iPad Anybody going from M4 to M5 iPad?

[Hooyah]

I'm not being snarky, legit wondering. What would 32GB RAM on the iPad do for you in comparison to the 16 it can have?

Is this true with the reloads? I have an iPhone 14 Pro (6GB RAM) and can't stand the constant crashes/refreshes. I am upgrading to the 17 Pro (12GB) in a few weeks. I would've thought 8GB would've been enough to stop the tabs and apps reloading however.

I have an 11" 1TB M1. It's still a good device due to the 16GB of RAM. Was planning on upgrading to the M5 1TB. This will not happen. I will wait for the M6. Buying an expensive new device with the same amount of RAM as the nearly 5 year old M1 is a not acceptable. And... there is no such thing as too much RAM.

Having bought the 1TB iPad Pro specifically for the 16GB RAM… I can tell you, it does absolutely nothing on iPad. Because 99% of the apps aren’t optimised to take advantage of it. With some exceptions like Procreate with layers.. Unfortunately all the big developers develop one mobile app and fine tune it a bit for iOS / Android and even within iPad OS… they make it run on the lowest supported models so until we see 16GB across the board I can’t see it happening. And also, would Microsoft etc advance their iPad apps only and leave Android etc behind? I’m not so sure.

The only thing I can see is that in the future as older models are dropped and more new models come out with 12 or 16GB maybe investing today will pay off. Though I can see Apple pulling an Intel Mac move and just pretending like today’s M4s can’t handle some future update simply because it’s too awkward to explain that they support the 1TB/2TB model but not the 256GB/512GB models that came out the same year, Apple has never done that before.

As someone on some Reddit thread put it (and I ignored it) you’d be much better buying the lower Pro model now, pocketing the difference and in a few years putting that towards the next model or two that has the higher RAM when they finally optimise to support it across more apps and system functions.

My iPad Pro M4 might as well have 3GB RAM with how much it refreshed basic small documents in windowing mode. Spoke to Apple. It’s just how the iPad is. My bad for buying it I suppose!

 

[Kendo]

Having bought the 1TB iPad Pro specifically for the 16GB RAM… I can tell you, it does absolutely nothing on iPad. Because 99% of the apps aren’t optimised to take advantage of it. With some exceptions like Procreate with layers.. Unfortunately all the big developers develop one mobile app and fine tune it a bit for iOS / Android and even within iPad OS… they make it run on the lowest supported models so until we see 16GB across the board I can’t see it happening. And also, would Microsoft etc advance their iPad apps only and leave Android etc behind? I’m not so sure.

The only thing I can see is that in the future as older models are dropped and more new models come out with 12 or 16GB maybe investing today will pay off. Though I can see Apple pulling an Intel Mac move and just pretending like today’s M4s can’t handle some future update simply because it’s too awkward to explain that they support the 1TB/2TB model but not the 256GB/512GB models that came out the same year, Apple has never done that before.

As someone on some Reddit thread put it (and I ignored it) you’d be much better buying the lower Pro model now, pocketing the difference and in a few years putting that towards the next model or two that has the higher RAM when they finally optimise to support it across more apps and system functions.

My iPad Pro M4 might as well have 3GB RAM with how much it refreshed basic small documents in windowing mode. Spoke to Apple. It’s just how the iPad is. My bad for buying it I suppose!

Thanks for the analysis - I read something similar in another post. Basically how the OS is coded to only leverage 8GB at the moment so refreshes will happen at 8GB regardless if you have 16GB or 32GB in your iPad.

But with the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air having 12GB now, I think 12GB support is on the horizon. As someone who bought Apple products one generation before they upped the RAM, I can't emphasize just how frustrating the timing was.

For example, my iPhone 14 Pro had 6GB RAM (same as 12 and 13 Pro) and then it jumped to 8GB for the 15 Pro. When I first got the iPad Air (1GB RAM), it jumped to 2GB with the iPad Air 2. So the timing of my purchases wasn't great and the following years I suffered through constant app reloads.

This will be the first year I jump on when the RAM has been increased (both iPhone 17 Pro and M5 iPad Pro) to 12GB.

 

[Ctrlos]

I guess not many other than a chip upgrade is there much else happening? I’m surprised they still do yearly updates im sure the took a break a few years back?

Even the basic iPad offers little over the 10th and the 12th expected to be same. Why update yearly?

Most people buy every 5-6 years on an iPad but when they do they want the latest model. The annual updates on any product line are just to keep things current, not for people to actually swap them out annually.

 

[Take Flight]

curious if there is benefit for splurging for the extra ram models at 16 vs 12 gb on the m5?

 

[aevan]

If all people use their iPad iOSs for is media and some apps browsing yeah it’s enough

I use it for illustration in Procreate and CSP (sometimes even running both apps at the same time). I also dabbled in Zbrush on it and pushed the mesh to several millions of polygons. You can also find reports of Blender beta working on an 8Gb M2 iPad Pro.

I don’t know what kind of super advanced workflows are you alluding to, but I like to think I do more than browsing and some apps. And I never felt like I’m missing RAM.

What apps are you using that 8 is not enough?

 

[aevan]

With Blender launching their iPad app soon, I imagine they wanted to showcase it on the M5. While M4 models did ship with 12GB of RAM, they were software locked to 8GB.

Blender beta has been reported to work just fine on an 8Gb M2 iPad.

 

[Innovati0n]

curious if there is benefit for splurging for the extra ram models at 16 vs 12 gb on the m5?

No, and you'd know if you needed it.

 

[Sami13496]

Why update yearly?

To avoid FOMO.

 

[Take Flight]

No, and you'd know if you needed it.

well i have no problem maxing out 32gb of ram on a macbook pro…. it sounds like it’s more of the software limitation on ios? just wondering how long that will be the case with some of the newer features like background tasks only recently added to ios.

 

[aggravated_raspberry]

I really struggle with such regular updates for something like an iPad. Are they just getting better chips out into the wild because they can? I know it's not for M4 customers to be clear, it's just such an incremental update (as is the M5 MBP) that it hardly seems worth a launch.

 

[Innovati0n]

I really struggle with such regular updates for something like an iPad. Are they just getting better chips out into the wild because they can? I know it's not for M4 customers to be clear, it's just such an incremental update (as is the M5 MBP) that it hardly seems worth a launch.

Because someone without an M4 or any iPad at all should be able to purchase the latest and greatest when buying one. The M5 is the latest chip so why not offer it with their flagship iPad?

 

[xxray]

Is this true with the reloads? I have an iPhone 14 Pro (6GB RAM) and can't stand the constant crashes/refreshes. I am upgrading to the 17 Pro (12GB) in a few weeks. I would've thought 8GB would've been enough to stop the tabs and apps reloading however.

The tab reloading isn’t horrible, but it’s not great either. I’d think increasing to 12GB would help.

 

[Act3]

No but I will consider upgrading my M1 pro to an air if they add pro motion to it next year.

 

[hovscorpion12]

curious if there is benefit for splurging for the extra ram models at 16 vs 12 gb on the m5?

Depends on your workflow. Coming from someone who actually pushes the M4 to the MAX.

 

[houdat2]

I got the M4 day one, and I pre ordered the M5. I like to game on it as well as content consumption. I'm not sure if I"ll still keep the preorder, but I'm going to look at reviews in terms of if the 36% difference GPU impacts performance for gaming at all. If not, I'm going to cancel my preorder.

 

[Nom4d]

I got the M4 day one, and I pre ordered the M5. I like to game on it as well as content consumption. I'm not sure if I"ll still keep the preorder, but I'm going to look at reviews in terms of if the 36% difference GPU impacts performance for gaming at all. If not, I'm going to cancel my preorder.

What kind of games do you end up playing on the iPad? Also is it a good experience?

 

[FrozenDarkness]

i honestly can't imagine the m5 changing my life.

 

[beautyहमempty]

I almost bought the M4 iPad Pro, but I knew a new one was coming. One day later and Apple released the iPad Pro M5. I’m happy that waited

 

[Innovati0n]

i honestly can't imagine the m5 changing my life.

If the bar for you buying a product is having your life changed, you won't be buying much

 

[NotApplicable]

I almost bought the M4 iPad Pro, but I knew a new one was coming. One day later and Apple released the iPad Pro M5. I’m happy that waited

This is why returns exist Mine is going back to Amazon today! M5 scheduled to arrive on Wednesday.

 

[jcshas]

I decided to upgrade from my M4 iPad mainly because after Apple’s $600 trade-in offer, it worked out to be about a $300 difference for the new model.

I use my iPad every day, and honestly way more than my MacBook Pro, so it made sense to go for it. Even though the M4 has been great, for the price difference it felt like an easy upgrade, especially since I rely on it so much for everyday use.

 

[Innovati0n]

I decided to upgrade from my M4 iPad mainly because after Apple’s $600 trade-in offer, it worked out to be about a $300 difference for the new model.

I use my iPad every day, and honestly way more than my MacBook Pro, so it made sense to go for it. Even though the M4 has been great, for the price difference it felt like an easy upgrade, especially since I rely on it so much for everyday use.

Pretty decent trade-in value yes. Gives you a fresh battery, fresh one year warranty and the incremental changes

 

[Cheffy Dave]

I can’t justify upgrading my M1 11” iPad Pro which is working fine.

I am on the same bus. Mine has 2TB SSD, this baby flies! It does everything I want, and I just ❤️ it

 

[Ocze]

The Ipad Pro M5 with 10 Cores and 16GB Ram is about 5% faster in Multicore then the 9 Cores at geekbench. Currently Singlecore is nearly the same....

 

[Digitalguy]

Thanks for the analysis - I read something similar in another post. Basically how the OS is coded to only leverage 8GB at the moment so refreshes will happen at 8GB regardless if you have 16GB or 32GB in your iPad.

But with the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air having 12GB now, I think 12GB support is on the horizon. As someone who bought Apple products one generation before they upped the RAM, I can't emphasize just how frustrating the timing was.

For example, my iPhone 14 Pro had 6GB RAM (same as 12 and 13 Pro) and then it jumped to 8GB for the 15 Pro. When I first got the iPad Air (1GB RAM), it jumped to 2GB with the iPad Air 2. So the timing of my purchases wasn't great and the following years I suffered through constant app reloads.

This will be the first year I jump on when the RAM has been increased (both iPhone 17 Pro and M5 iPad Pro) to 12GB.

Absolutely false. There is no such thing as a OS coded for 8GB. At best apps are optimized for 8GB. But I can tell you that the difference in reloads between 8GB and 16GB is huge since iPadOS 18. 26 hasn't changed much. That difference used to be hardly noticeable until iPadOS 17. Now my tabs reloads all the time. Your use of the iPad my differ, but for me the issue has been there for a whole year already.