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?
It matters to the end-users who are ripping their own blu-ray discs. Simply ripping a movie takes minutes, but re-encoding that movie to a lower resolution takes hours.
For those saying 256g ram is not enough...then why can the new iMovie app run on the iPod 4g? Looks like it's fine according to apple. :-)
1. Just because a certain app can run on 256MB ram, doesn't mean 256MB ram is enough to run it smoothly.
2. Just because it can run on 256MB ram using iOS4, doesn't mean it can run on 256MB ram using iOS5.
3. Just because this app can run on 256MB ram, doesn't mean other apps can, and most likely a lot of new apps for iPhone5 won't be able to run on 256MB ram. Now obv people would counter with "this is purely speculation", but it's a pretty good guess, because that's how apps evolve overtime, to make use of capability of new hardware, and I personally won't want to buy an iPad2and in 3 months iPhone5 comes out and I won't be able to use those great apps for iPhone5 smoothly because of ram issues.
I was responding to somebody that had a twisted view of Mac apps
Quote:
Originally Posted by Euphoria
What makes me question your sanity is the fact that you are comparing OS/X with iOS.
Err not exactly, I was responding to somebody with confused ideas about the size of Mac apps.
Quote:
There are many reasons Apple is keeping their system closed. Developers are not limitted byt he amount of the RAM but by the overall hardware of the device.
If this was correct it would be nice but Apple does have restriction upon app size and memory usage. RAM would be a big limiting factor here.
Quote:
I dont see any ground braking applications for the 1GB Android devices, do you?
This is ignorant on a couple of levels. First there are no shipping Android tablets that leverage the tablet version of Android. Second in the context of Apple there is no device to target such apps for. Finally what is with the one GB android machine, it has nothing to do with the discussion about iPad 2's RAM. Zip!
The whole focus of my comments have been about the unknown amount of RAM in iPad 2 and the need to move beyond 256MB. That has nothing to do with Playbook, Xoom or any other tablet. It does have to do with enabling the platform so that it can provide a platform for those ground breaking apps.
Quote:
512MB of RAM is more than enough for iPad 2.
That is opinion only. I don't especially disagree with it but what I do disagree with is Apple hiding this important parameter from the buying public.
It won't take long to determine just how well iPad 2 works with whatever amount of RAM it has installed. 512 MB should solve some of iPads more glaring problems. Is it "more than enough" well that is not as easy to say. From the standpoint of a developer it might be fine or it might be too little to realize their dream in. You can't say definitively that 512mB is enough.
Quote:
As CPU, memory, and battery capacity improve, so will the applications created for these devices. As simple as that...
No fooling?
I'm begining to think that you only half assed skimmed over a couple of my posts as you really seem out of line here.
Quote:
You can wait for 10 years and get something more advanced or you can purchase a product that makes you happy today and enjoy it. What you need to do though is fix your expectations. Tablets are not PCs, and when they made tablet/laptops, they barely sold any... ask HP and Toshiba.
Again you are totally out of line here and frankly have completely missed what this thread and my comments have been about. Just to be clear I'm objecting to Apples keeping us in the dark about RAM in iPad 2. Further I state without reservation that iPad 1 never had enough RAM, thus the importance in knowing how much RAM is in iPad 2.
The last thing I need to do is to fix my expectations. It is very reasonable to expect Apple to be forthright and honest about the amount of RAM installed in their devices. Further it is not unreasonable to expect more than 256MB of RAM in iPad 2. People really need to read for content here.
Why does everyone get hung up on the amount of RAM? People are way too used to Windows machines and the common missunderstanding that more RAM is better which is just plain wrong.
All RAM is is a high-speed staging ground for items waiting to be processed since PC's historically have used very slow (comparatively) magnetic storage. The iPad has its memory on the same chip as the CPU/GPU which makes it insanely efficient and fast since it doesn't have to traverse a usually slower bus. The inclusion of solid-state flash memory as a storage medium makes the amount of RAM also less important as the device can stage less.
Look at the Xbox 360 (512MB) and the PS3 (256MB CPU/256MB GPU), they do amazing things with what most consider "insufficient" amounts of RAM. If the OS of the device is efficient and tuned to fit the hardware, the amount of RAM in the traditional way of thinking is less important as it is to a generic OS made to work with a variety of hardware.
Folks really need to read about the purpose of RAM before bashing a device because it has x amount instead of y. My 3GS can run just plenty with its 600MHz CPU and 256MB including Infinity Blade with little if any lag. My quad-core i7 with 12GB running Win7 has its moments of lag as much as my MacBook with its Core2 Duo and 4GB.
RAM size is VERY important from a developers point of view, ESPECIALLY for game developers. It essentially provides stretching room and temporary space to use to provide vertex shaders, polygon viewing data and many others all on one screen. The smaller the RAM size the less pixels, vertex shaders and the like displayed one time at any given moment. This decreases the graphical performance and subsequently the "wow" factor in future games. The more robust the available RAM the better programmers can utitlize this expanded space for their liking.
Remember, unlike a dedicated GPU on personal computers, mobile SOC's share system memory and video memory all on one RAM. This is what you call "shared RAM" in the PC world. Right from the get go the application is starting off on a smaller availability of RAM to begin with. Therefore, a larger RAM to compensate for that is a dream come true for programmers.
Every major iOS upgrade has been in the summer. if there is any intention of the iPad outputting 1080P it would come with a major iOS upgrade.
When the original iPad launched last year it did not include anything particular special beyond what the iPhone 3G was at the time capable. Additional features came along much later.
I'm not sure how you call it a rush when Apple has never had a major software upgrade in this time frame.
Quote:
Originally Posted by samab
As I said it in another thread, the hardware is way ahead of software for the ipad2 --- which I think is showing that Apple is genuinely worried about the zillion android tablet models out there. I think that Apple drop a bunch of software features because they want to launch early (even though the hardware is capable of doing more).
Also Apple never demo'ed any third party apps that took advantage of the increased hardware specs. This is a very rush launch.
I don't know if this is RAM or CPU related. But if I open several programs and close them, all the program icons will shake only on the iPad 1. After you hit the home key, the icons will stop shaking and then you can go into and program you want. I call it the Earthquake problem.
My 2 cents is that it's somewhat unimportant whether the old iPad suffers / suffered from a "lack" of RAM with it's single core. Now that RAM is doubled. Problem solved right? Maybe not because they also double the CPU cores. So, one could say that each core gets only 256MB if it's 512MB. That's pretty awful these days. RAM isn't that expensive, especially for what Apple is probably paying for it.
It also doesn't matter so much now since there aren't many apps to take advantage of the dual core nature but there will be. Any app that performs poorly will likely never make into the app store anyway. This device is already on the road to obsolescence. This is possibly a stop gap device to stem the tide of competitive devices (the copycats) while iPad 3 is prepared for us this year or early next year. It'll likely have a quadcore processor with the 1GB that everyone wants but by then with 4 cores it probably should be 2GB.
For those wondering, I think 512MB would have been plenty if Apple had stuck with a single core design. Anyone agree / disagree with the following?
Err we are at odds right off the bat. First Mac OS/X supports paging for user data which dramatically alters the usage of RAM... I'm not sure this is well stated, iOS does not page user data memory. There is no virtual memory for user data. This is actually very important because it it means RAM space is very valuable in iOS devices as nothing gets paged out to a backing store.
I'm sorry, but you didn't even attempt to read my entire post before you said it, you point out things that I have addressed later on in the post. I specifically say that iOS does not support paging while OS X does.
Quote:
I think you are having issues explaining things here. [...] Well yeah iOS is basically the core of Mac OS/X with out the virtual memory support and a different scheduler. Of course people even have a hardtime wrapping their heads around this.
I explained it in the simplest terms that I could, I'm not going into specifics so people who don't understand how the process works can at least grasp the idea. I know they are different I say that they are different.
Quote:
Yes IF there is enough RAM in the first place. If not the app itself has to manage it's memory and possibly fails to get the memory it needs [...] nope! OS/X apps can use a lot of memory
I say that iOS does run into memory limits in some occasions, one of applications that cause this is Safari, which is one of the most memory intensive applications on iOS. I never said that OS X applications ONLY EVER take up 50-70mb, but that is the average maximum. There are times when it can jump ahead, but it will return to a lower memory point. Open your Activity Monitor and you will get a grasp of how much programs use. Right now, for example, I have Firefox (420mb), iTunes (111mb), Safari (94mb), Mail (65mb), Pages (44mb), iCal (35mb) running. This supports both you and me, don't assume I'm only saying that ALL apps do that.
Quote:
In any event you seem to imply that 512MB is enough for OS/X apps too, this has me questioning your sanity as there are all sorts of Mac apps that actively use far more RAM.
I don't know where you get this idea. (edit: I made a typo, I was inferring that an app and iOS should exceed 512mb) I say that OS X supports paging memory AND more than one application running at the same time (unlike iOS, which halts applications).
Quote:
The biggest benefit is in having apps successfully handle the task at hand without crashing. In the realm of iOS, on the iPad, this is one of the biggest benefits of more RAM. For most users iPad is a one app at a time machine, when it fails to handle apps like that it is pretty bad, especially if the problem is the lack of RAM.
I don't think you understand what you're talking about here. The iPad is a one app at a time machine for ALL users. Rarely does it fail at handling that one app because apps rarely exceed the maximum amount of RAM the iPad can give to it. This is because iOS apps are written for iOS devices which mean using a less memory as possible. When an app is using too much memory, iOS will tell an app to release memory that isn't in use. A good example is the Twitter app: when it is collecting a lot of memory, iOS triggers "applicationDidReceiveMemoryWarning", which causes it to release cached information (recently view profiles you aren't friends of) and icons not in view. The releasing of this information is done by the Twitter app. However, if it failed to create memory and continues to eat memory, iOS will terminate it. Terminating an app because it using too much memory is the last ditch effort for iOS to sustain normal functioning. How often do apps randomly quit on you using an iOS device? Rarely. If an app is written efficiently, it will not consume a lot of RAM, and if it does, it will release it accordingly. This is a fact.
Quote:
Your logic escapes me here. 256MB only works because Apple constrains what developers can develop for the machine. You apparently know this as you alluded to the app store requirements above but yet you contend that 256 MB of RAM is enough (really less than 120MB). Do you not see where your logic fails? IPad 1's 256MB has only worked because Apple makes sure that more demanding apps never make it to app store.
You're implying that all applications should use ALL of the RAM that iOS gives to it. This is wrong. They should use as less as physically possible. Do more with less. Now, there are apps that could use more than what iOS can give, I'm not going to deny; but you are wrong in saying that Apple doesn't allow demanding apps into the App Store (look at the new iMovie... it's a prefect example of how memory management can be handled well). I am also not saying there isn't more room for growth, however, I am saying that for most things now, 256mb is more than perfectly fine for iOS and apps. If there was such a surplus of apps that had intensive RAM requirements, don't you think the iPad would have shipped with more than 256mb of RAM to begin with?
Quote:
In the end here it is pretty obvious that you have a better understanding of iOS than some here. However you seem to waltz right over the fact that iPad apps work fairly well simply because of Apple putting real constraints upon what an app can do. Basically any sort of computer hardware design can be made to work if you have that much control over the software running on it. I look forward to some real testing on these machines as that should clear up just what are the advantages of the new hardware in iPad 2.
I'm saying this as a developer, not as a user of these apps. I know how they apps work on iOS and the constraints there are. You blow the idea of a RAM limit WAY out of proportion. iOS apps are not completely hindered in development by the lack of RAM, and most apps will never even hit the active limit. While more RAM is always better, more than 512 is not necessary. If you have an App that is taking over 256mb+ RAM on an iPad, chances are, you are doing something wrong. RARELY (but there are still exceptions, as I stated) should an app on iOS (or even OS X) take more than that.
Why must everyone make everything personal. I blatantly stated what I was trying to do and my opinion towards it. Sorry for attempting to help those who don't understand, understand.
Every major iOS upgrade has been in the summer. if there is any intention of the iPad outputting 1080P it would come with a major iOS upgrade.
When the original iPad launched last year it did not include anything particular special beyond what the iPhone 3G was at the time capable. Additional features came along much later.
I'm not sure how you call it a rush when Apple has never had a major software upgrade in this time frame.
I would expect Apple to bring up a couple of third-party developer up on stage showing their new app or game that really uses the increased CPU and GPU power.
At the very least, when nVidia announced their quad-core tegra chipset --- they showed a game demo showing that 200 game characters in the dual-core tegra vs. 600 game characters in the quad-core tegra.
in the context of iOS apps Apple has been strict about program size but the why is the big thing here. The why is that iPad 1 has far to little memory available to it. That is there is somewhere around 120MB free to apps for code and data. Data is not paged so the platform is extremely tight RAM wise. These issues put severe limits on what apps are capable of doing. Or in otherwords developers can only go so far before hitting walls imposed by Apple.
512MB is a significant improvement and nothing more. It may or may not be enough for apps that are non trivial. In any event you seem to imply that 512MB is enough for OS/X apps too, this has me questioning your sanity as there are all sorts of Mac apps that actively use far more RAM.
The biggest benefit is in having apps successfully handle the task at hand without crashing. In the realm of iOS, on the iPad, this is one of the biggest benefits of more RAM. For most users iPad is a one app at a time machine, when it fails to handle apps like that it is pretty bad, especially if the problem is the lack of RAM.
Your logic escapes me here. 256MB only works because Apple constrains what developers can develop for the machine. You apparently know this as you alluded to the app store requirements above but yet you contend that 256 MB of RAM is enough (really less than 120MB). Do you not see where your logic fails? IPad 1's 256MB has only worked because Apple makes sure that more demanding apps never make it to app store.
To look at it another way a DOS machine might have run fine with 32MB of RAM as long as you avoided software that demanded more RAM. If that fancy new DOS based word processor required 64MB of RAM you are out of luck.
In any event the problem with RAM on iOS devices can be itemized below.
1. Some apps simply need a larger foot print. That is more RAM. Safari is a prime example here but there are others.
2. More RAM makes multitasking more useful.
3. Apple restricts apps in a way that limits capability. This is apparently directly related to the lack of RAM in the device. This developers have not been able to ship everything that they might want to.
4. The lack of RAM results in many page reloads for Safari and other apps. This can lead to excessive data usage and thus additional expenses.
The problem I have is that it appears as if Apple is intentionally limiting iPads capability. On the other hand 512MZb should go a very long ways to making iPad a better performing machine. Since the SoC are a stack of processor and RAM chips there are possible technical limits on just how much RAMmshould be in iPad 2. All I know is staying at 256MB is not acceptable.
In the end here it is pretty obvious that you have a better understanding of iOS than some here. However you seem to waltz right over the fact that iPad apps work fairly well simply because of Apple putting real constraints upon what an app can do. Basically any sort of computer hardware design can be made to work if you have that much control over the software running on it. I look forward to some real testing on these machines as that should clear up just what are the advantages of the new hardware in iPad 2.
I do not have the expertise to confirm or refute the technical aspects of RAM. But, allow me to introduce a different twist.
i actually like the form factor of the iPad. When I first saw it, the first thing that came to mind was: Won't it be neat when the day comes when the notebook could be redesigned so that it would have the "unibody" form factor of the iPad with the capabilities of the more powerful desktops and notebooks?
One concern I had with the iPad form factor is that the exposed (and very sensitive) glass surface would likely break or shutter when dropped at a certain angle or wedged against anything that would cause too much pressure on the surface. The aforementioned scenarios are less prone to happen with the clam shell protection of the glass surface in the notebook.
The new cover of the iPad2 is a step in the right direction for the aforementioned without really "uglifying" the iPad with a thick cover.
But, the above wish is for the future of the potential notebook aesthetic form -- unibody, compact and more easy to share than the clam shell notebooks.
To go back to the issue you raised, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, he had an "optimal" usage in mind for the target consumers and activities (usage) expected. He stated explicit alsoAs that its function is between the iPhone/iPod touch and the notebooks and the desktops on the higher end.
To put simply, if one needs more sophisticated (and more likely more RAM intensive) applications, it must be done in the higher end notebooks and desktops.
Everyone was surprised by the low base price of the iPad -- about half of the estimate $800-1000. To achieve this, I surmised that Apple must have considered the economically most optimal and technologically available component parts. Thus, it eschewed the OLED (cost, availability and stability). The same is true with the SSD, and the CPUs, battery and other components without crippling the first iPad for the needs of the target audience and anticipated usage of the target audience.
Similarly, it rewrote the OSX => iOS to further enhance the optimization. And, as you stated, it enforced more economic usage of the available RAM for the Apps. This I believe is the reason also why it decided to exckude Adobe Flash -- not only because of the unreliability of updates, the lack of support for Mac OSX, and more important that it uses too much RAM (and battery power).
As part of this "better RAM" management, Apple also "rewrote" in house applications so that they would function more optimally under the constraints of the technologically inside the first iPad.
The dissatisfaction therefore comes not from the target consumer that Steve Jobs had in mind, but the perspectives of those who wanted the iPad to run more RAM intensive applications.
Sure the technology might be there, sure Apple could have enhance the RAM, disk storage, lens MPs, etc., but at what price? And, more important, how would it affect the "simiplicity of use" that was intended for the target consumers? Just as relevant, would these enhancement be practical for the expected usage of the targeted consumer?
Its because you are brining a reasoned and informed response into an emotional and uninformed discussion.
As Steven Colbert called it, a lot of "truthiness" happens here. The truth is based on what people feel. Most often some people feel 1GB has to always under every circumstance be better than 512Mb. Or 5MP camera is always better than a 3MP camera.
Others attempt to explain that is not always true. There are a lot of other variables to consider. "Truthiness" has no room for nuance and distinction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nobodyy
. Why must everyone make everything personal. I blatantly stated what I was trying to do and my opinion towards it. Sorry for attempting to help those who don't understand, understand.
1. Just because a certain app can run on 256MB ram, doesn't mean 256MB ram is enough to run it smoothly.
2. Just because it can run on 256MB ram using iOS4, doesn't mean it can run on 256MB ram using iOS5.
3. Just because this app can run on 256MB ram, doesn't mean other apps can, and most likely a lot of new apps for iPhone5 won't be able to run on 256MB ram. Now obv people would counter with "this is purely speculation", but it's a pretty good guess, because that's how apps evolve overtime, to make use of capability of new hardware, and I personally won't want to buy an iPad2and in 3 months iPhone5 comes out and I won't be able to use those great apps for iPhone5 smoothly because of ram issues.
You can use the same analogy for any laptop or PC you purchase.
... RAM is very important, if Apple has stayed with 256MB the upgrade would be worthless. From the day it debuted iPad one has suffered from the lack of RAM.
And if that same Mysterious Korean told you iPad 2 had 1GB you probably would have believed him.
Getting high performance from limited resources is a sign of good engineering.
Apple is known for their good engineering. Put two and two together.
Yes I remember those days. Often was the case Apple was shipping less RAM but on a faster bus than most everyone else. So the RAM that Apple was using was more expensive than what most everyone else was using.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Euphoria
You can use the same analogy for any laptop or PC you purchase.
You analogy is funny....
Funny in the sense that he wasn't making an analogy?
Actually, the biggest problem with the PS3 is its lack of video RAM. Porting games to it is a real pain in the ass.
Despite its Cell processor and Blu-Ray drive, the PS3 has often struggles to match the apparently "out-dated" Xbox 360 in terms of graphics. Blu-Ray is capable of holding huge textures but the PS3 can't take advantage. You can have all of the processing power in the world but it's wasted if it's not matched by an equally high amount of RAM.
Ever heard of Uncharted 2?
Its textures are so detailed, and the CPU/GPU are so busy rendering and anti-aliasing the game that all of the textures stored in an uncompressed state and streamed right into the game.
Also, ever heard of RAGE? Pretty impressive stuff they can do with this "paltry" 512Mb
I would only add one thing to the non-opinion parts above. iOS does not do the paging to the SSD (backing store) that the desktop OS X does. The rest of the memory subsystems are the same. I'm not sure what the full reasoning for this is, but they do make that clear in the documentation. [Edit: now I see wizard69 mentions this up a few posts too. I disagree with him on iOS having Virtual Memory though -- it most definitely does, that's what delivers the full 32-bit address space. iOS just doesn't deliver a backing store for the VM to use, a subtle but important distinction when we get to the point of splitting hairs.]
This is the main reason Prof Peabody sees a pseudo last-state sometimes rather than the true last-state all the time. if iOS paged there would be no reason for the reload from a file version of pseudo state restoration. (pseudo state is my wording, not Apple's).
Is 512MB enough? There is never enough memory if you are a developer, by definition. I wouldn't compare the 512MB to 1GB on a Xoom very directly though. That Xoom is running a robust JVM behind everything, and that means it is running a copy of that JVM in every process. That is a verified Metric Shitload of memory requirement that the app developers can never use.
One more thought.
Apparently, Android developers are not [as] concerned with memory management because Android provides Garbage Collection to detect, locate and free memory no longer used by the app. The iOS developer is responsible for memory management.
Many will argue that this is not an issue because modern Garbage Collection schemes are quite efficient -- and can theoretically outperform manual memory management.
I have no links/citations, but, I have read that there are periodic, noticeable performance hits with Android due to pauses/jitters related to Garbage Collection.
If GC is poorly implemented on Android, one way to compensate is to throw hardware at the problem. (In mainframe parlance: "There is no substitute for Cubic Inches").
So, it may be to support equivalent capability/performance an app on the iPad requires less RAM (and other hardware) than on Android.
I also think the PlayBook approach to addressing Flash & UI issues is to throw hardware at the problem.
IMO, this the exact opposite approach than should be used in the power/weight/battery constraints of a mobile device.
RAM size is VERY important from a developers point of view, ESPECIALLY for game developers.
As a game developer, I'm happy to say that 512MB is sufficient to match the PS3 and XBox360.
Even with the 9X GPU of the iPad 2, the iPad is a less capable hardcore games machine. So I'd expect most iOS games to require a much (much) smaller memory footprint.
Comments
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?
It matters to the end-users who are ripping their own blu-ray discs. Simply ripping a movie takes minutes, but re-encoding that movie to a lower resolution takes hours.
For those saying 256g ram is not enough...then why can the new iMovie app run on the iPod 4g? Looks like it's fine according to apple. :-)
1. Just because a certain app can run on 256MB ram, doesn't mean 256MB ram is enough to run it smoothly.
2. Just because it can run on 256MB ram using iOS4, doesn't mean it can run on 256MB ram using iOS5.
3. Just because this app can run on 256MB ram, doesn't mean other apps can, and most likely a lot of new apps for iPhone5 won't be able to run on 256MB ram. Now obv people would counter with "this is purely speculation", but it's a pretty good guess, because that's how apps evolve overtime, to make use of capability of new hardware, and I personally won't want to buy an iPad2and in 3 months iPhone5 comes out and I won't be able to use those great apps for iPhone5 smoothly because of ram issues.
What makes me question your sanity is the fact that you are comparing OS/X with iOS.
Err not exactly, I was responding to somebody with confused ideas about the size of Mac apps.
There are many reasons Apple is keeping their system closed. Developers are not limitted byt he amount of the RAM but by the overall hardware of the device.
If this was correct it would be nice but Apple does have restriction upon app size and memory usage. RAM would be a big limiting factor here.
I dont see any ground braking applications for the 1GB Android devices, do you?
This is ignorant on a couple of levels. First there are no shipping Android tablets that leverage the tablet version of Android. Second in the context of Apple there is no device to target such apps for. Finally what is with the one GB android machine, it has nothing to do with the discussion about iPad 2's RAM. Zip!
The whole focus of my comments have been about the unknown amount of RAM in iPad 2 and the need to move beyond 256MB. That has nothing to do with Playbook, Xoom or any other tablet. It does have to do with enabling the platform so that it can provide a platform for those ground breaking apps.
512MB of RAM is more than enough for iPad 2.
That is opinion only. I don't especially disagree with it but what I do disagree with is Apple hiding this important parameter from the buying public.
It won't take long to determine just how well iPad 2 works with whatever amount of RAM it has installed. 512 MB should solve some of iPads more glaring problems. Is it "more than enough" well that is not as easy to say. From the standpoint of a developer it might be fine or it might be too little to realize their dream in. You can't say definitively that 512mB is enough.
As CPU, memory, and battery capacity improve, so will the applications created for these devices. As simple as that...
No fooling?
I'm begining to think that you only half assed skimmed over a couple of my posts as you really seem out of line here.
You can wait for 10 years and get something more advanced or you can purchase a product that makes you happy today and enjoy it. What you need to do though is fix your expectations. Tablets are not PCs, and when they made tablet/laptops, they barely sold any... ask HP and Toshiba.
Again you are totally out of line here and frankly have completely missed what this thread and my comments have been about. Just to be clear I'm objecting to Apples keeping us in the dark about RAM in iPad 2. Further I state without reservation that iPad 1 never had enough RAM, thus the importance in knowing how much RAM is in iPad 2.
The last thing I need to do is to fix my expectations. It is very reasonable to expect Apple to be forthright and honest about the amount of RAM installed in their devices. Further it is not unreasonable to expect more than 256MB of RAM in iPad 2. People really need to read for content here.
Why does everyone get hung up on the amount of RAM? People are way too used to Windows machines and the common missunderstanding that more RAM is better which is just plain wrong.
All RAM is is a high-speed staging ground for items waiting to be processed since PC's historically have used very slow (comparatively) magnetic storage. The iPad has its memory on the same chip as the CPU/GPU which makes it insanely efficient and fast since it doesn't have to traverse a usually slower bus. The inclusion of solid-state flash memory as a storage medium makes the amount of RAM also less important as the device can stage less.
Look at the Xbox 360 (512MB) and the PS3 (256MB CPU/256MB GPU), they do amazing things with what most consider "insufficient" amounts of RAM. If the OS of the device is efficient and tuned to fit the hardware, the amount of RAM in the traditional way of thinking is less important as it is to a generic OS made to work with a variety of hardware.
Folks really need to read about the purpose of RAM before bashing a device because it has x amount instead of y. My 3GS can run just plenty with its 600MHz CPU and 256MB including Infinity Blade with little if any lag. My quad-core i7 with 12GB running Win7 has its moments of lag as much as my MacBook with its Core2 Duo and 4GB.
RAM size is VERY important from a developers point of view, ESPECIALLY for game developers. It essentially provides stretching room and temporary space to use to provide vertex shaders, polygon viewing data and many others all on one screen. The smaller the RAM size the less pixels, vertex shaders and the like displayed one time at any given moment. This decreases the graphical performance and subsequently the "wow" factor in future games. The more robust the available RAM the better programmers can utitlize this expanded space for their liking.
Remember, unlike a dedicated GPU on personal computers, mobile SOC's share system memory and video memory all on one RAM. This is what you call "shared RAM" in the PC world. Right from the get go the application is starting off on a smaller availability of RAM to begin with. Therefore, a larger RAM to compensate for that is a dream come true for programmers.
Every major iOS upgrade has been in the summer. if there is any intention of the iPad outputting 1080P it would come with a major iOS upgrade.
When the original iPad launched last year it did not include anything particular special beyond what the iPhone 3G was at the time capable. Additional features came along much later.
I'm not sure how you call it a rush when Apple has never had a major software upgrade in this time frame.
As I said it in another thread, the hardware is way ahead of software for the ipad2 --- which I think is showing that Apple is genuinely worried about the zillion android tablet models out there. I think that Apple drop a bunch of software features because they want to launch early (even though the hardware is capable of doing more).
Also Apple never demo'ed any third party apps that took advantage of the increased hardware specs. This is a very rush launch.
My 2 cents is that it's somewhat unimportant whether the old iPad suffers / suffered from a "lack" of RAM with it's single core. Now that RAM is doubled. Problem solved right? Maybe not because they also double the CPU cores. So, one could say that each core gets only 256MB if it's 512MB. That's pretty awful these days. RAM isn't that expensive, especially for what Apple is probably paying for it.
It also doesn't matter so much now since there aren't many apps to take advantage of the dual core nature but there will be. Any app that performs poorly will likely never make into the app store anyway. This device is already on the road to obsolescence. This is possibly a stop gap device to stem the tide of competitive devices (the copycats) while iPad 3 is prepared for us this year or early next year. It'll likely have a quadcore processor with the 1GB that everyone wants but by then with 4 cores it probably should be 2GB.
For those wondering, I think 512MB would have been plenty if Apple had stuck with a single core design. Anyone agree / disagree with the following?
256MBx1 core=meager, 512MBx1 core=average, 1GBx1 core=above average, 512MBx2 cores=meager, 1GBx2 cores=average, 2GBx2 cores=above average.
Please detail your knowledge of memory management within an embedded system. I'm dying to read it.
Err we are at odds right off the bat. First Mac OS/X supports paging for user data which dramatically alters the usage of RAM... I'm not sure this is well stated, iOS does not page user data memory. There is no virtual memory for user data. This is actually very important because it it means RAM space is very valuable in iOS devices as nothing gets paged out to a backing store.
I'm sorry, but you didn't even attempt to read my entire post before you said it, you point out things that I have addressed later on in the post. I specifically say that iOS does not support paging while OS X does.
I think you are having issues explaining things here. [...] Well yeah iOS is basically the core of Mac OS/X with out the virtual memory support and a different scheduler. Of course people even have a hardtime wrapping their heads around this.
I explained it in the simplest terms that I could, I'm not going into specifics so people who don't understand how the process works can at least grasp the idea. I know they are different I say that they are different.
Yes IF there is enough RAM in the first place. If not the app itself has to manage it's memory and possibly fails to get the memory it needs [...] nope! OS/X apps can use a lot of memory
I say that iOS does run into memory limits in some occasions, one of applications that cause this is Safari, which is one of the most memory intensive applications on iOS. I never said that OS X applications ONLY EVER take up 50-70mb, but that is the average maximum. There are times when it can jump ahead, but it will return to a lower memory point. Open your Activity Monitor and you will get a grasp of how much programs use. Right now, for example, I have Firefox (420mb), iTunes (111mb), Safari (94mb), Mail (65mb), Pages (44mb), iCal (35mb) running. This supports both you and me, don't assume I'm only saying that ALL apps do that.
In any event you seem to imply that 512MB is enough for OS/X apps too, this has me questioning your sanity as there are all sorts of Mac apps that actively use far more RAM.
I don't know where you get this idea. (edit: I made a typo, I was inferring that an app and iOS should exceed 512mb) I say that OS X supports paging memory AND more than one application running at the same time (unlike iOS, which halts applications).
The biggest benefit is in having apps successfully handle the task at hand without crashing. In the realm of iOS, on the iPad, this is one of the biggest benefits of more RAM. For most users iPad is a one app at a time machine, when it fails to handle apps like that it is pretty bad, especially if the problem is the lack of RAM.
I don't think you understand what you're talking about here. The iPad is a one app at a time machine for ALL users. Rarely does it fail at handling that one app because apps rarely exceed the maximum amount of RAM the iPad can give to it. This is because iOS apps are written for iOS devices which mean using a less memory as possible. When an app is using too much memory, iOS will tell an app to release memory that isn't in use. A good example is the Twitter app: when it is collecting a lot of memory, iOS triggers "applicationDidReceiveMemoryWarning", which causes it to release cached information (recently view profiles you aren't friends of) and icons not in view. The releasing of this information is done by the Twitter app. However, if it failed to create memory and continues to eat memory, iOS will terminate it. Terminating an app because it using too much memory is the last ditch effort for iOS to sustain normal functioning. How often do apps randomly quit on you using an iOS device? Rarely. If an app is written efficiently, it will not consume a lot of RAM, and if it does, it will release it accordingly. This is a fact.
Your logic escapes me here. 256MB only works because Apple constrains what developers can develop for the machine. You apparently know this as you alluded to the app store requirements above but yet you contend that 256 MB of RAM is enough (really less than 120MB). Do you not see where your logic fails? IPad 1's 256MB has only worked because Apple makes sure that more demanding apps never make it to app store.
You're implying that all applications should use ALL of the RAM that iOS gives to it. This is wrong. They should use as less as physically possible. Do more with less. Now, there are apps that could use more than what iOS can give, I'm not going to deny; but you are wrong in saying that Apple doesn't allow demanding apps into the App Store (look at the new iMovie... it's a prefect example of how memory management can be handled well). I am also not saying there isn't more room for growth, however, I am saying that for most things now, 256mb is more than perfectly fine for iOS and apps. If there was such a surplus of apps that had intensive RAM requirements, don't you think the iPad would have shipped with more than 256mb of RAM to begin with?
In the end here it is pretty obvious that you have a better understanding of iOS than some here. However you seem to waltz right over the fact that iPad apps work fairly well simply because of Apple putting real constraints upon what an app can do. Basically any sort of computer hardware design can be made to work if you have that much control over the software running on it. I look forward to some real testing on these machines as that should clear up just what are the advantages of the new hardware in iPad 2.
I'm saying this as a developer, not as a user of these apps. I know how they apps work on iOS and the constraints there are. You blow the idea of a RAM limit WAY out of proportion. iOS apps are not completely hindered in development by the lack of RAM, and most apps will never even hit the active limit. While more RAM is always better, more than 512 is not necessary. If you have an App that is taking over 256mb+ RAM on an iPad, chances are, you are doing something wrong. RARELY (but there are still exceptions, as I stated) should an app on iOS (or even OS X) take more than that.
Why must everyone make everything personal. I blatantly stated what I was trying to do and my opinion towards it. Sorry for attempting to help those who don't understand, understand.
Relax, bro.
That is opinion only. I don't especially disagree with it but what I do disagree with is Apple hiding this important parameter from the buying public.
No its not a rush.
Every major iOS upgrade has been in the summer. if there is any intention of the iPad outputting 1080P it would come with a major iOS upgrade.
When the original iPad launched last year it did not include anything particular special beyond what the iPhone 3G was at the time capable. Additional features came along much later.
I'm not sure how you call it a rush when Apple has never had a major software upgrade in this time frame.
I would expect Apple to bring up a couple of third-party developer up on stage showing their new app or game that really uses the increased CPU and GPU power.
At the very least, when nVidia announced their quad-core tegra chipset --- they showed a game demo showing that 200 game characters in the dual-core tegra vs. 600 game characters in the quad-core tegra.
Please detail your knowledge of memory management within an embedded system. I'm dying to read it.
The RIM Playbook showed 948mb of freemem --- last 30 second of video. The operating system took 1024-948=76mb of memory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAXPGwChLGw
in the context of iOS apps Apple has been strict about program size but the why is the big thing here. The why is that iPad 1 has far to little memory available to it. That is there is somewhere around 120MB free to apps for code and data. Data is not paged so the platform is extremely tight RAM wise. These issues put severe limits on what apps are capable of doing. Or in otherwords developers can only go so far before hitting walls imposed by Apple.
512MB is a significant improvement and nothing more. It may or may not be enough for apps that are non trivial. In any event you seem to imply that 512MB is enough for OS/X apps too, this has me questioning your sanity as there are all sorts of Mac apps that actively use far more RAM.
The biggest benefit is in having apps successfully handle the task at hand without crashing. In the realm of iOS, on the iPad, this is one of the biggest benefits of more RAM. For most users iPad is a one app at a time machine, when it fails to handle apps like that it is pretty bad, especially if the problem is the lack of RAM.
Your logic escapes me here. 256MB only works because Apple constrains what developers can develop for the machine. You apparently know this as you alluded to the app store requirements above but yet you contend that 256 MB of RAM is enough (really less than 120MB). Do you not see where your logic fails? IPad 1's 256MB has only worked because Apple makes sure that more demanding apps never make it to app store.
To look at it another way a DOS machine might have run fine with 32MB of RAM as long as you avoided software that demanded more RAM. If that fancy new DOS based word processor required 64MB of RAM you are out of luck.
In any event the problem with RAM on iOS devices can be itemized below.
1. Some apps simply need a larger foot print. That is more RAM. Safari is a prime example here but there are others.
2. More RAM makes multitasking more useful.
3. Apple restricts apps in a way that limits capability. This is apparently directly related to the lack of RAM in the device. This developers have not been able to ship everything that they might want to.
4. The lack of RAM results in many page reloads for Safari and other apps. This can lead to excessive data usage and thus additional expenses.
The problem I have is that it appears as if Apple is intentionally limiting iPads capability. On the other hand 512MZb should go a very long ways to making iPad a better performing machine. Since the SoC are a stack of processor and RAM chips there are possible technical limits on just how much RAMmshould be in iPad 2. All I know is staying at 256MB is not acceptable.
In the end here it is pretty obvious that you have a better understanding of iOS than some here. However you seem to waltz right over the fact that iPad apps work fairly well simply because of Apple putting real constraints upon what an app can do. Basically any sort of computer hardware design can be made to work if you have that much control over the software running on it. I look forward to some real testing on these machines as that should clear up just what are the advantages of the new hardware in iPad 2.
I do not have the expertise to confirm or refute the technical aspects of RAM. But, allow me to introduce a different twist.
i actually like the form factor of the iPad. When I first saw it, the first thing that came to mind was: Won't it be neat when the day comes when the notebook could be redesigned so that it would have the "unibody" form factor of the iPad with the capabilities of the more powerful desktops and notebooks?
One concern I had with the iPad form factor is that the exposed (and very sensitive) glass surface would likely break or shutter when dropped at a certain angle or wedged against anything that would cause too much pressure on the surface. The aforementioned scenarios are less prone to happen with the clam shell protection of the glass surface in the notebook.
The new cover of the iPad2 is a step in the right direction for the aforementioned without really "uglifying" the iPad with a thick cover.
But, the above wish is for the future of the potential notebook aesthetic form -- unibody, compact and more easy to share than the clam shell notebooks.
To go back to the issue you raised, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, he had an "optimal" usage in mind for the target consumers and activities (usage) expected. He stated explicit alsoAs that its function is between the iPhone/iPod touch and the notebooks and the desktops on the higher end.
To put simply, if one needs more sophisticated (and more likely more RAM intensive) applications, it must be done in the higher end notebooks and desktops.
Everyone was surprised by the low base price of the iPad -- about half of the estimate $800-1000. To achieve this, I surmised that Apple must have considered the economically most optimal and technologically available component parts. Thus, it eschewed the OLED (cost, availability and stability). The same is true with the SSD, and the CPUs, battery and other components without crippling the first iPad for the needs of the target audience and anticipated usage of the target audience.
Similarly, it rewrote the OSX => iOS to further enhance the optimization. And, as you stated, it enforced more economic usage of the available RAM for the Apps. This I believe is the reason also why it decided to exckude Adobe Flash -- not only because of the unreliability of updates, the lack of support for Mac OSX, and more important that it uses too much RAM (and battery power).
As part of this "better RAM" management, Apple also "rewrote" in house applications so that they would function more optimally under the constraints of the technologically inside the first iPad.
The dissatisfaction therefore comes not from the target consumer that Steve Jobs had in mind, but the perspectives of those who wanted the iPad to run more RAM intensive applications.
Sure the technology might be there, sure Apple could have enhance the RAM, disk storage, lens MPs, etc., but at what price? And, more important, how would it affect the "simiplicity of use" that was intended for the target consumers? Just as relevant, would these enhancement be practical for the expected usage of the targeted consumer?
CGC
As Steven Colbert called it, a lot of "truthiness" happens here. The truth is based on what people feel. Most often some people feel 1GB has to always under every circumstance be better than 512Mb. Or 5MP camera is always better than a 3MP camera.
Others attempt to explain that is not always true. There are a lot of other variables to consider. "Truthiness" has no room for nuance and distinction.
. Why must everyone make everything personal. I blatantly stated what I was trying to do and my opinion towards it. Sorry for attempting to help those who don't understand, understand.
Relax, bro.
1. Just because a certain app can run on 256MB ram, doesn't mean 256MB ram is enough to run it smoothly.
2. Just because it can run on 256MB ram using iOS4, doesn't mean it can run on 256MB ram using iOS5.
3. Just because this app can run on 256MB ram, doesn't mean other apps can, and most likely a lot of new apps for iPhone5 won't be able to run on 256MB ram. Now obv people would counter with "this is purely speculation", but it's a pretty good guess, because that's how apps evolve overtime, to make use of capability of new hardware, and I personally won't want to buy an iPad2and in 3 months iPhone5 comes out and I won't be able to use those great apps for iPhone5 smoothly because of ram issues.
You can use the same analogy for any laptop or PC you purchase.
You analogy is funny....
... RAM is very important, if Apple has stayed with 256MB the upgrade would be worthless. From the day it debuted iPad one has suffered from the lack of RAM.
And if that same Mysterious Korean told you iPad 2 had 1GB you probably would have believed him.
Getting high performance from limited resources is a sign of good engineering.
Apple is known for their good engineering. Put two and two together.
Yes I remember those days. Often was the case Apple was shipping less RAM but on a faster bus than most everyone else. So the RAM that Apple was using was more expensive than what most everyone else was using.
You can use the same analogy for any laptop or PC you purchase.
You analogy is funny....
Funny in the sense that he wasn't making an analogy?
Actually, the biggest problem with the PS3 is its lack of video RAM. Porting games to it is a real pain in the ass.
Despite its Cell processor and Blu-Ray drive, the PS3 has often struggles to match the apparently "out-dated" Xbox 360 in terms of graphics. Blu-Ray is capable of holding huge textures but the PS3 can't take advantage. You can have all of the processing power in the world but it's wasted if it's not matched by an equally high amount of RAM.
Ever heard of Uncharted 2?
Its textures are so detailed, and the CPU/GPU are so busy rendering and anti-aliasing the game that all of the textures stored in an uncompressed state and streamed right into the game.
Also, ever heard of RAGE? Pretty impressive stuff they can do with this "paltry" 512Mb
Guess that kinda destroys your post, doesn't it?
I would only add one thing to the non-opinion parts above. iOS does not do the paging to the SSD (backing store) that the desktop OS X does. The rest of the memory subsystems are the same. I'm not sure what the full reasoning for this is, but they do make that clear in the documentation. [Edit: now I see wizard69 mentions this up a few posts too. I disagree with him on iOS having Virtual Memory though -- it most definitely does, that's what delivers the full 32-bit address space. iOS just doesn't deliver a backing store for the VM to use, a subtle but important distinction when we get to the point of splitting hairs.]
This is the main reason Prof Peabody sees a pseudo last-state sometimes rather than the true last-state all the time. if iOS paged there would be no reason for the reload from a file version of pseudo state restoration. (pseudo state is my wording, not Apple's).
Is 512MB enough? There is never enough memory if you are a developer, by definition. I wouldn't compare the 512MB to 1GB on a Xoom very directly though. That Xoom is running a robust JVM behind everything, and that means it is running a copy of that JVM in every process. That is a verified Metric Shitload of memory requirement that the app developers can never use.
One more thought.
Apparently, Android developers are not [as] concerned with memory management because Android provides Garbage Collection to detect, locate and free memory no longer used by the app. The iOS developer is responsible for memory management.
Many will argue that this is not an issue because modern Garbage Collection schemes are quite efficient -- and can theoretically outperform manual memory management.
I have no links/citations, but, I have read that there are periodic, noticeable performance hits with Android due to pauses/jitters related to Garbage Collection.
If GC is poorly implemented on Android, one way to compensate is to throw hardware at the problem. (In mainframe parlance: "There is no substitute for Cubic Inches").
So, it may be to support equivalent capability/performance an app on the iPad requires less RAM (and other hardware) than on Android.
I also think the PlayBook approach to addressing Flash & UI issues is to throw hardware at the problem.
IMO, this the exact opposite approach than should be used in the power/weight/battery constraints of a mobile device.
.
RAM size is VERY important from a developers point of view, ESPECIALLY for game developers.
As a game developer, I'm happy to say that 512MB is sufficient to match the PS3 and XBox360.
Even with the 9X GPU of the iPad 2, the iPad is a less capable hardcore games machine. So I'd expect most iOS games to require a much (much) smaller memory footprint.
C.