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All that extra memory will kill battery life (mostly standby battery life because of DRAM refresh), and give customers yet another reason to prefer an Apple product that can sit for weeks and still have instant on.

These Android companies are still designing to specs for PCs, and we know how well PC tablets sold before the iPad.

Actually more memory will increase battery life because things dont need to be swaped in and out of memory.
 
No one cares about that number if it works as advertised and i bet it works as advertised.



Exactly, there was a time when the amount of RAM really mattered. It just is not the case anymore. If the device does what it needs to do, that's all you need to worry about.
 
It's proof positive that Apple .....can expertly apply the art of manipulation of numbers, reports, the press, and sooner or later people will stop seeking the truth.

I see what you mean:
Apple DIDN'T sell 14+ million iPads in 9 Months.
Apple DIDN'T sell 100 Million iPhones
Apple DOESN'T have 200 million accounts with credit cards
Apple DOESN'T continue to outpace the computer industry in sales, quarter after quarter.
APPLE'S stock ISN'T selling for ~$350.00 a share
When polled, Apple's customers' DON'T rate Apple as tops, in Customer Service.

And the United States DIDN'T land a man on the moon or elect a black president.
Good thing YOU and I see the "truth"

It's all data manipulation.
Got it. :rolleyes:
 
Doubtful

I am doubtful it has 512MB RAM, although in my opinion, Apple has been very conservative in their iDevices specifications; not that they are bad, its just that Apple doesn't put a lot of horsepower in their devices.

Saying that, I guess 512MB RAM would be great for the iPad 2, but I guess moving into a new category of Applications, there has to be a balance. 1GB RAM would great for multi-tasking and other stuff.
 
One thing people need to understand is that there is some amount, potentially a significant amount, of RAM that is always or often used for "overhead": system usage. What that means is that doubling the amount of RAM in the device may actually give you more than double the amount of RAM usable for apps or cached web pages.

For example, let's say 100 MB is overhead (I do not know this is accurate but several years ago I remember reading reports the iOS system was using between 80-100 MB on iPhone, and it's almost certainly more now with major OS updates since then). On a 256 MB device (i.e. iPad1), that would leave 156 MB available. But on a 512 MB device with double the RAM, that would leave 412 MB available, or about 2.64 times as much. If the overhead happens to be more, the difference could be even more striking.

Just saying it might not be as bad as you think.
 
I'm sorry to say, but you have to be a complete MORON to drop $500+ for a device that doesn't allow you to open more than 2 tabs in Safari.

Even if so, hasn't Apple proven that this is the largest and most profitable portion of the customer base?

Everybody else can chase the far less profitable nerdy 2% of people who care more about specs.
 
>Gizmodo yesterday sparked fears in some users

There are a lot more draconian things to be fearful about.. :p

What matters is, Apple is intentionally promoting the iPad 2 as a 'producing' device since they did not quite like the overall impression iPad created that it is only great and magical for 'consuming'. So, as long as there is enough RAM to make the user experience great for consuming for vast majority of use cases and great for producing ( word processing etc., audio and video editing ), everything is good, no need to be fearful :)

Do you think that we will see an iPad and iPad Pro in the future?
 
Do people buy a car based solely on the horsepower?

"Hmmm....... it's kind of ugly, sucks gas like it's going out of style, but it does have more horsepower..... I'll take it!" :p
 
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Popeye206 said:
SHAMEFUL it is not 1GB

Is Apple wanting Android Tablets to roll over them? In 1 year, 1GB and 2GB will be STANDARD. :mad:

LOL! You always act like it's the freaking hardware specs that make the difference in what people buy.

Guess what... most consumers don't care! They just pick it up, play with it and if they love it, buy it.

Many, not all, do care. It will also be a point of differation that the pundits will harp on for the next year.
 
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Many, not all, do care. It will also be a point of differation that the pundits will harp on for the next year.

That sure stopped people from buying the MacBook Air....... "It's not even a REAL laptop, for heaven sakes!" ;)
 
Ummm...

Apple sometimes hides the specs they aren't proud of. I'm guessing 256MB.

Just like how they emphasized the cameras on the latest iPod Touch but they don't put up the fact that the camera is a terrible 0.7M pixel.

But they do show that the iPhone has a 5M pixel camera.

Since they're not listing the amount of RAM in the Tech Specs, I guessing it will be disappointing.
 
No, the reason the 3G sucks is because it graphics processor - or lack there of.

That might be part of it, but it's a lesser factor than the RAM.

On the iPhone 3G, the OS alone takes more RAM than the 128 MB of RAM installed in the device.
So it's "swapping" anytime you just use basic built-in apps, let alone opening 8 tabs in Safari and flipping over to read e-mail, all while playing music.

Go get iStat and compare the iPhone 3G (128 MB RAM), iPhone 3GS (256 MB RAM), and iPhone 4 (512 MB RAM) after a fresh reboot with nothing but the standard OS running.
You will see that the iPhone 3G is already using more virtual memory than 128 MB.

As a data point, I just killed all apps on my iPhone 4 and rebooted it.
Right after boot without starting anything but iStat, the iOS 4.3 is taking 188 MB of memory.
There is 25 MB of inactive memory in that, but even if you call it 163 MB, it's still more than the 128 MB that an iPhone 3G has -- so by definition the iPhone 3G will have to swap.

So anyway 256 is too cramped for an iPad because on an iPad users do a LOT more multi-tasking, and will often be working with even larger documents, such as in the iWork apps.
 
And cue the hordes of haters screaming about how it doesn't have "enough RAM".

Let's not forget the amount of RAM you need is proportional to software consumption. Apple for years has had a lower minimum RAM spec than windows for it's computer OS'es. Why? Mostly due to the fact OS X is more efficient with RAM than Microsoft's offerings.

The same thing applies to tablets. I don't own an iPad (gonna pick an iPad 2 next month) but I haven't heard anyone complain about how sluggish iOS is due to RAM hogs. By the same token I have a 3GS and have next to no issues with using apps that are optimised for iPhone 4 that has double the RAM. The only times I have had issues, it's been down to developers being lazy at code optimisation or another error that gets patched.

Let's get some perspective people. It's just as silly as those people who complain about Mac lower hardware specs when all they need a computer for is email, surfing and word processing.
 
User Experience is all that Matters

We are getting to the point where all of this posturing for the best number specs is pointless. Like the MegaPixel and MHz myths.

It's all about the experience. Who cares what the hardware is.

Maybe Android needs all that memory because it's bloatware?
 
SHAMEFUL it is not 1GB

Is Apple wanting Android Tablets to roll over them? In 1 year, 1GB and 2GB will be STANDARD. :mad:

I would have been pissed if it had been 256mb as iMovie for iPhone 4 was described as requiring the 512mb. But seriously, if all the apps work great as they showed during the keynote, why would ANYONE buy an Android knock-off even if it came with 6 GB of ram?
 
This all reminds me of kids playing guitar in high school. Kids would tout their 100 watt Crate or Peavey amps. My 12 watt Ampeg was always loud enough.

If it's fast enough who cares about specs.
 
Actually more memory will increase battery life because things dont need to be swaped in and out of memory.

The iOS VM system doesn't swap to backing storage for the active app (it kills it instead), and the typical user doesn't flip between apps that often. So no.
 
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