iPad Pro Does iPadOS 26 use more RAM than 18? Here are my test results.

[Digitalguy]

I have been comparing an M1 on 26 and an M2 on 18.5 (both with 8GB RAM) in terms of reloads of apps and tabs to see if 26 uses more RAM with exactly the same usage (I have been doing exactly the same things on both from power on).
I have been testing since I have been noticing more reloads on 18 compared to 17 but I never did the test before updating to 18 to check whether it's an impression or reality.
Now my test seem to show that if anything 18 reloads more than 26, so at best they are the same, or 26 is even an improvement....
It's a beta, so I'll probably repeat the test once the real thing drops, but 26 seems pretty good...

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

I wouldn't waste your time. You're not only comparing different processors with unified memory but how ram works in general meaning you would never notice without proper tools for testing and an OS/app that utilizes all available ram. Cool you tried but I would go do something else with my time ha.

 

[Digitalguy]

I wouldn't waste your time. You're not only comparing different processors with unified memory but how ram works in general meaning you would never notice without proper tools for testing and an OS/app that utilizes all available ram. Cool you tried but I would go do something else with my time ha.

Those tools do not exist on iPadOS, which is much more restrictive than desktop OSs, so any comparison will never be scientific, but it's still better than nothing, and I have done it in the past, and when RAM was different (e.g. 2018 pro 4GB vs 6GB) the difference in reloads was massive. Honestly I don't think M1 vs M2 makes any difference in how RAM is used. In my experience reloads with 8GB were very rare until iPadOS 17, but again I did no test between 17 and 18 so at least I am trying now. I also have 2 identical iPads, an M1 2TB 12.9 and a M1 2TB 11, one on 26 and one on 15. That would be an even more interesting comparison, but it's so hard to cause reloads on 16GB RAM that I consider that not even worth my time....

 

[russell_314]

I also have 2 identical iPads, an M1 2TB 12.9 and a M1 2TB 11, one on 26 and one on 15.

I would go do something else with my time ha.

It looks like this is his hobby. I don’t mind doing tests on desktop OS but it would drive me crazy doing it on an iPad due to how the OS is setup. I wouldn’t have the patience

 

[Digitalguy]

It looks like this is his hobby. I don’t mind doing tests on desktop OS but it would drive me crazy doing it on an iPad due to how the OS is setup. I wouldn’t have the patience

I do tests on both desktop and mobile OS, but indeed on iPad it's much more "empirical", I do this every couple of years, not what would I call a hobby. I generally do it when I am annoyed by reloads. I did it when 4GB iPad pro started annoying me and I sold it. Now I did because 8GB iPads are starting to reload more than I would like, although it's still not at a level where I considered it too annoying. But 16GB do a much better job.... And iOS and iPadOS have continually increase the amount of RAM they take for both the OS and apps and the additional multitasking capabilities also add to that (I, and probably others, do more things on iPad than in the past)

 

[russell_314]

I do tests on both desktop and mobile OS, but indeed on iPad it's much more "empirical", I do this every couple of years, not what would I call a hobby. I generally do it when I am annoyed by reloads. I did it when 4GB iPad pro started annoying me and I sold it. Now I did because 8GB iPads are starting to reload more than I would like, although it's still not at a level where I considered it too annoying. But 16GB do a much better job.... And iOS and iPadOS have continually increase the amount of RAM they take for both the OS and apps and the additional multitasking capabilities also add to that (I, and probably others, do more things on iPad than in the past)

I find it interesting, but I just don’t have the patience. I was thinking since you had so many iPads, that was your hobby. Or at least one of your hobbies. I’m still using my old 4th gen iPad Air. I don’t even know how much RAM it has, but I suspect not much. I don’t do anything taxing on it. Right now I have iPadOS 26 beta on it. I don’t normally mess around with a beta OS but it’s just for watching YouTube. As long as it can maintain a browser window open, it’s fine.

 

[Isamilis]

Those tools do not exist on iPadOS, which is much more restrictive than desktop OSs, so any comparison will never be scientific, but it's still better than nothing, and I have done it in the past, and when RAM was different (e.g. 2018 pro 4GB vs 6GB) the difference in reloads was massive. Honestly I don't think M1 vs M2 makes any difference in how RAM is used. In my experience reloads with 8GB were very rare until iPadOS 17, but again I did no test between 17 and 18 so at least I am trying now. I also have 2 identical iPads, an M1 2TB 12.9 and a M1 2TB 11, one on 26 and one on 15. That would be an even more interesting comparison, but it's so hard to cause reloads on 16GB RAM that I consider that not even worth my time....

It’s very interesting. Would you give update when iPadOS 26 final released? My hypothesis (and probably many others) is iPadOS 26 will require more cpu and ram than 18 - especially with their “improvements” in UI and window management.

 

[Digitalguy]

It’s very interesting. Would you give update when iPadOS 26 final released? My hypothesis (and probably many others) is iPadOS 26 will require more cpu and ram than 18 - especially with their “improvements” in UI and window management.

I will. And even if I sell the 12.9 M1 8GB in the meantime (it's up for sale already for little less than $600) I still have the M4 8GB on 18 so I could update the M2 to 26 and compare those.
You hypothesis was the same as mine, but so far it has been proven wrong. Just now I went on both and opened Brave where I had 2 youtube videos open on 2 tabs and they reloaded again on the M2 and not on the M1 (I also have 4 tabs open in Safari on both). So for now iPadOS 26 beta 5 is doing better than 18. I may add the M4 to the mix (also on 18) to check if it's consistent.
One thing I'll be doing is also leaving them unused for a while (hours or even a day) to see what happens, if anything reloads. I may even add the 16GB M1 to the mix but then I would run out of 13" iPads to use....

 

[Slartibart]

The described “testing” seems quite subjective (adblocker, version infos, etc.). Of course you can get more detailed insight, e.g., this is the memory allocation of my test 3rd gen 11” iPP under iPadOS 26 b5 after 7 days uptime:

and here with Safari running with 10 tabs open (6 github pages, 1 medium page, daring fireball, bbc, this page) and using the free tier of Adguard:

but that is somewhat meaningless, due to how modern OS handle memory - as others already pointed out.

My completely subjective impression for what’s worth is that any change in Safari’s reload behaviour is minuscule - if you visit something like /r/NatureIs****ingLit/ and scroll down, Safari will stop loading previews/autoplaying videos/reload quite similar on iPadOS26 b5 compared to 18.6 on the same hardware.
The interaction with the iPP feels snappier so on b5. YMMV. 🤓

 

[Digitalguy]

The described “testing” seems quite subjective (adblocker, version infos, etc.). Of course you can get more detailed insight, e.g., this is the memory allocation of my test 3rd gen 11” iPP under iPadOS 26 b5 after 7 days uptime:

View attachment 2536335

and here with Safari running with 10 tabs open (6 github pages, 1 medium page, daring fireball, bbc, this page) and using the free tier of Adguard:
View attachment 2536336

but that is somewhat meaningless, due to how modern OS handle memory - as others already pointed out.

My completely subjective impression for what’s worth is that any change in Safari’s reload behaviour is minuscule - if you visit something like /r/NatureIs****ingLit/ and scroll down, Safari will stop loading previews/autoplaying videos/reload quite similar on iPadOS26 b5 compared to 18.6 on the same hardware.
The interaction with the iPP feels snappier so on b5. YMMV. 🤓

I don't trust these third party apps in the slightest and won't be using them for testing. In the past I downloaded all I could find (almost 10 of them) and they were inconsistent with one another, so they have no low level access to the iPad resouces, and are not worth of any trust as far as I am concerned. And how RAM works on iPad nobody knows for sure, that's the only certain thing, hence the testing.

I will continue testing as I do. As for the subjective, you lack the information to even say that, since I have not even said how I test (by the way to make the test as equal as possible, I restored a backup of the M1 onto the M2, then updated the M1 to iPadOS 26, so they have the same files, settings etc.). I don't "use" the iPads (in order to make the test as fair as possible), I only "test use" them to make sure I do the exact same thing on both.

By the way, update for this morning. On iPadOS 18 Brave reloaded both youtube videos again (on 26 they are still there). So clear pattern so far, 26 show less reloads (does not necessarily mean it uses less RAM, but that's the end result)

 

[Slartibart]

I don't trust these third party apps in the slightest and won't be using them for testing. In the past I downloaded all I could find (almost 10 of them) and they were inconsistent with one another, so they have no low level access to the iPad resouces, and are not worth of any trust as far as I am concerned. And how RAM works on iPad nobody knows for sure, that's the only certain thing, hence the testing.

But how RAM is allocated etc. is easy enough accessible with a bit programming… or available tools.

I will continue testing as I do. As for the subjective, you lack the information to even say that, since I have not even said how I test (by the way to make the test as equal as possible, I restored a backup of the M1 onto the M2, then updated the M1 to iPadOS 26, so they have the same files, settings etc.). I don't "use" the iPads (in order to make the test as fair as possible), I only "test use" them to make sure I do the exact same thing on both.

By the way, update for this morning. On iPadOS 18 Brave reloaded both youtube videos again (on 26 they are still there). So clear pattern so far, 26 show less reloads (does not necessarily mean it uses less RAM, but that's the end result)

So this is an anecdote with no details , just vague ”less reloads" - the »here are my test results« in the thread title does some heavy lifting here IMHO. YMMV.

 

[bollman]

iPadOS 26 sure as hell uses more battery though.
I use my iPad for about 30mins every day and with 26, I need to charge at least 2 times a week, maybe 3. I use it mostly to read news every morning, and every morning it has at least 15% less battery than the day before.

 

[Digitalguy]

But how RAM is allocated etc. is easy enough accessible with a bit programming… or available tools.


So this is an anecdote with no details , just vague ”less reloads" - the »here are my test results« in the thread title does some heavy lifting here IMHO. YMMV.

I haven't seen any tools, including using developer tools on Macs, that tell you how much RAM iPadOS (not the apps) takes for itself, but anyway no tool is available directly on the iPad, and this test is done on 2 iPad with the same image and same RAM but with different OS version. No Macs will be used.
Whoever is interested can follow it, if it does not suit your requirements, it's not for you

 

[Digitalguy]

iPadOS 26 sure as hell uses more battery though.
I use my iPad for about 30mins every day and with 26, I need to charge at least 2 times a week, maybe 3. I use it mostly to read news every morning, and every morning it has at least 15% less battery than the day before.

Battery has been good since developer beta 4 for me.
In this comparison the M2 has better battery life but it has also better health (98% vs 88% for the M1)
I don't have iPads with identical health to test battery life with these 2 OSs

 

[Populus]

I don't trust these third party apps in the slightest and won't be using them for testing. In the past I downloaded all I could find (almost 10 of them) and they were inconsistent with one another, so they have no low level access to the iPad resouces, and are not worth of any trust as far as I am concerned. And how RAM works on iPad nobody knows for sure, that's the only certain thing, hence the testing.

I will continue testing as I do. As for the subjective, you lack the information to even say that, since I have not even said how I test (by the way to make the test as equal as possible, I restored a backup of the M1 onto the M2, then updated the M1 to iPadOS 26, so they have the same files, settings etc.). I don't "use" the iPads (in order to make the test as fair as possible), I only "test use" them to make sure I do the exact same thing on both.

By the way, update for this morning. On iPadOS 18 Brave reloaded both youtube videos again (on 26 they are still there). So clear pattern so far, 26 show less reloads (does not necessarily mean it uses less RAM, but that's the end result)

Here’s my theory: maybe iPadOS 26 is using some kind of caché, something like swap memory on macOS, so it can store more things in “memory”. It’s either that, or it is allowing Safari to allocate more content in RAM. Or maybe they improved RAM compression, who knows, they keep constantly improving the memory compression at least in macOS.

Those are my theories, but I’m really glad it is working better on iPadOS 26. My main device is an M2 iPad Pro with 1TB and 16GB of RAM so I really expect to get the most out of it!!

 

[cigz]

Here’s my theory: maybe iPadOS 26 is using some kind of caché, something like swap memory on macOS, so it can store more things in “memory”. It’s either that, or it is allowing Safari to allocate more content in RAM. Or maybe they improved RAM compression, who knows, they keep constantly improving the memory compression at least in macOS.

Those are my theories, but I’m really glad it is working better on iPadOS 26. My main device is an M2 iPad Pro with 1TB and 16GB of RAM so I really expect to get the most out of it!!

Swap has been a thing on iPadOS since at least iPadOS 16 when they introduced stage manager

 

[Digitalguy]

Swap has been a thing on iPadOS since at least iPadOS 16 when they introduced stage manager

Except it does not work in the slightest like on a Mac. A 8GB RAM Mac keeps everything in RAM/disk, a 8GB iPad reloads a lot as soon as you open enough stuff. While nobody has certainty, based on what Apple said, that iPadOS 16 feature was only to allow individual apps to request more RAM that what iPadOS allowed (5GB, then raised to 6GB on 8GB devices and 12GB on 16GB devices, with 2 left for the OS) up to 16GB RAM per app (although Apple does not say if 16GB is only for 16GB RAM devices or also for 8GB, which would therefore swap a lot more).

 

[Slartibart]

As for the subjective, you lack the information to even say that, since I have not even said how I test

which is my the point of my critique. 😃

 

[Populus]

Swap has been a thing on iPadOS since at least iPadOS 16 when they introduced stage manager

Yes, I remember it. But who knows, maybe they actually improved the iPadOS swap system or gave it more room to work.

 

[TheRealAlex]

2026 M5 iPad Pro will likely offer 16GB of Much faster LPDDR6X RAM it’s the main reason I’m upgrading and the M4 chip has been compromised by the CCP.

 

[Digitalguy]

2026 M5 iPad Pro will likely offer 16GB of Much faster LPDDR6X RAM it’s the main reason I’m upgrading and the M4 chip has been compromised by the CCP.

More like 2025 M5 iPad pro, it's coming this year, and yes more RAM will be the main improvement, unless you have a 1/2TB model

 

[TheRealAlex]

More like 2025 M5 iPad pro, it's coming this year, and yes more RAM will be the main improvement, unless you have a 1/2TB model

Even so, the new RAM modules will be significantly faster
.

Apple M5 could ditch unified memory architecture for split CPU and GPU designs | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com

 

[Digitalguy]

Even so, the new RAM modules will be significantly faster
.

Apple M5 could ditch unified memory architecture for split CPU and GPU designs | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com

Which only matters for spec nerds on an iPad

 

[Populus]

Even so, the new RAM modules will be significantly faster
.

Apple M5 could ditch unified memory architecture for split CPU and GPU designs | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com

The fact that the M5 Pro and M5 Max are coming with dedicated graphics RAM, which may be faster, doesn’t mean that the regular base M5 SoC is coming with LPDDR6X RAM…

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I have been comparing an M1 on 26 and an M2 on 18.5 (both with 8GB RAM) in terms of reloads of apps and tabs to see if 26 uses more RAM with exactly the same usage (I have been doing exactly the same things on both from power on).
I have been testing since I have been noticing more reloads on 18 compared to 17 but I never did the test before updating to 18 to check whether it's an impression or reality.
Now my test seem to show that if anything 18 reloads more than 26, so at best they are the same, or 26 is even an improvement....
It's a beta, so I'll probably repeat the test once the real thing drops, but 26 seems pretty good...

You claim "any comparison will never be scientific, but it's still better than nothing." I disagree and say it is not "still better than nothing."

Simply be aware that apps and the OS will constantly be taking more advantage of RAM on an ongoing basis. Like they have for >40 years now [Macs; obviously less time for tablets]. And vendors will constantly be making more RAM available on an ongoing basis. Like they have for >40 years now.