It always amazes me how so many people know so much more than Apple about designing iProducts.
After all, it is only logical that some no-name person with zero design experience on a forum like this will know more than Apple's thousands of engineers who have designed some of the leading products in the world.
When you've designed a consumer product that has done 1/100 as well as the iPad, feel free to throw out your comments. Until then, the facts are clear:
1. The iPad 1 was a huge, runaway success
2. The iPad 2 is better in nearly every way (thinner, lighter, cameras, twice the RAM, twice the CPU, much greater graphics performance).
3. While there were undoubtedly some complaints about iPad performance (mostly from people who didn't understand that it isn't a laptop, IMHO), they were rare - and virtually every review talks about near-instantaneous response. My own experience is that I don't recall a time when I felt that it was slow. The iPad 2 will be much better.
WOW, people have no idea how technology works in this thread... I am no expert, but I do have a CS degree...
iOS does NOT store multiple applications in memory, or running simultaneously on the processor. You may ask "Then how does it multi-task". The short answer is "It doesn't" in the common sense of the word.
When you switch to another application, the iPad uses the advantage of a solid state drive. It freezes the application and stores its current state to the SSD. This means, what the user sees is a very fast resume and the APPEARANCE of multitasking. While it is true that applications can request to background process, nearly NO app does this. Even calendar applications simply add events to the system scheduler, rather than multi-tasking. It's a brilliant way to give the consumer what they want while preserving battery life and performance.
That being said, only one application and parts of the OS are actually stored in memory. That means, unless you are running a singular application that needs that memory, MORE does NOT help. Like the poster above me, the system-on-a-chip technology has insanely fast bus speeds. Even if the OS has to retrieve information from the hard-drive, it's an SSD, which is VERY fast compared to a traditional HD.
My point: The pauses, slow down, etc. are due to iOS bugs more so than lack of memory. 512MB of RAM is MORE than enough for the way iOS works. The iPhone 4 uses the same chip and has nearly the resolution of the iPad; it works fine.
This is a great explanation, but unfortunately it's wrong. I know it's wrong because I experience these problems with multi-tasking multiple times a day all day. The state isn't always saved and it seems to have to do with large documents taking up memory that is then needed for another app.
If you switch away from an application that is in effect "using up most of the memory" when you switch back to it, the state is sometimes actually *changed* and parts of the document have been switched out of memory. This is a fact. I experience it with Pages and with some other apps as well. Every day, all day.
I'm not up on the technical details of iOS memory handling (although I already knew everything you state above which is the basic outline), so maybe the stuttering and the pauses during multi-tasking are due to the speed of the memory bus or something but I sincerely doubt it. I don't see how any bus is so slow as to force the user to wait full seconds to access a program that's been "previously frozen."
Regardless of that, the more extreme cases of the state being changed are an easily repeatable thing that I actually tested just before posting this just to ensure myself that I was in fact correct, and that it does in fact happen.
If I am typing a long document in Pages and switch away to something trivial, when I switch back (after a pause) the program is in exactly the same state as when I left it off. If instead I use a program that needs a lot of memory or use two or three programs in a row, Pages "saves" the document and when I go back to it, it has returned to the top or first page of the document. This is most definitely *not* the state I left it in.
I am assuming that what's happening here is that the documents are being paged out of memory and the state is being destroyed because on a user-experience level that's exactly what it seems like. The apps that do this (discard the saved state), are all memory hungry apps like Pages, or some of the comic book readers, so again, I'm assuming that the system is having problems with holding all these apps (and their saved states which would include large files), in memory because this is exactly how the system is behaving.
Why else would Pages discard the saved state? If I'm wrong, I'd be interested in knowing the exact details of the why and wherefore's, but it's not like it really matters since the effect would be the same anyway. I just hope iPad 2.0 doesn't do this because it's not multi-tasking if every app has to start over with it's documents when you switch to it.
When connected to a 1080p tv, the Xoom will "actually play" 1080p video. Conversely, while the iPad2 can technically output 1080p, it can only actually play 720p video, even when connected to a 1080p TV.
Who cares. What difference does it make whether you can display 1080(p|i) vs. 720p video on your iPad screen? And who wants to connect their iPad to a TV to play video, 1080 whatever or 720?
Seriously, how does one develop such a ridiculous perspective on technology? I always thought it was ridiculous enough that people wanted a Blu-ray drive in a 13" MBP, but this is even more absurd. Any device manufacturer implementing functionality like this is simply wasting their development resources on it when they should be focusing on more important things, and passing the cost along to you. I guess that's why the Xoom costs $799, with a contract, and, in reality, does far less than a 1st gen iPad.
iOS 4 runs on the iPhone 3G which only has 128MB RAM and it works fine, although it does not support multitasking. The CPU is also only clocked at 412MHz.
Anyone who thinks that iOS w/512MB RAM is functionally equivalent to Android w/512 MB RAM or WebOS w/512 MB RAM is just plain ignorant. The same goes for CPU clock rates.
Rather I'm pointing out that to really make a good device better it needs more than 256MB of RAM.
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Originally Posted by kube
Although I agree that the current iPad "seems" to need more RAM, its hard to know. My main gripe is in Safari, which, when I go pack a page, seems to waste a lot of time reloading the data. This seems to be more the case since 4.2.
The problem is very real. It is a huge problem for 3G cell users as that directly impacts data usage. I wouldn't be surprised if some users cut their data usage in half.
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But two caveats:
1. The real question is real-world usage. Are there stalls? or is it smooth?
Reloads significantly slow web usage down and can add to ones data usage bill. That is real world.
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2. If certain actions slow down, its hard to know the bottleneck.
This is true, unless you are the developer you won't know what is slowing down an app. However realize that memory management is not free in iOS.
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It may turn out the the bump from 256 to 512 fixes most bottlenecks. Maybe not. We'll see.
If that is what we get it will make a big difference. In the end the App will get around 3 times more RAM. That is pretty significant and combined with other Safari improvements ought to make for a much better user experience.
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I a related question. The keynote presentation made a big point about up to a 9x increase in graphics speed and 2x increase in general computation speed. Other than manipulating photogaphic images, where would the graphics speed increase show up?
Well the 2X improvement in CPU power is hard to define right now. We don't know what the improvements to each core is. However many apps that have followed Apple guide lines should benefit from the new CPU.
As to the GPU that is even less defined, we really don't know what capability got a 9x improvement. However let's say 3D performance increased 4X. That means better games performance. It isn't just games though; things like CAD viewers, drawing programs, mapping software and visualization software ought to benefit. IPad is actually an excellent viewer for CAD files and making that faster is a good thing. Beyond that much of the low level drawing code is GPU accelerated so general app performance or feel should be better.
We might even see OpenCL support in the future.
I've never considered the GPU a weak point in iPad 1 but the GPU improvements are very welcomed. In the end it means that developers can deliver far more capable apps in the future.
Note much room has been left for fudge above. We won't really know what performance is like until there are direct comparisons with the old iPad. It looks good at the moment though.
You really don't know what you are talking about. You can not tune the need for RAM away. Beyond that many apps can't even be implemented on iPad 1 due to the lack of RAM.
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Originally Posted by noirdesir
Yes, it is. And this is probably the most prominent area where you will notice the effect of insufficient RAM (insufficient for what you want to do at that moment, which is holding multiple web pages in RAM).
But I am hard pressed to offer any other app where you notice this effect. Note that basically all apps are designed with the RAM limitation in mind, thus they are designed to operate well with the existing RAM amount. Web pages however are usually not designed with the RAM limitations of the iPad in mind, for sure some are, but most are not.
The doubling of ram and the new Nitro JavaScript engine powering Safari is the classic Apple way of simultaneously dealing with platform evolution, power management, ...and the silly season of selective, and so predictably self-serving, pundits' set of debatable arguments.
A blend of frugal hardware improvement increments and in-house software moxy should do for the end users what reason could never hope to accomplish for the ever coalescing non-sense teasers.
WOW, people have no idea how technology works in this thread... I am no expert, but I do have a CS degree...
iOS does NOT store multiple applications in memory, or running simultaneously on the processor. You may ask "Then how does it multi-task". The short answer is "It doesn't" in the common sense of the word.
When you switch to another application, the iPad uses the advantage of a solid state drive. It freezes the application and stores its current state to the SSD. This means, what the user sees is a very fast resume and the APPEARANCE of multitasking. While it is true that applications can request to background process, nearly NO app does this. Even calendar applications simply add events to the system scheduler, rather than multi-tasking. It's a brilliant way to give the consumer what they want while preserving battery life and performance.
That being said, only one application and parts of the OS are actually stored in memory. That means, unless you are running a singular application that needs that memory, MORE does NOT help. Like the poster above me, the system-on-a-chip technology has insanely fast bus speeds. Even if the OS has to retrieve information from the hard-drive, it's an SSD, which is VERY fast compared to a traditional HD.
My point: The pauses, slow down, etc. are due to iOS bugs more so than lack of memory. 512MB of RAM is MORE than enough for the way iOS works. The iPhone 4 uses the same chip and has nearly the resolution of the iPad; it works fine.
When you switch to another app on iOS 4 the first app stays in the RAM not the flash storage (or SSD). If the system need more RAM then it will terminate the apps in the memory starting with the oldest until the memory demand is met.
There are a lot of people arguing about how memory management works on iOS (and OS X, also, because they use the same technique), so I thought I would try and outline it as best as possible and my view as a iOS developer
As memory get used, it's divided into categories: Active Memory, memory currently being used by an application; Inactive Memory, memory not currently being used by an application and is therefore inactive, this memory is also paged to disk; Wired Memory, memory being used by iOS or other frameworks called by an app; Free Memory, memory not used by the application or iOS, virtually free of use.
When you launch an app, it gathers memory from either the free memory pool OR the inactive memory pool (which I'll describe in a little) and pulls it into the active memory pool for itself.
Whenever you leave a program (assuming that it does not have any multitasking-frameworks written in it) iOS automatically suspends it's active memory, shoving it into the inactive memory pool.
Inactive memory is the memory of other applications that have been previously opened then closed, or chunks of memory that an application is not actively using. This is why applications are faster to launch after you've previously opened them and Apple was easily able to add the "quickly resuming applications where you left off"-style multitasking to apps without requiring developers to rewrite anything; it was derived directly from OS X's memory management techniques. The difference between iOS and OS X, however, is that instead of paging inactive memory to disk whenever an app needs more than it currently has in it's own section of inactive memory and the available free memory, iOS just removes the oldest inactive memory (without saving it to disk), and gives what is needed to the requesting App and giving the rest back to the free memory pool.
To prevent this killing of apps too often, iOS uses a memory management technique (which is built into all apps, you're forced to use memory management instead of garbage collecting in iOS) for all of its apps. Basically, memory management works like this: App needs 10kb of memory, so it asks iOS for 10kb of memory, and iOS serves it 10kb of memory. When the App is done with the 10kb of memory, it HAS TO MANUALLY release the memory back to iOS, which then controls that memory. If this is done incorrectly, memory leaks spring, the app begins to DEVOUR memory, iOS is unhappy and kills the app. Because of this method, iOS apps rarely take up more than 50-75mb (Even for the iPad or OS X!). Don't get me wrong, there are intensive apps that take up more (like Safari), but that is very rare. Apple is strict about this in app creation.
That said, 512mb of memory is way more than enough, even for the iPad. While you'll notice a slight change in memory intensive applications such as Safari (which is very memory intensive because it decompresses Javascript, renders HTML, and caches images to memory) or iBooks (when rendering large PDF's and images), the biggest benefit will be multitasking, as more applications can be stored in the memory without having to remove them.
Currently, 256mb of memory is more than enough to run most any application (aside from running into problems with a few specific problems such as Safari with multiple tabs [which, Safari kills large and older tabs on its own when iOS tells it that it needs to reserve memory, often when loading other significantly large tabs]).
1gb of RAM would be a waste of resources and money in iOS land, for the time being.
Contrary to what many detractors here, those who found the role of the iPad, or other iOS devices in their lives, and their family do not talk about how many rams, or what resolution their devices are.
They talk about the applications that they found useful, or how their children were impacted. Some talk about how improved the lives of some of the more disadvaantaged - the autistic, the deaf, the blind, the disabled, etc.
They do not talk about "upgrade potentials" but what they can do with the device, here and now.
They are aware of the imperfections of the device but take it as it is, because of the other things it can do for them to enhance the quality of their lives.
So, it is like choosing a boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife or partner in whatever endeavor. The ideal is desired but it is an illusion because we can always think of something more ideal.
It is about taking the totality of a being, and in this case, in our discussion, the device, and see if they can be part of our life.
It is pathetic, and borders pathological, for people to "dislike" and "hate" and obsess talking and writing about their hate and dislike. And, even more delusional to think that they can persuade others, in forums like this, those who have found the iPad or whatever device, would simply turnabout and embrace the perspective of hatred and envy.
A post or two is excusable. But, hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands of posts -- reposting the same hatred and dislike, in every conceivable guize?
If it is adulation and acceptance you crave for your perspective of hatred and envy of anything Apple is your goal, you may find more resonance in sites that like or adore the tech devices of your own choosing.
And, if you are being paid to do so, I would have greater respect for a prostitute -(s)he is only selling his/her body, not his(her) soul and mind.
Uh, they trumpet the new "dual core 1GHz" A5 chip on the front page of the iPad site, and list basically all of the tech specs under "Tech Specs", except RAM - probably because it's the one area from a hardware standpoint that another device (ie Xoom) clearly outdoes it. Plus the fact that Xoom can both play and output 1080p content while the iPad can digitally output 1080p but can only actually play 720p (cleverly presented by Apple, i must say).
Anyways, Apple is all about the user experience, so until Android makes some serious improvements that get it up to the level of the iTunes ecosystem, hardware is something of a moot point...
does it matter that it cant play 1080P on the device? 720P is more than enough on the current Ipads display resolution. !080P would create more workload for 0 gain.
iOS 4 runs on the iPhone 3G which only has 128MB RAM and it works fine, although it does not support multitasking. The CPU is also only clocked at 412MHz.
It does not work fine, at least from my experience and a lot of my friends' experience. Apps shut down randomly, battery drains much faster, some apps would open and then close in 10 secs, etc.
People keep forgetting that when you've 512MB, about 1/4-1/2 of that is already being used by the OS itself and phone/email/iPod. Also I'd willing to bet that iOS5 which is around the corner will increase the amount of ram needed for the OS itself.
Seems to me you're making an assumption about the memory based on what you think is enough. The iPad is far more efficient with memory allocation than PCs or Macs for that matter. There's no point paying for more memory if it won't be needed.
March 2012 - Steve on Stage
"Now, those of you with iPads and iPad II's will still be able to run iOS 5.0, you will not however get all of the features! Guess it's time to give us another $500 because we didn't have the foresight to put a Gig of RAM in the thing"...
It always amazes me how so many people know so much more than Apple about designing iProducts.
After all, it is only logical that some no-name person with zero design experience on a forum like this will know more than Apple's thousands of engineers who have designed some of the leading products in the world.
When you've designed a consumer product that has done 1/100 as well as the iPad, feel free to throw out your comments. Until then, the facts are clear:
1. The iPad 1 was a huge, runaway success
2. The iPad 2 is better in nearly every way (thinner, lighter, cameras, twice the RAM, twice the CPU, much greater graphics performance).
3. While there were undoubtedly some complaints about iPad performance (mostly from people who didn't understand that it isn't a laptop, IMHO), they were rare - and virtually every review talks about near-instantaneous response. My own experience is that I don't recall a time when I felt that it was slow. The iPad 2 will be much better.
Stop the whining, please.
Rant- skip buy if you are anti-rant.
Come on, don't use patronizing arguements, you can do better than that. By your logic, you dont have any right to complain or suggest improvements to any thing someone has bought unless they design it themselves, thats silly.
I've found this an interesting thread(aside from the snide comments).
Obviously there needs to be an optimal RAM size, else it would be 1. Can we agree on that?
So... there are a couple issues of concern that people have brought up and they seem valid points. Are they issues for the 'masses' probably not, but for some tech and cost conscience user, maybe.
Point 1 How much work load can the system handle?
With 256, it does not seem to be enough to handle certain 'big tasks'. Counter points - 512 will be more than enough now. This is not a pro unit(until yesterday, when SJ says its not a toy). OR that it is software issue. Example - Can it handle more than 5 minutes worth of video editing? Example - loading mulitiple Safari screens.(note, Apple has claimed a software fixed to a big bottle neck in safari).
Point 2 - Obsolesence - some have pointed out that a few iOS' updates down the road and it may not be able to handle it and new apps. That is a reason for 'extra' memory today. This is also a valid point IMO. Why, we have historical record, older devises are no longer supported. So, what is a good sunset time frame? Thats a whole nother food fight. IMO - 3-4 years, but thats just me.
Would 1Gig of RAM mitigate that? Our PC experiences says yes. Counter arguements is it doesnt really matter if OS is tuned correctly etc.
IMO intuitately, the larger the RAM the better... to a point.
What that point is, I have no freak'n idea. But we do know that software growth will occur, while 512 is fine today, will it be in Dec?
There are a lot of people arguing about how memory management works on iOS (and OS X, also, because they use the same technique), so I thought I would try and outline it as best as possible and my view as a iOS developer
As memory get used, it's divided into categories: Active Memory, memory currently being used by an application; Inactive Memory, memory not currently being used by an application and is therefore inactive, this memory is also paged to disk; Wired Memory, memory being used by iOS or other frameworks called by an app; Free Memory, memory not used by the application or iOS, virtually free of use.
When you launch an app, it gathers memory from either the free memory pool OR the inactive memory pool (which I'll describe in a little) and pulls it into the active memory pool for itself.
Whenever you leave a program (assuming that it does not have any multitasking-frameworks written in it) iOS automatically suspends it's active memory, shoving it into the inactive memory pool.
Inactive memory is the memory of other applications that have been previously opened then closed, or chunks of memory that an application is not actively using. This is why applications are faster to launch after you've previously opened them and Apple was easily able to add the "quickly resuming applications where you left off"-style multitasking to apps without requiring developers to rewrite anything; it was derived directly from OS X's memory management techniques. The difference between iOS and OS X, however, is that instead of paging inactive memory to disk whenever an app needs more than it currently has in it's own section of inactive memory and the available free memory, iOS just removes the oldest inactive memory (without saving it to disk), and gives what is needed to the requesting App and giving the rest back to the free memory pool.
To prevent this killing of apps too often, iOS uses a memory management technique (which is built into all apps, you're forced to use memory management instead of garbage collecting in iOS) for all of its apps. Basically, memory management works like this: App needs 10kb of memory, so it asks iOS for 10kb of memory, and iOS serves it 10kb of memory. When the App is done with the 10kb of memory, it HAS TO MANUALLY release the memory back to iOS, which then controls that memory. If this is done incorrectly, memory leaks spring, the app begins to DEVOUR memory, iOS is unhappy and kills the app. Because of this method, iOS apps rarely take up more than 50-75mb (Even for the iPad or OS X!). Don't get me wrong, there are intensive apps that take up more (like Safari), but that is very rare. Apple is strict about this in app creation.
That said, 512mb of memory is way more than enough, even for the iPad. While you'll notice a slight change in memory intensive applications such as Safari (which is very memory intensive because it decompresses Javascript, renders HTML, and caches images to memory) or iBooks (when rendering large PDF's and images), the biggest benefit will be multitasking, as more applications can be stored in the memory without having to remove them.
Currently, 256mb of memory is more than enough to run most any application (aside from running into problems with a few specific problems such as Safari with multiple tabs [which, Safari kills large and older tabs on its own when iOS tells it that it needs to reserve memory, often when loading other significantly large tabs]).
1gb of RAM would be a waste of resources and money in iOS land, for the time being.
Thank you for taking the time to write this. Couldn't have said it better myself.
There are developers out there right now that need the extra RAM in iPad 2 to deliver their product. Some apps simply can't be implemented on iPad 1 effectively.
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Last time I checked, the iPad can run anything the iPhone 4 can unless it requires a special feature like the gyroscope. There is not a single App that requires the iPhone 4's 512MB of RAM.
Come on, don't use patronizing arguements, you can do better than that. By your logic, you dont have any right to complain or suggest improvements to any thing someone has bought unless they design it themselves, thats silly.
That's not even close to what I said.
What I said is that people who don't know anything about product design should stop making stupid comments like "it needs 1 GB of RAM".
If you have a real observation, you are free to comment. For example, the people who say that they have problems with Safari reloading their web pages are reporting an observation. Where they go wrong is in insisting that THEIR solution is the right one. Maybe more RAM doesn't fix it? Maybe it's a design choice by Apple? Maybe it's a software problem. You just don't know.
Stick to observations and requests and I have no objections. The problem is when people jump from that into telling Apple how to design the system - when I'm willing to venture that not a single poster here has the technical credentials for that 'advice' to be useful.
Who cares. What difference does it make whether you can display 1080(p|i) vs. 720p video on your iPad screen? And who wants to connect their iPad to a TV to play video, 1080 whatever or 720?
If you travel quite a bit, it is sometimes nice to load up movies on an iDevice and play them back on the flat panel in a hotel room. Granted, 720 works just fine for that purpose.
Comments
Actually, the biggest problem with the PS3 is its lack of video RAM. Porting games to it is a real pain in the ass.
The problem is not lack of RAM - but rather video memory bandwidth.
C.
After all, it is only logical that some no-name person with zero design experience on a forum like this will know more than Apple's thousands of engineers who have designed some of the leading products in the world.
When you've designed a consumer product that has done 1/100 as well as the iPad, feel free to throw out your comments. Until then, the facts are clear:
1. The iPad 1 was a huge, runaway success
2. The iPad 2 is better in nearly every way (thinner, lighter, cameras, twice the RAM, twice the CPU, much greater graphics performance).
3. While there were undoubtedly some complaints about iPad performance (mostly from people who didn't understand that it isn't a laptop, IMHO), they were rare - and virtually every review talks about near-instantaneous response. My own experience is that I don't recall a time when I felt that it was slow. The iPad 2 will be much better.
Stop the whining, please.
You may have some facts wrong.
C.
Lol, okay, so I guess that does make me an expert.
Originally Posted by Carniphage
You may have some facts wrong.
Lol, okay, so I guess that does make me an expert.
No, it makes you an analyst.
WOW, people have no idea how technology works in this thread... I am no expert, but I do have a CS degree...
iOS does NOT store multiple applications in memory, or running simultaneously on the processor. You may ask "Then how does it multi-task". The short answer is "It doesn't" in the common sense of the word.
When you switch to another application, the iPad uses the advantage of a solid state drive. It freezes the application and stores its current state to the SSD. This means, what the user sees is a very fast resume and the APPEARANCE of multitasking. While it is true that applications can request to background process, nearly NO app does this. Even calendar applications simply add events to the system scheduler, rather than multi-tasking. It's a brilliant way to give the consumer what they want while preserving battery life and performance.
That being said, only one application and parts of the OS are actually stored in memory. That means, unless you are running a singular application that needs that memory, MORE does NOT help. Like the poster above me, the system-on-a-chip technology has insanely fast bus speeds. Even if the OS has to retrieve information from the hard-drive, it's an SSD, which is VERY fast compared to a traditional HD.
My point: The pauses, slow down, etc. are due to iOS bugs more so than lack of memory. 512MB of RAM is MORE than enough for the way iOS works. The iPhone 4 uses the same chip and has nearly the resolution of the iPad; it works fine.
This is a great explanation, but unfortunately it's wrong. I know it's wrong because I experience these problems with multi-tasking multiple times a day all day. The state isn't always saved and it seems to have to do with large documents taking up memory that is then needed for another app.
If you switch away from an application that is in effect "using up most of the memory" when you switch back to it, the state is sometimes actually *changed* and parts of the document have been switched out of memory. This is a fact. I experience it with Pages and with some other apps as well. Every day, all day.
I'm not up on the technical details of iOS memory handling (although I already knew everything you state above which is the basic outline), so maybe the stuttering and the pauses during multi-tasking are due to the speed of the memory bus or something but I sincerely doubt it. I don't see how any bus is so slow as to force the user to wait full seconds to access a program that's been "previously frozen."
Regardless of that, the more extreme cases of the state being changed are an easily repeatable thing that I actually tested just before posting this just to ensure myself that I was in fact correct, and that it does in fact happen.
If I am typing a long document in Pages and switch away to something trivial, when I switch back (after a pause) the program is in exactly the same state as when I left it off. If instead I use a program that needs a lot of memory or use two or three programs in a row, Pages "saves" the document and when I go back to it, it has returned to the top or first page of the document. This is most definitely *not* the state I left it in.
I am assuming that what's happening here is that the documents are being paged out of memory and the state is being destroyed because on a user-experience level that's exactly what it seems like. The apps that do this (discard the saved state), are all memory hungry apps like Pages, or some of the comic book readers, so again, I'm assuming that the system is having problems with holding all these apps (and their saved states which would include large files), in memory because this is exactly how the system is behaving.
Why else would Pages discard the saved state? If I'm wrong, I'd be interested in knowing the exact details of the why and wherefore's, but it's not like it really matters since the effect would be the same anyway. I just hope iPad 2.0 doesn't do this because it's not multi-tasking if every app has to start over with it's documents when you switch to it.
When connected to a 1080p tv, the Xoom will "actually play" 1080p video. Conversely, while the iPad2 can technically output 1080p, it can only actually play 720p video, even when connected to a 1080p TV.
Who cares. What difference does it make whether you can display 1080(p|i) vs. 720p video on your iPad screen? And who wants to connect their iPad to a TV to play video, 1080 whatever or 720?
Seriously, how does one develop such a ridiculous perspective on technology? I always thought it was ridiculous enough that people wanted a Blu-ray drive in a 13" MBP, but this is even more absurd. Any device manufacturer implementing functionality like this is simply wasting their development resources on it when they should be focusing on more important things, and passing the cost along to you. I guess that's why the Xoom costs $799, with a contract, and, in reality, does far less than a 1st gen iPad.
Anyone who thinks that iOS w/512MB RAM is functionally equivalent to Android w/512 MB RAM or WebOS w/512 MB RAM is just plain ignorant. The same goes for CPU clock rates.
Although I agree that the current iPad "seems" to need more RAM, its hard to know. My main gripe is in Safari, which, when I go pack a page, seems to waste a lot of time reloading the data. This seems to be more the case since 4.2.
The problem is very real. It is a huge problem for 3G cell users as that directly impacts data usage. I wouldn't be surprised if some users cut their data usage in half.
But two caveats:
1. The real question is real-world usage. Are there stalls? or is it smooth?
Reloads significantly slow web usage down and can add to ones data usage bill. That is real world.
2. If certain actions slow down, its hard to know the bottleneck.
This is true, unless you are the developer you won't know what is slowing down an app. However realize that memory management is not free in iOS.
It may turn out the the bump from 256 to 512 fixes most bottlenecks. Maybe not. We'll see.
If that is what we get it will make a big difference. In the end the App will get around 3 times more RAM. That is pretty significant and combined with other Safari improvements ought to make for a much better user experience.
--
I a related question. The keynote presentation made a big point about up to a 9x increase in graphics speed and 2x increase in general computation speed. Other than manipulating photogaphic images, where would the graphics speed increase show up?
Well the 2X improvement in CPU power is hard to define right now. We don't know what the improvements to each core is. However many apps that have followed Apple guide lines should benefit from the new CPU.
As to the GPU that is even less defined, we really don't know what capability got a 9x improvement. However let's say 3D performance increased 4X. That means better games performance. It isn't just games though; things like CAD viewers, drawing programs, mapping software and visualization software ought to benefit. IPad is actually an excellent viewer for CAD files and making that faster is a good thing. Beyond that much of the low level drawing code is GPU accelerated so general app performance or feel should be better.
We might even see OpenCL support in the future.
I've never considered the GPU a weak point in iPad 1 but the GPU improvements are very welcomed. In the end it means that developers can deliver far more capable apps in the future.
Note much room has been left for fudge above. We won't really know what performance is like until there are direct comparisons with the old iPad. It looks good at the moment though.
You really don't know what you are talking about. You can not tune the need for RAM away. Beyond that many apps can't even be implemented on iPad 1 due to the lack of RAM.
Yes, it is. And this is probably the most prominent area where you will notice the effect of insufficient RAM (insufficient for what you want to do at that moment, which is holding multiple web pages in RAM).
But I am hard pressed to offer any other app where you notice this effect. Note that basically all apps are designed with the RAM limitation in mind, thus they are designed to operate well with the existing RAM amount. Web pages however are usually not designed with the RAM limitations of the iPad in mind, for sure some are, but most are not.
The doubling of ram and the new Nitro JavaScript engine powering Safari is the classic Apple way of simultaneously dealing with platform evolution, power management, ...and the silly season of selective, and so predictably self-serving, pundits' set of debatable arguments.
A blend of frugal hardware improvement increments and in-house software moxy should do for the end users what reason could never hope to accomplish for the ever coalescing non-sense teasers.
WOW, people have no idea how technology works in this thread... I am no expert, but I do have a CS degree...
iOS does NOT store multiple applications in memory, or running simultaneously on the processor. You may ask "Then how does it multi-task". The short answer is "It doesn't" in the common sense of the word.
When you switch to another application, the iPad uses the advantage of a solid state drive. It freezes the application and stores its current state to the SSD. This means, what the user sees is a very fast resume and the APPEARANCE of multitasking. While it is true that applications can request to background process, nearly NO app does this. Even calendar applications simply add events to the system scheduler, rather than multi-tasking. It's a brilliant way to give the consumer what they want while preserving battery life and performance.
That being said, only one application and parts of the OS are actually stored in memory. That means, unless you are running a singular application that needs that memory, MORE does NOT help. Like the poster above me, the system-on-a-chip technology has insanely fast bus speeds. Even if the OS has to retrieve information from the hard-drive, it's an SSD, which is VERY fast compared to a traditional HD.
My point: The pauses, slow down, etc. are due to iOS bugs more so than lack of memory. 512MB of RAM is MORE than enough for the way iOS works. The iPhone 4 uses the same chip and has nearly the resolution of the iPad; it works fine.
When you switch to another app on iOS 4 the first app stays in the RAM not the flash storage (or SSD). If the system need more RAM then it will terminate the apps in the memory starting with the oldest until the memory demand is met.
As memory get used, it's divided into categories: Active Memory, memory currently being used by an application; Inactive Memory, memory not currently being used by an application and is therefore inactive, this memory is also paged to disk; Wired Memory, memory being used by iOS or other frameworks called by an app; Free Memory, memory not used by the application or iOS, virtually free of use.
When you launch an app, it gathers memory from either the free memory pool OR the inactive memory pool (which I'll describe in a little) and pulls it into the active memory pool for itself.
Whenever you leave a program (assuming that it does not have any multitasking-frameworks written in it) iOS automatically suspends it's active memory, shoving it into the inactive memory pool.
Inactive memory is the memory of other applications that have been previously opened then closed, or chunks of memory that an application is not actively using. This is why applications are faster to launch after you've previously opened them and Apple was easily able to add the "quickly resuming applications where you left off"-style multitasking to apps without requiring developers to rewrite anything; it was derived directly from OS X's memory management techniques. The difference between iOS and OS X, however, is that instead of paging inactive memory to disk whenever an app needs more than it currently has in it's own section of inactive memory and the available free memory, iOS just removes the oldest inactive memory (without saving it to disk), and gives what is needed to the requesting App and giving the rest back to the free memory pool.
To prevent this killing of apps too often, iOS uses a memory management technique (which is built into all apps, you're forced to use memory management instead of garbage collecting in iOS) for all of its apps. Basically, memory management works like this: App needs 10kb of memory, so it asks iOS for 10kb of memory, and iOS serves it 10kb of memory. When the App is done with the 10kb of memory, it HAS TO MANUALLY release the memory back to iOS, which then controls that memory. If this is done incorrectly, memory leaks spring, the app begins to DEVOUR memory, iOS is unhappy and kills the app. Because of this method, iOS apps rarely take up more than 50-75mb (Even for the iPad or OS X!). Don't get me wrong, there are intensive apps that take up more (like Safari), but that is very rare. Apple is strict about this in app creation.
That said, 512mb of memory is way more than enough, even for the iPad. While you'll notice a slight change in memory intensive applications such as Safari (which is very memory intensive because it decompresses Javascript, renders HTML, and caches images to memory) or iBooks (when rendering large PDF's and images), the biggest benefit will be multitasking, as more applications can be stored in the memory without having to remove them.
Currently, 256mb of memory is more than enough to run most any application (aside from running into problems with a few specific problems such as Safari with multiple tabs [which, Safari kills large and older tabs on its own when iOS tells it that it needs to reserve memory, often when loading other significantly large tabs]).
1gb of RAM would be a waste of resources and money in iOS land, for the time being.
"A Parent’s Struggle With a Child’s iPad Addiction"
Contrary to what many detractors here, those who found the role of the iPad, or other iOS devices in their lives, and their family do not talk about how many rams, or what resolution their devices are.
They talk about the applications that they found useful, or how their children were impacted. Some talk about how improved the lives of some of the more disadvaantaged - the autistic, the deaf, the blind, the disabled, etc.
They do not talk about "upgrade potentials" but what they can do with the device, here and now.
They are aware of the imperfections of the device but take it as it is, because of the other things it can do for them to enhance the quality of their lives.
So, it is like choosing a boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife or partner in whatever endeavor. The ideal is desired but it is an illusion because we can always think of something more ideal.
It is about taking the totality of a being, and in this case, in our discussion, the device, and see if they can be part of our life.
It is pathetic, and borders pathological, for people to "dislike" and "hate" and obsess talking and writing about their hate and dislike. And, even more delusional to think that they can persuade others, in forums like this, those who have found the iPad or whatever device, would simply turnabout and embrace the perspective of hatred and envy.
A post or two is excusable. But, hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands of posts -- reposting the same hatred and dislike, in every conceivable guize?
If it is adulation and acceptance you crave for your perspective of hatred and envy of anything Apple is your goal, you may find more resonance in sites that like or adore the tech devices of your own choosing.
And, if you are being paid to do so, I would have greater respect for a prostitute -(s)he is only selling his/her body, not his(her) soul and mind.
Get a life!
CGC
Uh, they trumpet the new "dual core 1GHz" A5 chip on the front page of the iPad site, and list basically all of the tech specs under "Tech Specs", except RAM - probably because it's the one area from a hardware standpoint that another device (ie Xoom) clearly outdoes it. Plus the fact that Xoom can both play and output 1080p content while the iPad can digitally output 1080p but can only actually play 720p (cleverly presented by Apple, i must say).
Anyways, Apple is all about the user experience, so until Android makes some serious improvements that get it up to the level of the iTunes ecosystem, hardware is something of a moot point...
does it matter that it cant play 1080P on the device? 720P is more than enough on the current Ipads display resolution. !080P would create more workload for 0 gain.
iOS 4 runs on the iPhone 3G which only has 128MB RAM and it works fine, although it does not support multitasking. The CPU is also only clocked at 412MHz.
It does not work fine, at least from my experience and a lot of my friends' experience. Apps shut down randomly, battery drains much faster, some apps would open and then close in 10 secs, etc.
People keep forgetting that when you've 512MB, about 1/4-1/2 of that is already being used by the OS itself and phone/email/iPod. Also I'd willing to bet that iOS5 which is around the corner will increase the amount of ram needed for the OS itself.
What are you basing this statement on?
Seems to me you're making an assumption about the memory based on what you think is enough. The iPad is far more efficient with memory allocation than PCs or Macs for that matter. There's no point paying for more memory if it won't be needed.
March 2012 - Steve on Stage
"Now, those of you with iPads and iPad II's will still be able to run iOS 5.0, you will not however get all of the features! Guess it's time to give us another $500 because we didn't have the foresight to put a Gig of RAM in the thing"...
It always amazes me how so many people know so much more than Apple about designing iProducts.
After all, it is only logical that some no-name person with zero design experience on a forum like this will know more than Apple's thousands of engineers who have designed some of the leading products in the world.
When you've designed a consumer product that has done 1/100 as well as the iPad, feel free to throw out your comments. Until then, the facts are clear:
1. The iPad 1 was a huge, runaway success
2. The iPad 2 is better in nearly every way (thinner, lighter, cameras, twice the RAM, twice the CPU, much greater graphics performance).
3. While there were undoubtedly some complaints about iPad performance (mostly from people who didn't understand that it isn't a laptop, IMHO), they were rare - and virtually every review talks about near-instantaneous response. My own experience is that I don't recall a time when I felt that it was slow. The iPad 2 will be much better.
Stop the whining, please.
Rant- skip buy if you are anti-rant.
Come on, don't use patronizing arguements, you can do better than that. By your logic, you dont have any right to complain or suggest improvements to any thing someone has bought unless they design it themselves, thats silly.
I've found this an interesting thread(aside from the snide comments).
Obviously there needs to be an optimal RAM size, else it would be 1. Can we agree on that?
So... there are a couple issues of concern that people have brought up and they seem valid points. Are they issues for the 'masses' probably not, but for some tech and cost conscience user, maybe.
Point 1 How much work load can the system handle?
With 256, it does not seem to be enough to handle certain 'big tasks'. Counter points - 512 will be more than enough now. This is not a pro unit(until yesterday, when SJ says its not a toy). OR that it is software issue. Example - Can it handle more than 5 minutes worth of video editing? Example - loading mulitiple Safari screens.(note, Apple has claimed a software fixed to a big bottle neck in safari).
Point 2 - Obsolesence - some have pointed out that a few iOS' updates down the road and it may not be able to handle it and new apps. That is a reason for 'extra' memory today. This is also a valid point IMO. Why, we have historical record, older devises are no longer supported. So, what is a good sunset time frame? Thats a whole nother food fight. IMO - 3-4 years, but thats just me.
Would 1Gig of RAM mitigate that? Our PC experiences says yes. Counter arguements is it doesnt really matter if OS is tuned correctly etc.
IMO intuitately, the larger the RAM the better... to a point.
What that point is, I have no freak'n idea. But we do know that software growth will occur, while 512 is fine today, will it be in Dec?
End of rant, all will be answered March 11th.
There are a lot of people arguing about how memory management works on iOS (and OS X, also, because they use the same technique), so I thought I would try and outline it as best as possible and my view as a iOS developer
As memory get used, it's divided into categories: Active Memory, memory currently being used by an application; Inactive Memory, memory not currently being used by an application and is therefore inactive, this memory is also paged to disk; Wired Memory, memory being used by iOS or other frameworks called by an app; Free Memory, memory not used by the application or iOS, virtually free of use.
When you launch an app, it gathers memory from either the free memory pool OR the inactive memory pool (which I'll describe in a little) and pulls it into the active memory pool for itself.
Whenever you leave a program (assuming that it does not have any multitasking-frameworks written in it) iOS automatically suspends it's active memory, shoving it into the inactive memory pool.
Inactive memory is the memory of other applications that have been previously opened then closed, or chunks of memory that an application is not actively using. This is why applications are faster to launch after you've previously opened them and Apple was easily able to add the "quickly resuming applications where you left off"-style multitasking to apps without requiring developers to rewrite anything; it was derived directly from OS X's memory management techniques. The difference between iOS and OS X, however, is that instead of paging inactive memory to disk whenever an app needs more than it currently has in it's own section of inactive memory and the available free memory, iOS just removes the oldest inactive memory (without saving it to disk), and gives what is needed to the requesting App and giving the rest back to the free memory pool.
To prevent this killing of apps too often, iOS uses a memory management technique (which is built into all apps, you're forced to use memory management instead of garbage collecting in iOS) for all of its apps. Basically, memory management works like this: App needs 10kb of memory, so it asks iOS for 10kb of memory, and iOS serves it 10kb of memory. When the App is done with the 10kb of memory, it HAS TO MANUALLY release the memory back to iOS, which then controls that memory. If this is done incorrectly, memory leaks spring, the app begins to DEVOUR memory, iOS is unhappy and kills the app. Because of this method, iOS apps rarely take up more than 50-75mb (Even for the iPad or OS X!). Don't get me wrong, there are intensive apps that take up more (like Safari), but that is very rare. Apple is strict about this in app creation.
That said, 512mb of memory is way more than enough, even for the iPad. While you'll notice a slight change in memory intensive applications such as Safari (which is very memory intensive because it decompresses Javascript, renders HTML, and caches images to memory) or iBooks (when rendering large PDF's and images), the biggest benefit will be multitasking, as more applications can be stored in the memory without having to remove them.
Currently, 256mb of memory is more than enough to run most any application (aside from running into problems with a few specific problems such as Safari with multiple tabs [which, Safari kills large and older tabs on its own when iOS tells it that it needs to reserve memory, often when loading other significantly large tabs]).
1gb of RAM would be a waste of resources and money in iOS land, for the time being.
Thank you for taking the time to write this. Couldn't have said it better myself.
Implemented how?
There are developers out there right now that need the extra RAM in iPad 2 to deliver their product. Some apps simply can't be implemented on iPad 1 effectively.
Last time I checked, the iPad can run anything the iPhone 4 can unless it requires a special feature like the gyroscope. There is not a single App that requires the iPhone 4's 512MB of RAM.
You did not grasp what was being said one bit.
Come on, don't use patronizing arguements, you can do better than that. By your logic, you dont have any right to complain or suggest improvements to any thing someone has bought unless they design it themselves, thats silly.
That's not even close to what I said.
What I said is that people who don't know anything about product design should stop making stupid comments like "it needs 1 GB of RAM".
If you have a real observation, you are free to comment. For example, the people who say that they have problems with Safari reloading their web pages are reporting an observation. Where they go wrong is in insisting that THEIR solution is the right one. Maybe more RAM doesn't fix it? Maybe it's a design choice by Apple? Maybe it's a software problem. You just don't know.
Stick to observations and requests and I have no objections. The problem is when people jump from that into telling Apple how to design the system - when I'm willing to venture that not a single poster here has the technical credentials for that 'advice' to be useful.
Who cares. What difference does it make whether you can display 1080(p|i) vs. 720p video on your iPad screen? And who wants to connect their iPad to a TV to play video, 1080 whatever or 720?
If you travel quite a bit, it is sometimes nice to load up movies on an iDevice and play them back on the flat panel in a hotel room. Granted, 720 works just fine for that purpose.