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The good thing about having 256 mb RAM is that it has the same amount as iphone. If OS 4.0 does include multitasking, there's no reason why iPhone 3gs won't have it :)
 
Specs mean so little by themselves, it depends how well you use them. My TiVo has, I believe, 16MB RAM and a 54MHz cpu. But it can encode TV whilst decoding and playing an earlier recording. This is about the same as my first pc, and that was running the newly released Windows 3.1. I'd not relish the thought of encoding stuff on that!

But because TiVO is focussed on it's task, and carefully designed for it, it performs flawlessly.

I think the iPad is the same. Carefully designed from the ground up. Everything, the OS and the hardware, all designed together with a clear set of goals. Surely what matters is how fast it is in use, and everything I ever heard was that it's fast.
 
How often does any wow factor last longer than 12 minutes these days, let alone 12 months? I see people who buy new Nikes every 3 months because a new £80 pair is introduced with slightly different laces or stripes with slightly different tones. When the BMW Z4 came out the Z3 went (in my mind at least) from looking like sex on 4 wheels to something my grandma would drive in the space of a heartbeat.

The iPad is a high-cost consumer gadget. It is not essential to your continuing existence that you either own one, or own the latest, greatest version when it comes out. If you happen to have more money than sense however, a 12 month release window is like Christmas Version 2. I get to hand my old iPad down to my extremely greatful tech-illiterate girlfriend, and I get a shiny new toy. In that context dropping £400-500 (or whatever Steve is planning to charge us over-the-ponders once he makes his mind up about selling it to us) is small change to sate our shiny plaything lust. If that expenditure makes a big difference to your bank balance, skip a cycle (you yanks are so concerned about creeping Socialism you'd think this kind of consumer choice would be appealing). Think how much sweeter that unboxing is going to be if you've spent a year with a clunky out-of-date 1G iPad and get to skip to 3rd gen...

Blah blah blah!
Money is man made and is used to play the game of consumerism. With that said. Go to bed.
 
Could anyone possibly tell me why Apple chose to use the same graphics chip? If they had of used a better one that would have allowed for even more graphically beautiful games right?

Is there any difference between the 3GS chip and this one? Surely this can't be right? Even the 3GS is due for an update -- why would they use that old graphics chip?
 
this thread absolutely makes me cringe...

the iPad was an amazing device 4 hours ago...mindblowing in fact.

4 hours on its lame, slow, outdated by other devices, not enough ram, even though 4 hours ago it wasnt an issue...at all! and now its not even future-proof...

pathetic...

The Anti-iPad crowd is hanging on tech specs as they've done since Apple released the first iPod.

They want the world for a dime and cry wolf when Apple doesn't provide that. Meanwhile, they mock and mock while Apple and it's shareholders, not to mention users, enjoy the returns on their mutual investments.
 
I don't think the RAM is of concern. Looking at my iStat numbers now, Safari is using up 192mb of RAM after a day of regular activity - and don't forget, this a program for a fully fledge operating system, not a mobile device.

This also accounts for any number of 'ports' that the iPad will operate on regular programs - the iWork programs will all be optimised for the iPad spec, and the iPhone apps are of course already fine, and can only perform better on the iPad.

Don't forget - 'Netbooks' do need more RAM simply because they operate on desktop OS's. They also run desktop programs, and as such, are no-where near as efficient as what the iPad will be. If you were serious about multi-tasking and running various applications, then you wouldn't even consider an iPad - Netbooks are just cheap, slow alternatives if an individual can't afford a laptop.

I think Apple have got it right - providing an unnecessary amount of specs would only invite program-development that would suck the battery iPad battery dry in an hour, and would cause (much to Apples annoyance) competition with the MacBooks.

All Apple want is $$$. And even if they did 'update' the specs in the next Generation of the iPad, this wouldn't be unusual as they'll have just sat back and pretended that the iPad 'needs' an update, when in fact, its just a way of exciting the sales again. And people will buy into this, because its the seductive 'Apple Secrecy'...
 
I use WGet for caching web sites, atleast sites it works on.

I do exactly this (preloading pages) when traveling. While in the airport lounge before or between flights, I'll click "open in new tab" for 10 to 30 pages at times while I have the 802.11 access. When the boarding call comes, I'll put the tablet to sleep and get on the plane.

When we're cruising, I'll wake the tablet and read the pages that are sitting there.

(It helps that my multi-touch tablet runs a full x64 OS with 5 GiB RAM, SSD, ....)

This on my MBP. Sometimes I will even use WGets --mirror function and grab the entire site. You can then read it anywhere as needed with your favorite browser. Of course there isn't a way to do that right now on iPad.

Generally WGet works pretty good. When you are done with the site just delete it. Sometimes though, like for documentation, I may keep part of the site around. Sadly some sites resist downloads this way but when it does work it can be very handy.

Dave
 
Looks like it took what 24hrs for everyone to start complaining then eh??

I didn't want this rev in the first place. But it sounds like the performance they are getting outta the specs is pretty impressive. Thus, I guess it can only get better :)

Ptp
 
Could anyone possibly tell me why Apple chose to use the same graphics chip? If they had of used a better one that would have allowed for even more graphically beautiful games right?

Is there any difference between the 3GS chip and this one? Surely this can't be right? Even the 3GS is due for an update -- why would they use that old graphics chip?

Because they are cheap, and can get by using outdated hardware. Take a look at the Mac line up. Old Core 2 Duos at a premium. They also optimazed the iPhone OS 3.2 to run great on the old hardware too. It might run slower in 12 months though.
 
Frankly I'm glad I didn't rush out and buy this thing like the gullible masses did. The information that is slowly leaking out doesn't paint a pretty picture.


6.
Likewise all the reports about how speedy iPad is means nothing if you can't quantify the performance against real work loads. Sure Apps load fast, but honestly what did you expect, they are loading from Flash memory. The real question is this: can you take a complex Excel spreadsheet from work, load it into numbers and if that succeeds get reasonable performance? It is no wonder MS has declined to commit to Office on the iPad.

Benchmarks have been done by people and posted in the iPad forum showing it is essentially 200% faster than the 3GS. I don't know you mean by performance against real work loads. This is a full benchmark that is comparing the speeds of devices doing the same high level of processing.


I would guess Microsoft questions their ability to program in a specturm that requires restraint and efficiency and can't fall back on bloat and over doing things. I am not even saying that as a stab at Microsoft. I am being serious. Most coders/programmers are not used to programming with such restraint. However it is how things used to get down in the old days and why some amazing things were done in the day when computers had 4k or 16k. Now computers have 4 gigs of memory, I don't feel like I am getting software that is 1 million times better or more efficient.

The reality is there is a tight environment there. The reality also is most coders/programmers do not normally go to lengths to be concise and efficient with their coding. So for most people there is a lot of give.

I would also add I haven't heard any speed or performance issues from the people who have actively been using their iPads since yesterday. Sure their may be some instances where things slow down... but the reality is my 2 gig netbook is slow at pretty much everything it does... Which the iPad is not. The iPad can do a lot of things very quickly, while my netbook does nothing quickly. Yet my netbook has almost 10 times the ram.

7.
Even worst for things like the iWork suite is how the apps will behave a release or two down the road as they become more feature complete. All that Flash memory is not going to do any good if you run out of code space for your app.

What app are you working on where this is a concern? Will it come up? Perhaps? Was never an issue with iPhone/iPod Touch apps. I realize the bigger screen and platform opens things up, but I suspect most of those who want to make money will figure out how to get things done. I think you are putting the cart before the horse.




The iPad may do some things perfectly well but it is at a high cost for what you get. There is talk about schools issuing these to students, but I can hardly see where 16GB would be suitable for the average highschool student. Just loading the mandatory apps, books and other documents would tend to plug up the machines. Not to mention that no matter what iPhone OS 4 delivers it is likely to take up even more room on the device. In this case the comparison to early netbooks is stark as they too came with far to little flash storage.

I don't get this at all. I assume students would not be encouraged to load music and movies on their iPad. Books take up almost no space, and apps take up very little space. I can't see students running into a 16 gig problem with just normal apps loaded.

Why do you assume OS4 will take up more room? That is old school thinking where every revision has to get better and not more efficient.



I don't know about the rest of you but $500 for 16GB of flash memory and a fancy screen is a lot of hard earned cash to layout. We will see how sales go after the mad frenzy. I think many will step back and say hey what value am I getting for my cash. It is not like iPhone where that is easy to answer.

Well put it this way.. Nobody else could make a comparable device and sell it for the same price, so it seems pretty significant to me.

I am sure people will be yammering for their device to get it with a 25 megapixel camera front and back, 2 gigs of ram, am/fm radio and shiatsu massager, but those don't exist yet.

The biggest problem is most computer hardware developers are misguided much like some of the people here and are only worried about the parts.

Apple is more worried about the sum of the parts and what that creates, not just throwing a big list of parts together and trying to make an impressive spec sheet.

Ultimately the iPad will succeed or fail based on its usability for people who buy it. How much ram it has or doesn't have will not disuade that. If it does have slightly less memory than the Touch then that is for the developers to deal with...
 
My god is right. If you buy it, load several web pages at home, then get in the car, read one. then try to read the other, if must reload. Well I don
't have a MiFi, so I'm screwed.

I'm 90% sure my touch does the same exact thing.

Anyway, I'll be picking up a 3G version next year anyway so I'm always connected.
 
It's nice to see page one alive again with activity. You can't hide what people want to know about hardware.

I do exactly this (preloading pages) when traveling. While in the airport lounge before or between flights, I'll click "open in new tab" for 10 to 30 pages at times while I have the 802.11 access. When the boarding call comes, I'll put the tablet to sleep and get on the plane.

When we're cruising, I'll wake the tablet and read the pages that are sitting there.

(It helps that my multi-touch tablet runs a full x64 OS with 5 GiB RAM, SSD, ....)
I did this just yesterday. I needed directions so I drove to the nearest library. (I was caught without my GPS but I did have my MacBook.) I hopped on the wireless and got several pages worth of Google Maps and Earth content.

I just kept the browser open and had the passenger help with navigation.
 
Which Algebra?

Graduate level Algebra isn't ax^2 +bx + c.

easier stuff. Exponents and other crap. Right noiw we are doing cube stuff. Making things with cubes, and drawing the base view, right view, and the front view. And looking at views and building the figure. I don't know how that is considered math, but we are doing it in math class.
 
Webpages with many images don't finish loading on iPad. Evensome pages on Giz this is due to the small amount of RAM. I'm thinking of returning the iPad myself.

Cold you post a link to some pages that have these kinds of problems?
 
Why? A product thats as hyped and as expensive as an iPad should be perfect enough I shouldn't have to bitch about it! Its kind like a drug. Even with its flaws, I couldn't live w/o an iPhone. The other products don't have the problems the iPhone has, but they have their own issues that are even more annoying than what the iphone had.
The only flaws(ambiguous!) you see are the features and/or capabilities you don't get.
Apple wasn't going to kill the sells of its flagship laptops by introducing a low price machine like a netbook. Apple's laptops already sell like hotcakes. But Wall Street wanted something, IMHO, and Apple delivered.
 
By the way, since it stores data on a Flash chip, maybe it can access virtual memory much faster than if it were on a hard drive anyway. But I'm not sure about that.
The iPhone OS does not allow virtual memory to extend beyond physical memory, so iPhone apps cannot overflow to Flash or HDD as on computers, I believe they pretty much just crash.
 
But does it really hurt Steve to add more RAM or fix the software so it doesn't happen on a $500 product?

It hurts the bottom line, and apple is a business.

You say fix, but I really don't see it as a huge problem.
 
Well calling someone a fanboy when they defend Apple in every way sounds fine to me. someone who defends a company, and makes a poor excuse for lacking features= fanboy.

You said it best!

I think Steve Jobs saying:

"This will be the most important thing I’ve ever done."
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/2...ll-be-the-most-important-thing-ive-ever-done/

Will come back to bite him in the butt. Seriously, Steve? The iPad? For overall maximum performance, the MacBook is the most important thing he ever created. You quibble over the iPod and the iPhone taking dstance 2nd place.
 
Look at the size and space most iPhone apps use and iPad apps. Even with data, which is only going to be accessed partially most apps are much, much, smaller than desktop counterparts. This is one of the huge advantages of apple's closed system. It allows programs to be more efficient.

No it doesn't. The code size is a minor factor, what cost memory is the data, and that won't be smaller just because you're on a ipad.
 
easier stuff. Exponents and other crap. Right noiw we are doing cube stuff. Making things with cubes, and drawing the base view, right view, and the front view. And looking at views and building the figure. I don't know how that is considered math, but we are doing it in math class.

.....I'm your age and wondering why Massachusetts schools are like 2 years behind mine.
 
the level of ignorance on this forum is ridiculous. the people defending the 256MB ram are missing the point by a mile. Apple didn't limit the ram to 256 because the iPad doesn't need it, they did it to make it cheaper to make. More ram chips require additional traces, more complex circuit boards, etc... Apple is all about profit margin, even though an additional 256MB ram wouldn't be more than a few $ per unit, it adds up to a lot of money after a few million units. And you get the side bonus of getting people hooked on a crippled device and then selling them an upgrade in a year. Steve will say how they have "enhanced the experience" bla bla and most of you will drink the coolaid and believe it.

those who say the iPad doesn't need more need to actually buy one and open 4+ tabs in safari then watch the first one reload when you switch to it when the browser runs out of memory trying to keep all the tabs open. Not a big deal to some of you, but when a company claims that the iPad offers a superior browsing experience and can't even keep 5 tabs open at once someone has to call ********. Never mind multitasking, the thing doesn't even have enough memory to run it's own browser properly! I bought my iPad yesterday and I like it enough to get around the limitations (at worst I'll give it to my mom) but I'm not in denial of the truth just because I spent $500 and because it has an Apple logo on it like some of you. If they really are including some kind of multitasking in 4.0 it will be very ugly without virtual memory.
 
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