I have to disagree.
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.
The only benchmarks I've seen are synthetic and thus useless. Besides people are all ready indicating poor performance from Safari due to constant reloads.
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.
Stab or not it doesn't really matter; if MS can't deliver what users expect then developing for the current iPad will be a waste of time. In anyevent you miss the most important point which is how much space will a app have for data after loading.
Swapping out a page at a time might work for a word processor with flash storage but what about a spreadsheet. Mind you this means extra code that can't go to other app logic.
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.
Well yeah it is a tight environment, especially after subtracting system and video RAM, but isn't that the whole point behind the RAM size complaints? Oh by the way it has little to do with coding for a tight environment. The amount of RAM available to apps is a real limitation upon what can be done with an app.
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.
Oh come on it's been all over the place, Safari relaods pages more than the Touch Safari does. Now there are huge variables to contend with here but the reports don't surprise me at all.
It is not a performance issue of the processor or GPU but rather an issue of coming up short on room for data storage. This leads to slow reloads of data from external sources.
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.
I don't know, nor do I want to know, what is going on with your netbook. What I don't want is a 3G device that is as bad as my iPhone when switch to another we page that should already be loaded and ready to go. It is possibly the most frustrating thing about iPhone and Safari. It is that long wait to reload a page that would otherwise be there if we had enough memory.
Look at it this way, does your browser on your netbook relaod a page everytime you change tabs? Even when the page is a static page?
If you don't see this as a usability and performance problem then fine. Just don't try to convince the rest of us that a device that is an actual regression in performance is actually something we would all want.
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.
True to an extent if you accept half backed apps trying to replace desktop apps. However if you want equivalent functionality out of iPad apps you will need more RAM. There is no way around it right now due to the monolithic nature of iPhone type 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.
Not at all I got computer history on my side. RAM enables more functionality than it is often given credit for.
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.
It is easy for me to see this happening. Consider what a student might be expected to have or use away from school or more exactly away from a network connection. Of the top of my head:
1.
Text books for his courses: that would be English, Math, Science, History and what ever else he may be taking.
2.
An English dictionary and other references for writers.
3.
Possibly a foriegn language reference.
4.
The iWork or similar productivity apps.
5.
Additional reference works for science and Math.
6.
Course related audio and video files supplied by the school. As a side note if a tablet is used just to deliver books in a different form then they will be a failure. The hardware needs to deliver a richer more dynamic learning environment.
7.
Tools for the student to create similar media files. For much of the same reasoning as six, communications is about more than the written word.
8.
Maps! What is school without maps?
That is eight points right off the bat. What does that add up to in Flash, I don't know for sure but we should have ideas in short order. But let's say we have an app called Atlas which covers the entire world to a reasonable detail for students. That might weigh in at 2GB itself.
Books themselves are thin if they emulate todays texts. But I don't see that as the way in the future as I'd rather expect a more interactive multimedia approach that works to develop a students knowledge. Of course you would have huge differences between an English and a Science "text" but just for one grade level I could see a app that takes up a couple of gigs of space for a science class.
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.
Because OS3 is missing so much! Really that sounds short but the reality is that it is missing stuff. Do you really think they can add the rumored printing functionality without growing the OS size. That is just one feature too. Nothing I've heard would imply a smaller OS, indeed it is just the opposite.
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.
Well that remains to be seen. The product is just on the market and a lot of people will compete with it in the coming months. But some of these complaints can be delt with buy other companies fairly cheaply.
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.
They don't exist on iPad because Apple doesn't want them to exist there. Take FM radio for example, that is built into many WiFi chip sets these days and cost very little to implement. It however has not been implemented by Apple. As for RAM all I'm asking for is enough to run Safari better than an iPhone. Again we are not talking big ticket functionality changes here.
The biggest problem is most computer hardware developers are misguided much like some of the people here and are only worried about the parts.
That has to be the most twisted manipulation of the facts I've seen in some time. Everyone that has posted on this issue have expressed a common concern, that is the performance issues the lack of RAM will cause.
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.
Are you gullible or what? Really speak up please because you need to explain that statement.
The fact is Apple has hid the data on the installed RAM for months now. They would only do that if they realized that it is a real modern measuring stick with respect to computer performance. It is obvious they realize that iPad doesn't stack up against reasonable expectations so they pulled the wool over the eyes of a few hundred thousand customers. The more I think about it the more pathetic Apple and iPad looks.
Ultimately the iPad will succeed or fail based on its usability for people who buy it.
Yes very true. This should lead to a lot of cheap used 16GB iPads in the near future.
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...
Your problem is that you don't see the importance of RAM in modern computer hardware. While some won't understand how RAM limits what they can do on iPad, they will understand Numbers not opening up their spread sheets and giving them rude errors.
As to developers many will simply punt and look for other platforms. Some apps can be shoehorned into a 100MBs and some can't. It is like the 640k barrier all over again. Frankly with the same message being heard, hey it should be enough. Sometimes Apple innovates and sometimes it thumbs it's nose at progress.
Dave
we're talking about. Another measly $5 isn't going to break the bank. And programming ingenuity isn't going to mask lack of RAM when loading multiple Safari tabs. Are you getting it yet?
