All iPads iPad Air and Mini has 1 GB RAM

[Plutonius]

Sorry to ask, but...
What is the difference between 1 Gb and 2 Gb at the iPad for the end user?

Currently nothing.

 

[DesertEagle]

And maybe I'll be happy to kick my foot up their …



Just seems wasteful. My wife is pregnant now, and by then our little girl will be a toddler. What if I want to put some educational games on there for her to use? What if the apps say "requires iOS 9.0 or later" when I try to install? It's just dumb to have to upgrade so frequently, and especially to make older hardware obsolete so quickly. And that's coming from a technology geek. Though you would think since they're still selling the iPad 2 that they would support lower amounts of ram—but given how poorly the iPad 2 I just sold on CL ran iOS 7, I doubt it.

I've been thinking of these issues as well, since I'm in the very same situation you describe. Software-as-a-Service is becoming more and more common, though, so I hope there will be websites which provide that kind of games, utilizing HTML5. I think even an old iPad with Safari will do the job then.

 

[CNeufeld]

I've been thinking of these issues as well, since I'm in the very same situation you describe. Software-as-a-Service is becoming more and more common, though, so I hope there will be websites which provide that kind of games, utilizing HTML5. I think even an old iPad with Safari will do the job then.

It's web browsing that I notice the lack of RAM in the Mini the most now, to be honest. I've had MLS (realtor) sites crash every time I did a search in them, pages having to reload way too often after switching tabs, etc...

Clint

 

[macduke]

Apple allows that downloading of old Apps thing so start shopping around for the Apps you want

I forgot that they allow that now. Good call.

 

[Dougweller]

It's really annoying to find out that the Air won't have at least 2gb ram. I want to upgrade from my iPad 2, but I find the need to refresh constantly if I have a few pages open in a browser a major pain.
Doug

 

[rui no onna]

Yep, I don't see why people are surprised by this. Apple likes to bone their customers. The only way you can get a more future proof device is by buying a new one. Apple doesn't make their devices to be future proof. They make them to survive great for one year. Well for the second year. Ok for the third year. And shiity after that. iPhone 4's can't run iOS7 well. The 4S can run it OK. The 5 runs it well (enough). The 5s runs it "great". If they were to put more RAM in then necessary this cycle might change, but don't expect Apple to do that, because they won't. If 1GB barely handles iOS7 now, then expect 2GB next year, for iOS8. But don't expect it now

From my experience, it's more like great for 1 year, ok for 2nd year and ****** after. I reckon both the iPhone 3GS and iPad 2 are unusual cases. They can work ok for a bit longer because they only needed to support 1/4 the number of pixels of their newer siblings.

As long as you don't require new features or use apps that require a newer version of iOS, you can prolong service life of iDevices by sticking to an older, faster, leaner iOS version

 

[AppleRobert]

I was one of the first to ask about RAM. At 512MB of RAM, iOS7 pretty much fills the entire cache with about 400MB of RAM usage for basic functions. That's a pretty heavy OS. For Safari users, that means probably about 2-3 websites not in need of refresh when tapped. At 1GB of RAM, it's much better on an iPhone 5S. If the iPad Air or iPad mini w/ Retina have 1GB or more of RAM, it means that it will run more smoothly. Another thing I have noticed is that if the app you're using can't access enough RAM, it will just open and crash/close. With 2GB of RAM, the devices will be future-proofed longer and will be able to support more documents/apps being open at once without paging RAM.

Some of the tech stuff is over my head but concerns of the Ipad Mini specs and it being rather outdated which is obvious compared to the newer ipads still has led me to know problems at all with multiple websites opened and me playing games on it with iOS 7.