A higher speced out ipad pro is not "worth it" at all in my opinion. A MacBook Air M1 is less price and will be a much better tool for almost everything. The iPad Pro is nice to have, but it is not worth its money.
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iPad Pro Should I buy a 16gb or 8gb version?
- Thread starter KensaiMage
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Really depends if your workflow depends on pencil input
If you're an artist who draws on stuff, then the MBA is irrelevant.
I would say a Wacom tablet is more relevant for 99% of users creating stuff. You can use proper apps and not baby apps.
Even browsing on a mac is 10 times better if you need to compare stuff on more than one web page (yes I know I can have two safari windows side by side and a chrome window floating above etc). Saying this, for casual browsing I prefer my iPad Pro over my 13" MBP M1, but for serious browsing for work I prefer/must use my mac. So many sites that still dont work properly on the iPad Safari/Chrome.
Even browsing on a mac is 10 times better if you need to compare stuff on more than one web page (yes I know I can have two safari windows side by side and a chrome window floating above etc). Saying this, for casual browsing I prefer my iPad Pro over my 13" MBP M1, but for serious browsing for work I prefer/must use my mac. So many sites that still dont work properly on the iPad Safari/Chrome.
What's frustrating is that they could fix these issues so easily, but they won't. iPad Chrome is really no different than iPad Safari under the hood, so it makes having different browsers almost useless.
I did side by side fresh install on both the 2018/2020 models and yes the 2020 6gb model was able to keep 11 apps vs 6 on the 2018. OS was using roughly 1.2gb. So a 4gb iPad had roughly 2.8gb available to apps whereas the 6gb had 4.8gb available.
I was disappointed that it is only available on the TB models. I prefer using the 12.9" and the 1TB version is $1799, much beyond what I'm willing to pay for a tablet. As much as I like my iPad, the shortcomings in iOS keep me from wanting to invest that amount of $.
Does anyone have any idea what the file sizes are when using the Lidar camera for capturing 3D scans? It's essentially building a point cloud of data and I plan on utilizing some apps for that purpose, but have no idea how large those files may be and if having more RAM and a higher capacity ssd might be of use for doing so.
True but macOS supports swap. iPadOS doesn't (yet). On the 8/512 M1 MBA, my swap is usually at 2-4GB so that's 8GB physical + 2-4GB virtual/swap memory.
If I run out of physical memory on the MBA, data for inactive processes get dumped to the swap file so I can resume seamlessly later. If I run out of physical memory on the iPad, there's a good chance I just lose the app state.
With that said, if you don't need the 1TB storage, it doesn't make sense to pay all that money just for 16GB RAM.
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It's a little more complex than that though. MacOS will proactively swap inactive memory out to storage even if you have free RAM.
If you're looking at the swap and thinking you're low on memory because you have swap, that isn't necessarily the case just yet. A lot of stuff still in ram is already in swap if it hasn't been used recently. That way, it can be dumped from RAM real fast rather than waiting for the disk to write it out, in the event that macOS needs a huge heap of RAM in a hurry. No need to wait for it to be paged out as it is already paged out. But it's still in RAM because otherwise it would need to be paged back in if needed.
I really don't get this needless return mentality. Return should be for when a product is faulty etc. Not to abuse it for frivolities.
At the time, I had like 3 Safari windows open with 10-20 tabs each so I'm inclined to believe some of those actually have been offloaded to swap.
For me, the 6GB on my 2020 iPad Pro is plenty for normal use, as an end-user I would never pay to get the 16GB, it's way too expensive since I also don't use more than 64GB of storage. I've never had memory issues with normal use no matter what I did (and I've done some heavy multitasking on the device). I'm guessing more memory-intensive apps will be coming after this year's WWDC, but still, if you're not like editing videos on your device I doubt many people will need 16GB.
...unfortunately, for me I'm also an app developer, and the (prototype) app I'm making *has* had memory issues on the current 6GB device, so I'm paying the crazy fee to get 16GB this time. Note, the final version of my software shouldn't require that much memory (I'm being very wasteful right now), but this will speed up development not having to worry about it until I have to.
...unfortunately, for me I'm also an app developer, and the (prototype) app I'm making *has* had memory issues on the current 6GB device, so I'm paying the crazy fee to get 16GB this time. Note, the final version of my software shouldn't require that much memory (I'm being very wasteful right now), but this will speed up development not having to worry about it until I have to.
I am editing videos in Lumafusion (up to 6 video streams all together) with my 2018 11pro with zero issues.
I mean, zero. Smooth as butter.
My i7 2015 MBP could not even dream of doing that.
If you have to ask this question, you most likely have no need for 16GB of RAM on a tablet. Hardly anybody needs 16GB RAM on an iPad today and that's probably why it's only available on the (very expensive) 1TB/2TB options. Yes, that might change with iPadOS 15 but do you make a living using tools like Final Cut and Logic and is 8GB RAM currently not enough for your workloads? If not, then I wouldn't spend the extra money.
Don't buy hardware based on what you think you might need years from now or based on the hope of some future big software improvements. Buy it based on what you need now. If your needs eventually exceed the hardware, then sell it and buy something else.
Yep. It's not really worth it if one doesn't need the storage or use apps that can utilize it right away.
It's $700 to upgrade from 128GB to 1TB. That's like almost enough money to buy you the latest iPad Pro 11 or ~60-70% of the purchase price of the iPad Pro 12.9. Heck, use it to buy some AAPL stock and reinvest the dividends and maybe in a couple years time when you're ready to upgrade, it might have appreciated enough to pay for both new iPad Pro + accessories.
I still have a 10.5" iPad Pro w/ the A10X Fusion and 4gb ram. I do some (albeit light) 4K HDR video editing on it from time to time, and in preparation for a camera I'm renting, have edited some 100MP raw (200mb files!) Fuji photos in Lightroom. It actually does well enough that I think I'm going to hold off for now on upgrading at all. In particular I want the 11" but want to wait for them to upgrade it to the XDR screen maybe next year
I'm not sure. I can never have too much storage and the 16 GB is more future proof. IF Apple (or others) ever release true professional products that could truly benefit from the extra memory, I'd hate to have gone with 8 gig and lesser storage. But you can play that waiting game for a long time. I may just hold off until June to see if anything like FCP or Logic is announced at the dev conference to see if it would be worthwhile and then decide. Of course, that is if I can actually hold off that long...
At this point, unless someone needs the storage, those who think about 16GB should wait WWDC or they could be very disappointed... By the way right now apps cannot even take advantage of more than 6GB, and even after they are updated for M1 they will probably not be able to use more than 8GB anyway... This has been shown in the past with the first pro and with the 2018 pro. For instance apps cannot use the 6GB of the 2018 iPad pro, since there is no way to tell a 4GB A12X from a 6GB one.
But they can use them in the 6GB only A12Z.
This does not mean the additional RAM is wasted. The fact that it cannot be used by one app doesn't mean it cannot be use by the system to avoid reloads. And, who knows, maybe at some point Apple will start to make the OS and apps able to tell 2 different RAM variants of the same SOC apart....
But they can use them in the 6GB only A12Z.
This does not mean the additional RAM is wasted. The fact that it cannot be used by one app doesn't mean it cannot be use by the system to avoid reloads. And, who knows, maybe at some point Apple will start to make the OS and apps able to tell 2 different RAM variants of the same SOC apart....
Yeah the only major reasons I'm really keen to upgrade my 10.5 Pro (irrespective of any potential software changes) are
- white dot syndrome, its out of AppleCare. I've been dealing with it for a while, waiting at least until the previous model got refreshed
- I've been using it a lot for note-taking and diagram drawing and the 12.9 would be better for me for that
- I've been making use of it for sidecar a lot recently which would also be better with the 12.9 to pair with the 13" MacBooks I typically use
Well 16gig is not a decision making option though. If you want the storage size more than 512, you gotta have to select 16gig ram models with 1tb and 2tb.
To be honest, xdr screen is all good, but it doesn't change the fact that what you can do with ipad has not changed a bit. I mean, if you already have 12.9 ipad pro or 11 ipad pro, what are the things you do that often caused you to want more performance?
I have 1st gen 12.9 ipad pro still with me that I use in bed, and frankly, almost everything I do runs perfectly smooth. Looks like Apple is throwing a significant spec bump in order to make people switch over, but ultimately, ipad pro is limited by software, not the hardware.
Considering all these, it all comes down to your preference. Of course 16 gig will make apps reload significantly less often. But are you willing to pay more for more storage to go 16gig ram? Nobody can make the decision for you as you are the only one who can answer cost vs benefit question.
To be honest, xdr screen is all good, but it doesn't change the fact that what you can do with ipad has not changed a bit. I mean, if you already have 12.9 ipad pro or 11 ipad pro, what are the things you do that often caused you to want more performance?
I have 1st gen 12.9 ipad pro still with me that I use in bed, and frankly, almost everything I do runs perfectly smooth. Looks like Apple is throwing a significant spec bump in order to make people switch over, but ultimately, ipad pro is limited by software, not the hardware.
Considering all these, it all comes down to your preference. Of course 16 gig will make apps reload significantly less often. But are you willing to pay more for more storage to go 16gig ram? Nobody can make the decision for you as you are the only one who can answer cost vs benefit question.
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Depends entirely on whether or not say $1200/yr for a productive work tool is useful to you.
$100/month is not much if it saves you time. At an hourly rate of $50-60 hr which is not even that high for a professional in Australia, it only needs to save someone like that 2 hours a month over 3 years and it has paid for itself.
If you're carting a lot of data around with you, the lack of needing to do as much storage management on your device could well cover that.
Not for me, but I wouldn't buy that spec
$100/month is not much if it saves you time. At an hourly rate of $50-60 hr which is not even that high for a professional in Australia, it only needs to save someone like that 2 hours a month over 3 years and it has paid for itself.
If you're carting a lot of data around with you, the lack of needing to do as much storage management on your device could well cover that.
Not for me, but I wouldn't buy that spec