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All iPads iPad Air RAM question

V

vmflapem

macrumors 6502
Original poster
I heard that the current generation iPad Air only has 1GB of RAM.

So do you guys experience any slowdowns or freezes due to lack of RAM memory?
Not sure whether I should buy an iPad now or wait for the next generation hoping they'd have bigger RAM memory
 
vmflapem said:
I heard that the current generation iPad Air only has 1GB of RAM.

So do you guys experience any slowdowns or freezes due to lack of RAM memory?
Not sure whether I should buy an iPad now or wait for the next generation hoping they'd have bigger RAM memory
Click to expand...

If you can wait then that would be the best choice as there's speculation that Apple will bump internal ram to 2GB in the next generation of iPads.
 
vmflapem said:
I heard that the current generation iPad Air only has 1GB of RAM.

So do you guys experience any slowdowns or freezes due to lack of RAM memory?
Not sure whether I should buy an iPad now or wait for the next generation hoping they'd have bigger RAM memory
Click to expand...

You likely won't experience any slowdown since iOS will just boot out background processes to free up ram if need be. It's very smooth so long as you are running one app at a time.

However, ios7 is definitely more resource intensive, and it shows why you try to multitask. For example, in the past, I used to be able to airplay a show from an app or website in the background to my Apple Tv while running another app with no issues. Now, the 2nd app just kicks out airplay.

Same today. Was listening to a podcast, entered an app (hour of code?) and the podcast stopped. 🙁
 
Abazigal said:
You likely won't experience any slowdown since iOS will just boot out background processes to free up ram if need be. It's very smooth so long as you are running one app at a time.



However, ios7 is definitely more resource intensive, and it shows why you try to multitask. For example, in the past, I used to be able to airplay a show from an app or website in the background to my Apple Tv while running another app with no issues. Now, the 2nd app just kicks out airplay.



Same today. Was listening to a podcast, entered an app (hour of code?) and the podcast stopped. 🙁
Click to expand...


What version iPad? I do that stuff all the time with my iPad 3 and iPhone 4S with no trouble.
 
If you have waited this long, then I would say to wait for the next revision with 2Gigs of RAM.

Everyone who says RAM is the issue does not know. And everyone who says RAM is NOT the issue also does not know.

What we do know is that 64bit architecture uses more RAM to do some of the same things 32bit architecture does. So the air has less effective RAM in use, due to the architecture switch, than the 4 and 3 had. That is a fact.

How much this negatively affects the air/rMini is unknown. Based on the fact that Apple can't manage to have more than a couple tabs in safari, after a year of engineering work, then I'm putting my money on the lack of RAM for use in web browsing - you know, that thing apple claimed the iPad was the best at in the world - BS!!!!!
 
Last edited:
Count Blah said:
If you have waited this long, then I would say to wait for the next revision with 2Gigs of RAM.

Everyone who says RAM is the issue does of know. And everyone who says RAM is NOT the issue also does not know.

What we do know is that 64bit architecture uses more RAM to do some of the same things 32bit architecture does. So the air has less effective RAM in use, due to the architecture switch, than the 4 and 3 had. That is a fact.

How much this negatively affects the air/rMini is unknown. Based on the fact that Apple can't manage to have more than a couple tabs in safari, after a year of engineering work, then I'm putting my money on the lack of RAM for use in web browsing - you know, that thing apple claimed the iPad was the best at in the world - BS!!!!!
Click to expand...

We've discussed this before and I still have to ask: how do graphically intense, high end games run like a Swiss watch along with many other apps and tasks? A system RAM problem would manifest itself everywhere all the time. Yet, no one seems to be complaining about performance except for safari crashes and reloads. All these other games and apps.....scream. I don't get it.
 
s2mikey said:
We've discussed this before and I still have to ask: how do graphically intense, high end games run like a Swiss watch along with many other apps and tasks? A system RAM problem would manifest itself everywhere all the time. Yet, no one seems to be complaining about performance except for safari crashes and reloads. All these other games and apps.....scream. I don't get it.
Click to expand...

Browsers are horrible when it comes to memory, be it on a PC, Mac or tablet. But other tBlet OS's can manage multiple tabs better than iOS. And after a year of work, 7.1 apparently still can't manage multiple tabs very well. Even the most ardent apple defender has to begin thinking that ram is the issue, since apple can't "fix" this issue, right?
 
Count Blah said:
Browsers are horrible when it comes to memory, be it on a PC, Mac or tablet. But other tBlet OS's can manage multiple tabs better than iOS. And after a year of work, 7.1 apparently still can't manage multiple tabs very well. Even the most ardent apple defender has to begin thinking that ram is the issue, since apple can't "fix" this issue, right?
Click to expand...

It's interesting that my iPad 1 with 256 MB of RAM running iOS 5 can hold more open tabs than the Air (if nothing else is running). One would expect that an extra ~700 MB of RAM would help, despite 64-bit eating up some of it.

1 GB of RAM is still more than enough to run the OS and have a few web pages open I'd say... but, here we are. 😉
 
Altis said:
It's interesting that my iPad 1 with 256 MB of RAM running iOS 5 can hold more open tabs than the Air (if nothing else is running). One would expect that an extra ~700 MB of RAM would help, despite 64-bit eating up some of it.

1 GB of RAM is still more than enough to run the OS and have a few web pages open I'd say... but, here we are. 😉
Click to expand...
Yeah, and windows 1 ram fine with 192k of RAM. Things change and "advance". That usually comes with a greater demand for resourses.

But I do I understand where you are coming from. I'm just frustrated with apple and their unstable iOS, and greed in making the air/ rMini intentionally less than it could have been.
 
Count Blah said:
Yeah, and windows 1 ram fine with 192k of RAM. Things change and "advance". That usually comes with a greater demand for resourses.

But I do I understand where you are coming from. I'm just frustrated with apple and their unstable iOS, and greed in making the air/ rMini intentionally less than it could have been.
Click to expand...

Of course newer OS's will use more RAM than their predecessors... but I can't find much in iOS 7 that is much more demanding than before. Not to the extent to cause these sorts of issues.

As a side note, just got my dad his first Apple product, the Air, for his birthday this weekend. First, it wouldn't connect to the wifi properly... then Safari crashed, then Mail crashed trying to set up his email. He has never used iOS and it was a pretty painful experience overall.
 
vmflapem said:
I heard that the current generation iPad Air only has 1GB of RAM.

So do you guys experience any slowdowns or freezes due to lack of RAM memory?
Not sure whether I should buy an iPad now or wait for the next generation hoping they'd have bigger RAM memory
Click to expand...

Bigger RAM is a gamble. So far, every Apple device has had a two year cycle between RAM updates (exception to this rule is the iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4).
 
I haven't experienced any slowness or freezing. I have experienced a lot of sudden Safari shutdowns. I have had multiple tabs going. It seems that certain websites or certain scrolling causes Safari to crash. Other than that, the Air has been rocking.
 
BasicGreatGuy said:
I haven't experienced any slowness or freezing. I have experienced a lot of sudden Safari shutdowns. I have had multiple tabs going. It seems that certain websites or certain scrolling causes Safari to crash. Other than that, the Air has been rocking.
Click to expand...

Safari tends to crash on iPhone OS when memory hits the ceiling.
 
jav6454 said:
Safari tends to crash on iPhone OS when memory hits the ceiling.
Click to expand...

Haven't experienced that in my iPhone 5. At least not that I recall. I hope this is a software issue that Apple can resolve. I would hate to think I paid $535 for a hardware problem, which Apple may or may not own up to.
 
BasicGreatGuy said:
Haven't experienced that in my iPhone 5. At least not that I recall. I hope this is a software issue that Apple can resolve. I would hate to think I paid $535 for a hardware problem, which Apple may or may not own up to.
Click to expand...

It is a problem that Apple willingly has put us through since the first iPhone. RAM has always been limited. Sometimes limited due to sheer spite.
 
Count Blah said:
Browsers are horrible when it comes to memory, be it on a PC, Mac or tablet. But other tBlet OS's can manage multiple tabs better than iOS. And after a year of work, 7.1 apparently still can't manage multiple tabs very well. Even the most ardent apple defender has to begin thinking that ram is the issue, since apple can't "fix" this issue, right?
Click to expand...

Well, I'm not an ardent apple defender myself but either way they have to correct this issue. I just don't think RAM is the main cause. A better safari app would work wonders here, IMO.
 
I went to check the ram usage of my Air using an app and there's only about 23MB available free ram left with a few apps running on the background. (97% used.) I guess it's the main reason why webpages are consistently reloading on Safari.

I know it's nice that iOS has great ram management. But an extra GB of ram would definitely help the multitasking. Apps crashing issue is another story through.

You might want to wait for the "2GB ram version" iPad if you plan to use it for a long time.
 
s2mikey said:
We've discussed this before and I still have to ask: how do graphically intense, high end games run like a Swiss watch along with many other apps and tasks? A system RAM problem would manifest itself everywhere all the time. Yet, no one seems to be complaining about performance except for safari crashes and reloads. All these other games and apps.....scream. I don't get it.
Click to expand...

Because games control how much RAM they use at any given time. They design the games with a memory limit for texture and models. Safari can't just decide to down scale images, nor does it have any clue about how much data the site it currently loads contains. Holding images for instant viewing consumes A-LOT of memory. A simple 720p screenshot is almost 3MB after decompression (it needs to be decompressed to be viewed). Now imagine viewing a page with several images on it.
 
Got me stuffed how an iPhone 4S with 512MB ram runs fine if RAM is the issue on the 1GB Air...
 
s2mikey said:
Well, I'm not an ardent apple defender myself but either way they have to correct this issue. I just don't think RAM is the main cause. A better safari app would work wonders here, IMO.
Click to expand...

Switch off JavaScript from the settings, and "restart" Safari. With JavaScript disabled I can easily keep half a dozen tabs open without any reloading. The difference is just huge.

Of course, with JavaScript disabled most of web is more or less unusable, but this suggests that this is largely a software issue, somehow related to the JavaScript engine used by Safari. Hopefully it can be optimised.

I posted this same observation to another thread yesterday, but I am afraid to switch to another tab to get the link, since this page will then probably reload and I will lose everything I have written :-(

Too frustrated to copy this first - I should not have to do that on a tablet which cost me over 600€.

I think Tim Cook mocked the Android tablet experience few days ago? I am pretty sure the browsing experience is not worse on the new high end Android tablets with 2-3 GB RAM than it is on Air.

It can't be, because this is just poor.
 
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