iPad 2 to Match iPhone 4's 512 MB of RAM?

[QuarterSwede]

And also used more battery power. Your paying the same price as the Android tablets and getting lower memory.

It doesn't kill that much battery. Give me a break.

Everyone complaining be happy apple gave the iPad 2 512 mb of ram, rather than doing nothing....

We don't know if they did that's the thing. There's a high probability but no one will know for sure until the teardowns are done on the 11th.

 

[borntomac448]

I'm still waiting for the iPad III!

I am in the same boat. I love the original iPad and do not look to upgrade until version 3. Why upgrade when the original version does everything that you need it to perfectly?

 

[RBR2]

The 2005 Lotus Elise has a 1.8L, 190 HP engine.

The 2005 Boxter S has a 3.2L, 280 HP engine.


The Elise smokes the Boxter in the 1/4 mile (13.5sec for the Elise vs 13.7sec for the Boster).


If you shop for specs on paper, you're going to buy the Boxter S. You're a PC. And you just lost the race in front of your girl and everyone else on the street. Who's the idiot now?


Sources:

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/coupes/112_0408_2005_lotus_elise/index.html

http://www.mpt.org/motorweek/reviews/rt2427.shtml



<snip>

Bad analogy. The number one car driven by Formula One drivers who actually purchased it with their own money (in other words not the sponsor's car) is a Porsche Boxter. I know I would choose a Boxter over an Elise every day of the week.

 

[lilo777]

My point is valid for this discussion - speed, which is what the PC trolls always shoot down with Apple's "inferior" hardware specs, failing to recognize that Apple products performs just as well as their PC counterparts regardless.

Nothing to do with the cars in general as a whole. Just about point A to point B speed. I've done the same to a few of my friends to prove my point back in the day, when I had a little 4 cylinder turbo car and embarassed their big 5.0 mustangs. What a joke Brute force = waste, not efficiency

Let's go with your car analogy. Car acceleration is mostly function of three things; power, torque and weight. In case of Elise and Boxter there is big discrepancy in two parameters. Computer performance (at least in case of tablets) is mostly a function of three specs: CPU, GPU and RAM. Android tablets will have almost identical CPU and GPU (after all this staff is designed by ARM) but they will have 2x RAM. Who do you think is going to perform better? Sure there is more variables to this equation. The most frequently mentioned one is software. Yet, I am not aware of any inherent deficiencies in the latest versions of Android. As we all know, Android's Web Browser handily outperforms Safari (it would not if something was really wrong with Android).

 

[PlipPlop]

It doesn't kill that much battery. Give me a break.

Its ok I wont have that problem on my xoom.

This is a good read lol
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/03/steve-jobs-reality-distortion-takes-its-toll-on-truth/

 

[wamsankas]

Sell Ipad 2 for 3?

Ok so i don't think i can wait any longer, pretty pissed about this lack of upgrade but would it make sense to just buy the ipad 2 now and then sell it at christmas time and wait for the ipad 3 which i assume will be in march? If i get the 16 gb wifi for 499 I could probably sell at christmas for 400? what do people think of this plan?

 

[crisgo]

Ram ?? Does it really matter

As a few Have pointer in the form and other about the amount.

I all come down to how well the OS & apps are written.

look back at the amiga 2000 it ran commercial video editing and the processor was only a 8088 and 512 ram

then when i bought the Amiga video toaster it has a CPU running at 150 MHz and 64MB of RAM.

This is way Apple was able to put the processor speed to rest. We no longer see the speed war, Way?? because the OS is clean (not perfect).

For me I'm still running a G4 with a CUP upgrade a 1ghz 700 ram and the machine just keeps work, ( don't get wrong) i do see days when it is starting to show it's age.

iPad2 will be going into my 1954 chevy truck.

 

[QuarterSwede]

Remove.

 

[AppleScruff1]

RAM. Too much is just enough.

 

[Surely]

Ok so i don't think i can wait any longer, pretty pissed about this lack of upgrade but would it make sense to just buy the ipad 2 now and then sell it at christmas time and wait for the ipad 3 which i assume will be in march? If i get the 16 gb wifi for 499 I could probably sell at christmas for 400? what do people think of this plan?

Ooo, could you please PM me your Twitter feed, I must know how your plan turns out!

 

[foxnews1]

What part of

"Twice as Fast"

and

"Nine times better graphics performance"

is 99.9999% of the End-User market for the iPad2, NOT GETTING???

what you don't get is that RAM will become a bottle neck when it comes to multitask.

that is an issue with ipad 1. if you open multiple heavy-graphic web papes, everytime you swap between tabs, it reloads the page again. it is very annoying.

it is like you have a super fast sport car but it can carry only one person. if you want to transport two persons, you have to make two trips.

 

[Surely]

^^^^I take it you still use Safari on your iPad. Neat.

 

[Kissaragi]

Sort of annoyed by these A4, A5 processors.. too much like the G3, G4, G5 ********. Love apple, hate their imaginary technology "retina display" "super drive" "face time" bull.

Its called "marketing" Apple are quite good at it.

 

[MattInOz]

It's good to see some dissenting opinions on this thread.

I have an iPhone4, which has 512Mb of RAM and frequently run into the dreaded Safari page refresh issue or switch/reload when using just a few simple apps.

With the expanded screen of the iPad, it becomes much more suited to more complex apps so I'd expect to run into this problem *more frequently* at even 512Mb RAM...1Gb would be better

It's hardly the end of the world but less RAM is a significant impact on user experience.

But RAM isn't the only way to skin that cat....
I mean they could build a software solution that solves that problem a different way the same way it's been solved for years already... Caching data.
Sure place strict user selectable limits on it then MobileSafari could give up more memory if needed or just use less to start with. Then if it needs to redraw a tab it can do so without having to pull the data off the net again.

Ok I'm assuming MobileSafari doesn't Cache Data it sure acts like it doesn't.

Also sure they maybe other reason 1Gb maybe work better over 512Mb but me having more room for inactive apps or parts of apps isn't really a good one but It does come down to the trade offs I guess. It would be better to add more storage to the device if that is the nut that needs to be cracked.

 

[Eidorian]

I guess you either 100% fully support Apple or your a Heretic.

We had a flowchart about this but it is lost to the ravages of the forum.

Do all the PC lovers like you with a join date of Feb or March 2011 have that much free time on your hands to come over to an apple site and troll?

It is quite nice to see new people.

 

[junker]

Man, this is a harsh topic tonight....

I plan to open my wallet and get one - I look forward to it too. Sure, it could be better, it could be faster but this upgrade is less incremental than I expected (based on rumors here), Which is good, because this'll be my first iPad!

This isn't my primary computer (never thought of it as such) and if it was, maybe these specs would hurt a little. If that were the case, I certainly wouldn't expect a tablet to perform like a desktop or lappy.

I'm excited that I can actually afford one again - I don't know about you folks, but this recession thing put quite a damper on spending!

 

[TennisandMusic]

My point is valid for this discussion - speed, which is what the PC trolls always shoot down with Apple's "inferior" hardware specs, failing to recognize that Apple products performs just as well as their PC counterparts regardless.

Nothing to do with the cars in general as a whole. Just about point A to point B speed. I've done the same to a few of my friends to prove my point back in the day, when I had a little 4 cylinder turbo car and embarassed their big 5.0 mustangs. What a joke Brute force = waste, not efficiency



That's right, I'm here, I'm not on a PC site busting their chops, which was my point.

Actually, no they don't. On equivalent hardware Windows runs better (better graphics support, better multithreading/multicore support, whether Apple diehards want to admit it or not).

It is also highly ironic to listen to people talk about engineering issues when I can pretty much guarantee none of said people can write any code, or actually design anything.

 

[igazza]

Not so long ago apple sold a mac mini with 512MB of ram.

 

[liavman]

So in engineering there are these things called trade-offs ...

They could have put more RAM in, but the question is what is the cost for what benefit. More RAM means more board space, more cost, and more power (shorter battery life). If that extra RAM is only useful in rare circumstances for a few users, it might not be the right thing to do.

Exactly. One does not start with technical specs. I do not know how Apple works internally, but my working assumption is they start with a prospectus like the following at the very beginning of the product design cycle. Everything under the hood is engineered to meet this. What results out of this is the technical specs. It is so damn convenient that they can use pretty much the same prospectus with some tweaks at the product introduction many months later.

I know I am oversimplifying it and may make it sound like it is not a big deal. But it is a big deal since it is easier said than done. One has to visualize how this one hour presentation will go and how effective and substantial it will be, right at the beginning visionary stage of the product itself. That is one of the reasons for Apple's success, they are good at that vision in terms of what the customer wants and know how to execute that vision, across all their product lines. Since this is all done well, communicating and talking up the points from a marketing perspective is that much easier.

 

[MattInOz]

Not so long ago apple sold a mac mini with 512MB of ram.

10 years ago 512MB was a large hard drive.

 

[nooaah]

But that's the point -- lower memory has proven to be a worse user experience.

For example the reason that iPhone 3G is such a dog on iOS4 is *because* it is very starved on memory. The iPhone 3GS experience is slightly better on iOS4, but even in that case mine was using pretty much all the RAM right after a fresh reboot, so any form of multi-tasking would necessarily have to dip into swap and page out/in.

So, yeah, RAM *does* matter and it *does* have a correlated effect on the user experience -- especially for multi-tasking purposes.

iOS 4 came out 2 years after the 3G was released. Of course the hardware is going to be outdated. What a silly statement.

 

[aristotle]

Sort of annoyed by these A4, A5 processors.. too much like the G3, G4, G5 ********. Love apple, hate their imaginary technology "retina display" "super drive" "face time" bull.

Do you mean like PII (Pentium II), P3 (Pentium 3) and P4 (Pentium 4)?

What about MSFT jumping from Xbox to Xbox 360 instead of XBox 2? They chose to use "360" because it sounded "bigger" then PS 3.

 

[Electrified]

The issue is not about whether more RAM needed by the iOS. It is about why APPL is not deploying a CURRENT available technology like a 1 GB of RAM in iPad 2. This will give the users the advantage to entertain the new applications that may require more RAM in in the future, considering the developers are going to develop more apps to utilize the power of the dual-core processor. Why should I buy a new device to get the advantage of the new apps / new iOS whereas it was possible to have this technology a year earlier !

 

[lilo777]

Not so long ago apple sold a mac mini with 512MB of ram.

Just shows that Apple always skimps on RAM (and most other specs).

 

[notabadname]

Ultimately, it will all come down to "how well does it work?". Consumers picking the hardware up at a store and playing with it. Apple does not hide from the public with their devices. Go into any store and simply use it, day after day if you like. It is far easier to evaluate an Apple product than any other. Whatever the RAM size proves to be, I absolutely gaurantee it will be a smooth and class leading experience. One that makes the consumer want to buy, and one that will keep the iPad in the lead for another product cycle. That is the real job of the designers. Not to build the "I only want to buy it once, and for only $399" product that so many whine for. Apple needs headroom for next year, and every year after. To build a product too far in-front, that no one wants to upgrade regularly is simply bad business. It's a delicate line that Apple walks well.