iPad Pro Ipad pro 12.9 2020 RAM ISSUE?

[DanielFury]

Hello! I just purchased recently an ipad pro 2020 12.9 inches 256 gb. I updated right away to ipadOS 14.4 and just out of curiousity i downloaded antutu benchmark and on the device info on the RAM section, i saw 2gb free out of 6. And the only thing i got running was antutu. Then later on i entered in a bunch of apps + procreate and when i checked antutu i saw 180 MB free out of 6 GB.
The device didn't lag that much or something but sawing the free ram being that low was alarming for me.
I came from an android device where i never had ''only'' 100mb free ram. Idk if that's how IOS manages recources but this was very strange to me personally. Has anyone experienced this? is this normal to IOS devices? ipads?

 

[bsamcash]

It's functioning properly. OS X (and therefore iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS) is designed to always use as much memory as possible.

 

[DanielFury]

It's functioning properly. OS X (and therefore iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS) is designed to always use as much memory as possible.

that s how all ipads behave? isn't low free ram gonna slow down the device?

 

[Digitalguy]

that s how all ipads behave? isn't low free ram gonna slow down the device?

Absolutely not, that's not a desktop OS. What slows things down in desktops is paging on low RAM. On mobile, you mainly use RAM compression, and the more you keep in RAM the less reloads you have. But it's kept compressed.
Keeping most RAM free is wasting resources... You only need to keep enough that new apps can use with no slowdown... (and when new apps take RAM, the oldest are ejected, but if you keep too much free you eject more apps for no reason and you just have more reloads...)

 

[AutomaticApple]

that s how all ipads behave? isn't low free ram gonna slow down the device?

Not in the case of mobile devices, no.

 

[Tsepz]

Hello! I just purchased recently an ipad pro 2020 12.9 inches 256 gb. I updated right away to ipadOS 14.4 and just out of curiousity i downloaded antutu benchmark and on the device info on the RAM section, i saw 2gb free out of 6. And the only thing i got running was antutu. Then later on i entered in a bunch of apps + procreate and when i checked antutu i saw 180 MB free out of 6 GB.
The device didn't lag that much or something but sawing the free ram being that low was alarming for me.
I came from an android device where i never had ''only'' 100mb free ram. Idk if that's how IOS manages recources but this was very strange to me personally. Has anyone experienced this? is this normal to IOS devices? ipads?
View attachment 1732840

Lol, why are you doing this to yourself? 😂

Delete AnTuTu and simply enjoy your new beast. Did the iPad slowdown at any point for you? What happened when you simply used it and didn’t keep looking at the RAM?

 

[DanielFury]

Lol, why are you doing this to yourself? 😂

Delete AnTuTu and simply enjoy your new beast. Did the iPad slowdown at any point for you? What happened when you simply used it and didn’t keep looking at the RAM?

feels like a habit from android to check my ram management and on IOS apparently i had to download a third party app to measure it and when i saw the free ram i was like what is going on...i expected to see 5/6 gb free

 

[akash.nu]

feels like a habit from android to check my ram management and on IOS apparently i had to download a third party app to measure it and when i saw the free ram i was like what is going on...i expected to see 5/6 gb free

Now you know. Keeping memories free for no reason is wastage of resources.

 

[Tsepz]

feels like a habit from android to check my ram management and on IOS apparently i had to download a third party app to measure it and when i saw the free ram i was like what is going on...i expected to see 5/6 gb free

I get you
When I made the move from Symbian to Android in 2010 I remember installing System Panel to monitor RAM as I was used to doing so on my Symbian Nokia smartphones with Handy Taskman, but within days I had given up on it lol, these “modern” phone OSs are not meant to run like that. You are not meant to worry about all that and more so on iOS where you simply allow it to do what it needs to in the background while you focus on the task you want to do without worrying about RAM and all that.

I don’t think I have ever checked RAM usage on my iPad Pro or iPhone.

Just enjoy it.

 

[DanielFury]

I get you
When I made the move from Symbian to Android in 2010 I remember installing System Panel to monitor RAM as I was used to doing so on my Symbian Nokia smartphones with Handy Taskman, but within days I had given up on it lol, these “modern” phone OSs are not meant to run like that. You are not meant to worry about all that and more so on iOS where you simply allow it to do what it needs to in the background while you focus on the task you want to do without worrying about RAM and all that.

I don’t think I have ever checked RAM usage on my iPad Pro or iPhone.

Just enjoy it.

thank you all for your feedback.

 

[secretk]

I get you
When I made the move from Symbian to Android in 2010 I remember installing System Panel to monitor RAM as I was used to doing so on my Symbian Nokia smartphones with Handy Taskman, but within days I had given up on it lol, these “modern” phone OSs are not meant to run like that. You are not meant to worry about all that and more so on iOS where you simply allow it to do what it needs to in the background while you focus on the task you want to do without worrying about RAM and all that.

I don’t think I have ever checked RAM usage on my iPad Pro or iPhone.

Just enjoy it.

When I bought my iPad (first Apple device) I did this too btw. I was used from Android to check the RAM. Soon I realized that it does not make sense to do it because it does not bring me a lot of value. I do not enjoy iOS RAM management (killing and reloading apps and tabs is not a nice UX for me) but I cannot control it or change it. I can only observe the system and make decisions for myself what is the minimum RAM on iOS device that I can tolerate. In my case I realized that for my usage 2 GB is not enough. 4 GB is passable but 6 GB would be better. I could only hope that next iterations of iOS and iPadOS won't make also 6GB not enough.

 

[Tsepz]

When I bought my iPad (first Apple device) I did this too btw. I was used from Android to check the RAM. Soon I realized that it does not make sense to do it because it does not bring me a lot of value. I do not enjoy iOS RAM management (killing and reloading apps and tabs is not a nice UX for me) but I cannot control it or change it. I can only observe the system and make decisions for myself what is the minimum RAM on iOS device that I can tolerate. In my case I realized that for my usage 2 GB is not enough. 4 GB is passable but 6 GB would be better. I could only hope that next iterations of iOS and iPadOS won't make also 6GB not enough.

Indeed. Look, the main thing is that Apple take years before upgrade RAM in iOS/iPadOS devices. I know some people are wishing for 8GB RAM in the new iPad Pros but considering that Apple first introduced 4GB RAM in iPads back in 2015 with the original iPad Pro and only upgraded it to 6GB RAM in the 1TB 2018 models and then only upgraded the full range to 6GB RAM in the 2020 Pros is very telling.

We will probably have 6GB RAM being the maximum limit until 2023, so until then you will find that 6GB RAM is more than enough for iOS/iPad OS.

I have a 2020 iPad Pro 11inch and the 6GB RAM has been great, it keeps a lot of apps in RAM for a very long time, only apps that seem to restart are those that are optimised to do that in short spaces of time and even when 2023 rolls around I doubt most apps will take advantage of the 8GB RAM until 2024. Maybe the 2022 iPad Pro 1TB will have 8GB RAM though.

 

[secretk]

Indeed. Look, the main thing is that Apple take years before upgrade RAM in iOS/iPadOS devices. I know some people are wishing for 8GB RAM in the new iPad Pros but considering that Apple first introduced 4GB RAM in iPads back in 2015 with the original iPad Pro and only upgraded it to 6GB RAM in the 1TB 2018 models and then only upgraded the full range to 6GB RAM in the 2020 Pros is very telling.

I agree on Apple and ram upgrade. Yeah I would be surprised if they introduce 8 GB RAM this year.

We will probably have 6GB RAM being the maximum limit until 2023, so until then you will find that 6GB RAM is more than enough for iOS/iPad OS.

Hope so. I actually do think that around 2022 I will have issues. I am just weird user. I am not power user in the sense of playing games but man I am multitasking. I switch between apps pretty often and I use at least 2-3 apps in the same time and have lots of tabs open. This is where I kind of need the RAM and feel the issues. I would also have weird needs like exporting Health data (always fails on iPhone 8 btw - not sure if it is the CPU or the RAM but fails every time).

I have a 2020 iPad Pro 11inch and the 6GB RAM has been great, it keeps a lot of apps in RAM for a very long time, only apps that seem to restart are those that are optimised to do that in short spaces of time and even when 2023 rolls around I doubt most apps will take advantage of the 8GB RAM until 2024. Maybe the 2022 iPad Pro 1TB will have 8GB RAM though.

6 GB RAM currently is great IMO. The thing is one of the bottlenecks iMO for iOS and iPadOS is RAM usage. They manage to screw it up with almost every major upgrade and then they take months to fix it. It seems to me that the architecture and design when it comes to RAM usage is really fragile currently. This is why I have some concerns for the long run.

 

[rui no onna]

I agree on Apple and ram upgrade. Yeah I would be surprised if they introduce 8 GB RAM this year.

I think it's possible.

The 2019 iPad Air 3 with A12 had 3GB RAM while the subsequently released 2020 iPad Pro with A12Z had 6GB. M1 Macs also have 8GB (2x 4GB).

With iPad Air 4 and iPhone 12/12 mini also having 4GB, at this point in time it might just be cheaper for Apple to also go 8GB (2x 4GB) on the upcoming iPad Pros.

 

[secretk]

I think it's possible.

The 2019 iPad Air 3 with A12 had 3GB RAM while the subsequently released 2020 iPad Pro with A12Z had 6GB. M1 Macs also have 8GB (2x 4GB).

With iPad Air 4 and iPhone 12/12 mini also having 4GB, at this point in time it might just be cheaper for Apple to also go 8GB (2x 4GB) on the upcoming iPad Pros.

You could be right! I guess we will wait and see!