Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

4GB of RAM on iPad 4 is completely stupid.

R

RealMadrid15

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 19, 2012
33
0
Why do people keep suggesting this?

Do they not realize that the iPad does not have true multitasking and therefore does not require a ton of RAM.

I just don't understand what the people who are suggesting this do on their iPad. What could possibly require 4GB. I've has my iPad 2 since launch day and never once had any sort of performance issues even with games like Infinity Blade.

Heck I don't even use close to 4GB on my MacBook Pro while using Photoshop.

Can someone technical explain why an iPad would possibly need 4GB of RAM?
 
IDK it kind of reminds me of certain people who have 20 tabs open at the same time in addition to every program they own.
 
PDFs seem to eat up a lot of RAM. The iPad 1 regularly crashed on me. The iPad 2 handled the very same PDFs, but crashed on larger ones. The iPad 3 does even better, but still crashes on occasion. I could use more RAM. 4GB? I don't care. RAM is cheap, so I suggest Apple increase the amount, but I don't have a specific number in mind. Whatever is enough to work without crashing :)
 
darngooddesign said:
If you have ever had a tab in Safari reload, you have had performance issues due to a lack of RAM. That being said it doesn't need 4GB.
Click to expand...

The reloading of tabs in Safari is done by design. Safari has an upper limit built in to its ram usage.

palpatine said:
PDFs seem to eat up a lot of RAM. The iPad 1 regularly crashed on me. The iPad 2 handled the very same PDFs, but crashed on larger ones. The iPad 3 does even better, but still crashes on occasion. I could use more RAM. 4GB? I don't care. RAM is cheap, so I suggest Apple increase the amount, but I don't have a specific number in mind. Whatever is enough to work without crashing :)
Click to expand...

The ram in SoCs in iOS devices isn't cheap and it increases the overall size to levels that Apple may find unacceptable in large amounts. The iPad 3 has four 256MB sections of DDR ram built into its SoC. There isn't much room left on the current die for 16 of them unless denser ram is developed.
 
Intell said:
The reloading of tabs in Safari is done by design. Safari has an upper limit built in to its ram usage.



The ram in SoCs in iOS devices isn't cheap and it increases the overall size to levels that Apple may find unacceptable in large amounts. The iPad 3 has four 256MB sections of DDR ram built into its SoC. There isn't much room left on the current die for 16 of them unless denser ram is developed.
Click to expand...

I believe the ram is not on the soc itself but rather on the underside of the main board directly opposite/under the soc itself
 
Fruit Cake said:
I believe the ram is not on the soc itself but rather on the underside of the main board directly opposite/under the soc itself
Click to expand...

As per this image of the iPad 3's SoC/CPU, it's a part of the SoC.
iPadTeardown-A5X-Floorplan-NewProcessor.jpg
 
The iPad 3 seems to not follow Apple's standard integrated DRAM setup that their other iOS devices follows.
 
Intell said:
As per this image of the iPad 3's SoC/CPU, it's a part of the SoC.
Click to expand...
It's inefficient to combine RAM on a die with a CPU. The new Intel CPU's have 2 or 3 MB of ram as cache, which is quite a lot, but for GB's of RAM, the dedicated DRAM chips are highly optimized and manufactured in extremely high quantity, which is what makes them so cheap.

In mobile phones, they sometimes stack a DRAM or NVRAM die in the same package with an SoC, but this is done to save space, not cost. Of course, if it were cost effective to integrate hundreds of Meg's of RAM into a CPU die, this would be done instead of the complex, expensive multiple stack die packaging. To be honest, this is pretty specialized knowledge and not the sort of thing you simply read in a magazine or a book. I don't think it's discussed much in the press.
 
Last edited:
How do you know iOS 7 won't allow some kind of split screen multi-tasking?

I'm not saying the next iPad needs 4gb of RAM, but let's not assume that it will always function the way it currently does.
 
kdarling said:
DDR I/F = DDR InterFace
Click to expand...

DDR = Dance Dance Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Dance_Revolution
:D

----------

In terms of RAM, as long as apple keeps dumping more features into iOS, and continues to upgrade the GPU, the devices will need more RAM, until a major breakthrough in technology is realized. But they will most certainly not need 4gb by the next iPad. And I will match any bets with anybody who says they will :)
 
RealMadrid15 said:
Can someone technical explain why an iPad would possibly need 4GB of RAM?
Click to expand...

RAM prices have CRASHED (i.e., 4gb worth is about the same price as 1gb was a couple of years ago), and more ram will open up the possibility of far more powerful software?

In short, it isn't worth shaving a couple of dollars off the price by crippling the machine by NOT putting it there.
 
RealMadrid15 said:
Why do people keep suggesting this?

Do they not realize that the iPad does not have true multitasking and therefore does not require a ton of RAM.

I just don't understand what the people who are suggesting this do on their iPad. What could possibly require 4GB. I've has my iPad 2 since launch day and never once had any sort of performance issues even with games like Infinity Blade.

Heck I don't even use close to 4GB on my MacBook Pro while using Photoshop.

Can someone technical explain why an iPad would possibly need 4GB of RAM?
Click to expand...

What do you expect here? The people here evidently expect that 16gb of ram in a computer is the bare minimum anyone should ever go, and god willing, wouldn't hesitate to upgrade it all the way to 64gb for whatever reason remains their own.

Basically, I think they don't really know what they are talking about; they just like to spew large numbers to sound impressive. Implement quad-core (without even knowing if the OS actually benefits from it or not). Add this port and that (without considering the implications on form factor). Gimme much more storage (like everyone needs that many?) :rolleyes:
 
The issue isn't the ram, 1gb is eplenty on a normal pc, but pcs don't normally use 200-400 meg of ram for video of that era, and they had swap files and could page hard disk for memory. With ios, it's 1gb ram with no swap file and a chunk of it going to video, there isn't much left for the graphical rich experience the iPad provides.

When I had the original iPad and enabled swap file, even thoug the iPad only had 256mb ram, I could open 20 tabs in a browser and they would all still be there when I exited and reentered the app.
 
I heard this same attitude towards retina displays in a laptop not a very long time ago.
 
I would say, at this point, introducing such high RAM standards on the iPad would mainly be used as sort of a window to attempt to bring even more professional grade creation tools to the iPad. Like some iMovie thing that works in Retina resolutions and has larger more memory-hog tools.

I have 4GB on my Mac, and it is great. Though the biggest reason for it is not the multi-tasking, but more for something like iMovie, Final Cut, and Logic Professional. Software for big big projects.

Still, that would start to make this attempt to impede on the function that we specifically use computers for (in a work fashion). I'm not sure iPad is set to take on such stuff. It's a question of focus. Some will be for it, others will not. For various reasons.

On the other hand, the main thing I can sort of see using the Ram on the iPad is to increase the DAW capabilities of the iPad. A platform that is rapidly getting a lot of popularity on the device. Currently, we generally have individual DAWs on the iPad, and some of them work very well and turn the iPad into an individual usable DAW. Though limited, (for those unfamiliar with what I'm talking about) these usually emulate or create an electronic instrument with lots of different sounds being produced (or user crafted) using the instrument's emulated processors. Then they allow themselves to record a performance from said instrument.

The extra ram would allow the DAWs (or at least their brain which handles the sound creation) to be used as plug-ins to a bigger arranger product akin to Logic Pro or ProTools. We already know that the iPad is fast enough to handle them, and even multiple ones going at the same time, as software like NanoStudio has shown. Obviously not to the capacity of a Macbook Pro, but pretty impressive all the same.

I'm actually curious what it would be like if something with iPad Garageband's intuitive arrangement interface could be if it were made to handle DAW plug-ins. Right now, "thanks to the audio clipboard", the main way to use the DAW software with iPad Garageband is to use the DAW instrument app to record your single performance, save it to the audio clipboard, and then bring up Garageband and paste it into an audio track.

Still, the iPad has come a long way for the idea of creating music on it. After some of my initial works, I'm definitely game to creating a digital CD release of just iPad creations.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back