with 3 GB RAM and I agree, while 2 GB is annoying, 3 GB in 2020 is sufficient for basic mainstream use. It's only a 1 GB RAM boost, but looked at another way, it's a 50% increase in RAM, and it shows.

 

[JazzJazz]

Honestly, I experience stutters and reloads on Pro 12.9, 10.5 and Air 3 as well (also Safari crash). Can't really tell much of a difference between those and iPad 5th & 6th gen and Pro 9.7.

If I'm working on something that I absolutely can't afford to lose, I don't switch apps/tabs. I grab another iPad instead.

Now you have 16gb RAM, did it solve the reloading issues?

 

[rui no onna]

Now you have 16gb RAM, did it solve the reloading issues?

Yep.

 

[JazzJazz]

Yep.

What interesting is that I ran a bunch of tests including the Ram, and I‘ve got this results. Seems like the new Ipad use more RAM and leave us with about 5gb only. Does apple put a cap on the available RAM even though we have 16gb total?

 

[Surfer13134]

What interesting is that I ran a bunch of tests including the Ram, and I‘ve got this results. Seems like the new Ipad use more RAM and leave us with about 5gb only. Does apple put a cap on the available RAM even though we have 16gb total?

Thats good. The motto is any free ram is wasted ram. The OS will take advantage of all the ram you can give it and then once it starts to get "Full" then the OS will take over and start putting apps to sleep etc.

 

[Digitalguy]

What interesting is that I ran a bunch of tests including the Ram, and I‘ve got this results. Seems like the new Ipad use more RAM and leave us with about 5gb only. Does apple put a cap on the available RAM even though we have 16gb total?

Interesting, Active seems to stay within the 5GB app limit, but I wonder what system RAM is... Definitely not just iPadOS, which barely takes 1GB, maybe compressed RAM...

 

[rui no onna]

Interesting, Active seems to stay within the 5GB app limit, but I wonder what system RAM is... Definitely not just iPadOS, which barely takes 1GB, maybe compressed RAM...

I wonder if the device was used for gaming and System is a result of a large chunk being dynamically allocated to graphics.

 

[nicetriangles]

What interesting is that I ran a bunch of tests including the Ram, and I‘ve got this results. Seems like the new Ipad use more RAM and leave us with about 5gb only. Does apple put a cap on the available RAM even though we have 16gb total?

The system isn't using the ram, they're imposing a 5gig cap on all individual apps regardless of how much free ram you have. It's hella annoying and defeats the main purpose of my having bought the 16gig model.

 

[Crow_Servo]

The system isn't using the ram, they're imposing a 5gig cap on all individual apps regardless of how much free ram you have. It's hella annoying and defeats the main purpose of my having bought the 16gig model.

So far. As others have speculated, things could change with iPadOS 15.

 

[nicetriangles]

So far. As others have speculated, things could change with iPadOS 15.

Sure but I'm not getting my hopes wildly up for that. I can totally picture a scenario where Apple in their infinite wisdom decides that rather than let heavy apps really make use of that memory they instead prioritize allowing people to keep 100 things open and running in memory so that app switching feels instantaneous. Which is a cute trick and a lot easier to show off to general consumers (WOW LOOK HOW FAST EVERYTHING LOADS!), but is not exactly Pro-friendly.

Edit: also if it is an iPadOS 15 thing, I do not look forward to waiting as long as 4 months for it to become available to us

 

[Caviar_X]

Edit: also if it is an iPadOS 15 thing, I do not look forward to waiting as long as 4 months for it to become available to us

Get the beta.

 

[LFC2020]

Get the beta.

iOS 15 Public beta day 1 install for me 🤪