Wow, troll guy is really looking for a fight from everyone. I'm kind of surprised he isn't in Time-Out yet.
Anyway, here is simple logic:
64-bit apps use 20-30% more ram. This has been tested by an expert using actual code on an actual A7. Since the iPad 4 and iPad Air both have 1GB of RAM, the iPad Air has less useable RAM available than the iPad 4. That's a fact. The debatable part is how much it affects system performance. That is the question the OP is trying so answer, particularly in a use-case which is clearly important to him and many others. Going back and forth with useless arguments doesn't get to the core of what we're trying to solve here.
For me, tabs refreshing is annoying but not the end of the world. What I'm wondering is how well this now limited 1GB of RAM performs for higher-end creative apps such as painting and photo editing. Will this result in a reduced canvas size or output resolution? I know that when iPads started shipping with 1GB that all of these apps updated with higher settings, more layers, etc. Will that be an issue?
Finally, for those talking about their old Powebooks with 1GB of RAM not reloading tabs, it's because Mac OS pages to disk. So a lot of that stuff could be cached on the disk. iOS doesn't allow this, maybe because Apple doesn't want to have too many write cycles on the flash storage? I wonder if a good stop-gap measure would be to include a tiny 2 or 4GB flash chip that is faster, more resilient (more write cycles), that would handle iOS paging requests? I just don't know if such an addition would be prohibitively expensive, add a lot of cost, or drain the batter faster. But it could help with retaining things like form data and cached pages. Certainly reloading from the NAND is much faster than trying again over WIFI or LTE with the added preservation benefit and reduced data usage for those on limited mobile plans.
I had this app that I would use on my iPad for flying that would let me save pages to the iPad and then I could browse the sites while on the plane. It was really handy. They were obviously saved to the flash storage and opened quite instantly, even on the iPad 2.
Anyway, here is simple logic:
64-bit apps use 20-30% more ram. This has been tested by an expert using actual code on an actual A7. Since the iPad 4 and iPad Air both have 1GB of RAM, the iPad Air has less useable RAM available than the iPad 4. That's a fact. The debatable part is how much it affects system performance. That is the question the OP is trying so answer, particularly in a use-case which is clearly important to him and many others. Going back and forth with useless arguments doesn't get to the core of what we're trying to solve here.
For me, tabs refreshing is annoying but not the end of the world. What I'm wondering is how well this now limited 1GB of RAM performs for higher-end creative apps such as painting and photo editing. Will this result in a reduced canvas size or output resolution? I know that when iPads started shipping with 1GB that all of these apps updated with higher settings, more layers, etc. Will that be an issue?
Finally, for those talking about their old Powebooks with 1GB of RAM not reloading tabs, it's because Mac OS pages to disk. So a lot of that stuff could be cached on the disk. iOS doesn't allow this, maybe because Apple doesn't want to have too many write cycles on the flash storage? I wonder if a good stop-gap measure would be to include a tiny 2 or 4GB flash chip that is faster, more resilient (more write cycles), that would handle iOS paging requests? I just don't know if such an addition would be prohibitively expensive, add a lot of cost, or drain the batter faster. But it could help with retaining things like form data and cached pages. Certainly reloading from the NAND is much faster than trying again over WIFI or LTE with the added preservation benefit and reduced data usage for those on limited mobile plans.
I had this app that I would use on my iPad for flying that would let me save pages to the iPad and then I could browse the sites while on the plane. It was really handy. They were obviously saved to the flash storage and opened quite instantly, even on the iPad 2.
