Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Unless you happen to own an iPad 2 or iPhone 4s right now. Optimization is no guarantee of obsolescence in the future. Both those devices would be far more usable today if they had double the RAM, so 2GB vs. 4GB is a real deal.

Really? That is the counter-argument? The iPad 2 and iPhone 4S? Both are 5 years old?

If you are going to want something to be that long-lived, then buying tech is going to be a difficult process.
 
  • Like
Reactions: T5BRICK and jgelin
Really? That is the counter-argument? The iPad 2 and iPhone 4S? Both are 5 years old?

Their useful life was 3 years - the last 2 versions of iOS doesn't run very well on them. 5 years is not too much to ask of tech these days - and RAM is dirt cheap, its a stupid part to skimp on in a premium product.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GatorGhost
I don't think anything is confirmed yet, I have seen tons of sites assuming 4GB but until teardown nothing in stone. Apple never discloses RAM.

I'm waiting for the benchmarks and/or tear down to verify the speed of the A9X and the amount of RAM. Until then, I don't trust these web sites spouting specs.
 
Their useful life was 3 years - the last 2 versions of iOS doesn't run very well on them. 5 years is not too much to ask of tech these days - and RAM is dirt cheap, its a stupid part to skimp on in a premium product.

So just don't upgrade the iOS past that timeframe. I know a few people who love their 4S phones and that is what they did. They just don't update them, and they still love them. But you can avoid the whole problem by buying the iPad Pro 12.9". It has all the specs you crave. ;)
[doublepost=1458658826][/doublepost]
I'm waiting for the benchmarks and/or tear down to verify the speed of the A9X and the amount of RAM. Until then, I don't trust these web sites spouting specs.

Well, we probably all know deep down inside that the clock speed will be slower than the 12.9". So stay with that. :)
 
That would be bad if they gave us 2GB of Ram along with the USB 2 that they decided to thrown in there just to skimp a few pennies on
 
So just don't upgrade the iOS past that timeframe. I know a few people who love their 4S phones and that is what they did. They just don't update them, and they still love them. But you can avoid the whole problem by buying the iPad Pro 12.9". It has all the specs you crave. ;)
[doublepost=1458658826][/doublepost]

Well, we probably all know deep down inside that the clock speed will be slower than the 12.9". So stay with that. :)

I'm returning my 12.9 iPP to upgrade to the 256gb model.. The 9.7 is nice, there are some interesting upgrades, and the lighter weight is compelling, but I'm quite used to the larger screen now..
 
  • Like
Reactions: eltoslightfoot
I'm returning my 12.9 iPP to upgrade to the 256gb model.. The 9.7 is nice, there are some interesting upgrades, and the lighter weight is compelling, but I'm quite used to the larger screen now..

I completely agree about the larger screen. My kids both have air 2's and there is no way I could go back.
 
Yep, that is the real issue. I see people claiming the only thing keeping them from an iPhone SE would be not having at least 2 gigs?
Why? to better browse Safari on a 4 inch screen?

The iPad Pro gave them the perfect excuse to do something they should have done years ago.

Develop a iPad specific iOS. How did they go to design meetings for the 12.9 Pro, see that empty space between icons and say, yep that looks professional.
Yeah apps like twitter are beyond hilarious on the 12.9 pro
 
Yeah apps like twitter are beyond hilarious on the 12.9 pro

Eh, I would rather have the "beyond hilarious" un-optimized apps like Twitter and Facebook (which will eventually be updated) and get the extra real estate on everything that has been optimized. But each to his or her own.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jbachandouris
@eltoslightfoot, when the iPad mini2 and iPad Air had only 1 GB RAM, I found that Safari kept having to reload pages--VERY annoying to say the least. At that time, a number of sites alleged that the reason for this was the paltry 1 GB RAM. I don't know for sure if that's the case, but I do know that the same behavior rarely happens on my 12.9 IPP. I'm thinking this is because the IPP has 4 GB RAM.

So, now that I know the 9.7 inch IPP has only 2 GB RAM (see article on MacRumors homepage), I have zero interest in it. I can envision a number of situations in which the paltry amount of RAM could be a real impediment--particularly when running two apps side-by-side, which I LOVE to do on my 12.9 IPP.
 
2gb is enough for 9.7 devices, just like on air2. i barely notice app/webpage reload, and the affect on my user experience is little to none (of course it may vary).
the 12.9 IPP keeps giving me surprise, when launching an app i haven't used for weeks, it still kept its last status without reload. it's good and bad. just thinking 4gb on 12.9 is a overkill.

plus, 9.7 has less screen resolution, much less, so it takes less memory?
 
2gb is enough for 9.7 devices, just like on air2. i barely notice app/webpage reload, and the affect on my user experience is little to none (of course it may vary).
the 12.9 IPP keeps giving me surprise, when launching an app i haven't used for weeks, it still kept its last status without reload. it's good and bad. just thinking 4gb on 12.9 is a overkill.

plus, 9.7 has less screen resolution, much less, so it takes less memory?

Yep 2GB is more than enough today.
 
For today yes but that 4gb of ram will make the IPad 9.7 pro seem like an antique by about 2018.

Well I've been thinking about this some more.

I don't think it will be anything like as bad as in the past. I mean, it is still possible to run OS X on 2GB RAM. So realistically we should expect iOS devices equipped with only 2GB to have a very acceptable level of performance for many, many years.
 
Well I've been thinking about this some more.

I don't think it will be anything like as bad as in the past. I mean, it is still possible to run OS X on 2GB RAM. So realistically we should expect iOS devices equipped with only 2GB to have a very acceptable level of performance for many, many years.

iOS and OS X are different. OS X is more 'backwards compatible' it will run on very old macs, it's just slower. But iOS won't run on older devices (like 3, 5 years old)

So as far as future proof, it's not how much ram it has, it's completely up to apple's decision.
If apple plan to support this for 10 years, they can figure out a way for 2gb to work at 2026. But if Apple only plan to support it for 3-4 years (which is the case for most iOS devices), 4gb will still be more than enough for web use and stuff, but it just won't get updated anymore, hence useless
 
iOS and OS X are different. OS X is more 'backwards compatible' it will run on very old macs, it's just slower. But iOS won't run on older devices (like 3, 5 years old)

Don't recent OS X versions only run on 64 bit Macs?

And iOS is a much leaner, resource efficient version of the bigger desktop operating system. That's why it can still run on devices with only 512MB RAM.
 
OS X can function on just 2GB of RAM. Thus the lightweight iOS will not be demanding more than 2GB for some time.
 
@eltoslightfoot, when the iPad mini2 and iPad Air had only 1 GB RAM, I found that Safari kept having to reload pages--VERY annoying to say the least. At that time, a number of sites alleged that the reason for this was the paltry 1 GB RAM. I don't know for sure if that's the case, but I do know that the same behavior rarely happens on my 12.9 IPP. I'm thinking this is because the IPP has 4 GB RAM.

So, now that I know the 9.7 inch IPP has only 2 GB RAM (see article on MacRumors homepage), I have zero interest in it. I can envision a number of situations in which the paltry amount of RAM could be a real impediment--particularly when running two apps side-by-side, which I LOVE to do on my 12.9 IPP.

See my above post. Just get the 12.9" washed-up-wait-maybe-not-it-has-4-GB-of-RAM iPad Pro. :) Problem solved.
 
Except when you run a stock trading app then it requires more RAM to keep up with all indexes and stocks along with commodities and currencies
[doublepost=1458711902][/doublepost]Just saw this link... http://www.phonearena.com/news/The-...e-same-amount-of-RAM-as-the-iPhone-SE_id79541

That article is just like the one posted yesterday on Macrumors which sparked these debates. Is there a stock trading app (or any app for that matter) which the Air 2 could not keep up with? Then how much more capable will the 9.7" Pro be? Nearly Apple's entire line of iPads and all of their flagship phones have 2GB of RAM. Their mainstream usage base is shifting to 2GB of RAM. I don't think Apple or developers are going to outdate that any time soon. As of right now the 13" Pro is the only iOS device ever to have 4GB and this is a premium niche product.

I'm not defending Apple's decision by any means, but I think these concerns over 2GB of RAM are unjustified. How slow has Apple been to upgrade the RAM in their devices? I don't see them shifting all of these products to 4GB any time soon and developers are not going to abandon them.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.