Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPad Tech Specs: Cortex A8, 256MB Ram, PowerVR SGX 535
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Not at all. I'm saying that they didn't make this decision based on the price of RAM, but instead on several technical considerations, the salient details of which obviously escape you.
This is a device that saw engineers hack apart unnecessary I/O hardware to save die space and power--components that draw far less power than any amount of RAM. You think they undertook all that effort just to stop caring when integrating the memory?
No one's saying there isn't (but what contract negotiations have to do with technical ability is a puzzle you've left unsolved). But you can't squeeze a whole circus into a postage stamp and then toss a pony in. There are hard limits imposed by the needs of the application. If it didn't need 3D graphics, it could have 2GB of RAM. But it does, and that means that professional engineers sit down and work out the optimal solution given the project's parameters. Cost is certainly one of those, but in the case of RAM to be embedded in a single package, not a terribly important one.
There is nothing to gain by withholding memory. It seems obvious that you've not used an iPad, because it works perfectly well. The Safari issue is just as likely software--most users haven't encountered it at all.
Once again, it all comes down to resource management and optimization. You're the one spinning conspiracy yarns instead of making a rational case consisting of anything beyond hand waving.
Depends on the price. If they try to sell them at the same or higher price than an iPad, they will fail. If they sell them at Netbook prices, they will sell a good number - and that number will come straight out of Netbook sales, so it won't help the companies involved.
Let's redefine "fail" as: Not making 1/10th of the profit that Apple makes with iPads. By that definition, Slates will fail, no matter what price they are sold at.
WE RULEZ! YOU HAS VIRUS LOL
"WE RULEZ! YOU HAS VIRUS LOL
" That's the message in the alert. What a ********. "WE RULEZ! YOU HAS VIRUS LOL "? What is that supposed to even mean. <-- LOL @ question without question mark.
Consider the situation where a lift is designed to transport four people and you tried to cram in eight. The lift doesn't move because of the weight. You solve the problem by asking four people to leave, not by shutting down the lift and restarting it.
Exiting the application clears up the memory used by that application, and since there is no multitasking, all problems are gone. The OS itself never had any memory problems (although the alert gives the false impression that it does). So the application recommends that the user should perform some annoying and time consuming action (how do you even "restart" an iPad? ) that has zero chance of helping more than the obvious action of quitting the application.
Then look at the weasel words, specifically designed to create Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD): "may help resolve this". So restarting may or may not help (if it were guaranteed to help, they would write "will help resolve this"). So the app tells the user that restarting may not help. Second, the word "help" means that restarting may improve things, but maybe not enough. It only "helps" resolving the problem. So even though restarting "may" help, helping might not be enough and the problem may persist. But what is actually the problem? "Low on memory"? What does that mean? Is it a problem? Why? What happens if I don't do anything about it? I don't know. Is the iPad becoming forgetful? Will I lose data that I typed in?
Summary: The alert gives very unclear advice about something that may or may not be a problem, without giving the user any useful information. Then it gives very bad advice, and makes the user worried when there is no need to at all. That's what I call a rubbish user interface design. As a user, would you like to use that application again? You know, you might be "low on memory" again, and the next time restarting your device might not fix it. I think I would delete that application.
Do you know what they all have in common? they all suck at browsing, spreadsheet, word processing, viewing images... i dare you to get a gamecube to show a 15mpixel raw image. it cant, cause it doesn't have enough memory.
could be an itouch, iPhone, or ipad, OR future device. It would actually be careless to use the phrase ipad if you're a developer.
Of course it was an alert popped up by the Application. It states that. It says "We Rule has detected". If the OS had detected it, it wouldn't say "We Rule has detected" anything.
But don't assume that the developer would do something like that just to bad mouth Apple. They did it to get a buggy application out the door quickly. They couldn't nail down the memory leaks, so they instead detect when the device is low on memory, pop a message, and have you restart the system in order to clear out the RAM. Nothing _really_ bad happens and they can always patch it later.
Everyone was in a big hurry to get iPad versions of their software out the door - so IMHO this is more easily explained as a compromise the developer made in order to make a deadline. It wouldn't surprise me if they released a patch that "fixed" this in a couple of weeks.
The salient reasons also seem escape you as you can't really name any bar COST.
Yes I agree that they have demoted RAM down on their list of priorities. And not without consequence.
There is something to gain in reducing memory, COST reduction. They are not doing it for your benefit as a human being, they are doing it to increase margins. There's nothing I have said that warrants conspiracy theory dismissal.
My argument is they are doing it to keep COSTS down.
Your argument is they are doing it because they can manage to get by through resource management and optimizations. But you do agree with next version will have 512MB and will be better for it. My point is they could of added 512MB as there are no logical reasons other than COST as to why they didn't. If the next gen version will have it why not introduce it now. COST that's it. Nothing more nothing less.
Safari tabs have been shown to be memory intensive with the need to be reloaded often. The web is a tougher cookie than Apple thought. There are no strict limitations to be set down. Page content varies greatly and lets not get started about Flash. Most of this could have been solved with an investment of $5.95.
You mean "We Rule" is the name of the app. That's what quotation marks are there for. Very, very poor English. You need to put the name into quotation marks unless it is clear that it is a name. "We Rule" is not clearly a name.
Anyway, you are missing a very important point: If we are debating here what this message is supposed to mean, then it is unclear, and the UI designer did a poor job.
Apple really doesn't need cutomers like you. So yeah go away.
In any event maybe Steve isn't listening because you are wrong. Very few people give a damn about BluRay and your other complaints are garbage.
First very few of Apples computers could rationally be called obsolete. Second you will be really disappointed if Apple decides to take the PC industry in a different direction. Especially if that vision doesn't jive with your narrow views. Lime it or not Apple markets stable hardware platforms that many professionals appreciate.
Dave
What is it wth you guys do you expect Apple to jump everytime you get an itch?
This is crap. Blu-Ray simply isn't of interest to enough people to make a difference. There has been a flash implementation available on the Mac for ages if you are stupid enough to enable it. FireWire ports are history. Matte screens suck, get over that and the quality of your work will go up.
In any event maybe Steve isn't listening because you are wrong. Very few people give a damn about BluRay and your other complaints are garbage.
Bye and take your self important ass with you. I'm really tired of this crap, the world does spin around you personally. Further the Mac Line isn't that far out of date, it isn't like there is a gold rush of competeing hardware.
Funny but Apple is still selling Mac hardware like crazy. Some of the product line is very good value. As to chasing fads and opening themselves up to competition from the Chinese you must be talking about the zero margin constantly changing PC industry.
It's not just that Apple computers are obsolete; it's Jobs who has made them so on purpose.
First very few of Apples computers could rationally be called obsolete. Second you will be really disappointed if Apple decides to take the PC industry in a different direction. Especially if that vision doesn't jive with your narrow views. Lime it or not Apple markets stable hardware platforms that many professionals appreciate.
Dave
In that case I have a much better solution for you... Apple should open up Safari development so that Open Source Developers (like me) can do what we usually do... which is fixing things and invent new stuff; like the magical bookmarks bar (thank you Apple for using my work).I have the solution for you!!
Step 1: Put ipad back into box.
Step 2: go back to apple store or best buy and
Step 3: get a refund.
problems solved!
Man you are really digging yourself into a hole now.
Restarting is better for memory, end of.
You cant name a bar cost either. For all we know Apple could be selling the iPad at a loss.
And yet miraculously, the iPad does not suck at browsing, word processing, or displaying images. It does all of those things _very_ well, at least at the level that most people would ever do them. Can you explain that?
This is a myth that is ignored by most people that work actively with servers. Restarting the memory only works if you let the electricity drain from the chips, that is where ECC comes in. So what you really should be saying is that let the iPad battery die and leave it for an hour and a bit.
RAM isn't as volatile as some people have you believe. You can even freeze the information in the transistors with LN2.
Well no, it is running on an iPad, so it cannot be running on a future device. The developer was trying to move the blame from his application (which is at fault) to the device that it is running on (which happens to be an iPad), so at the very least they could have found which device it is running on and put in the right name. That is just lazy.
If it's one thing we can all agree on
are making a tidy sum on each iPad.
http://www.isuppli.com/News/Pages/M...eMaximumProfitsforApple,iSuppliEstimates.aspx
Anyone who knows Apple's strategy and has owned a number of Apple products knows exactly why the iPad only has 256MB of RAM. It has absolutely nothing to do with cost, heat, battery life, etc. Apple always intentionally cripples their first generation device just enough, so that people will still buy it but then those same people will also want to buy the second generation and possibly the third as well. We see this time and time again when Apple launches new products (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, etc.) Just look at home many people who bought the original iPhone upgraded to the 3G and/or the 3GS when they came out.
There was nothing stopping Apple from including a dual core ARM processor with 1GB of ram and a front facing camera, but if they did they what would they put in the second generation revision? There would be little in the way of improvements, so you wouldn't be able to get people with a 1 year old iPad to buy the second generation when it comes out, so the sales would only come from new iPad customers.
With the scenario they have now they will launch the second generation iPad in about a year, probably with a dual core ARM processor, 512MB or 1GB of RAM, and they will market it as twice as fast or more than the original iPad. Make no mistake they will probably still withhold some key feature that is enough to make people buy yet a third iPad a year later.
I say all this as an avid Apple customer. I own a mini, Macbook, iPhone 3GS, an original iPhone, and a couple of Shuffles. And I bought an iPhone 3G for my wife. I am still on the fence about buying an iPad mostly because of the lack of RAM as well as some software features (no tabs in Safari, no multitasking, etc.)
There was nothing stopping Apple from including a dual core ARM processor with 1GB of ram and a front facing camera, but if they did they what would they put in the second generation revision? There would be little in the way of improvements, so you wouldn't be able to get people with a 1 year old iPad to buy the second generation when it comes out, so the sales would only come from new iPad customers.
With the scenario they have now they will launch the second generation iPad in about a year, probably with a dual core ARM processor, 512MB or 1GB of RAM, and they will market it as twice as fast or more than the original iPad. Make no mistake they will probably still withhold some key feature that is enough to make people buy yet a third iPad a year later.
I say all this as an avid Apple customer. I own a mini, Macbook, iPhone 3GS, an original iPhone, and a couple of Shuffles. And I bought an iPhone 3G for my wife. I am still on the fence about buying an iPad mostly because of the lack of RAM as well as some software features (no tabs in Safari, no multitasking, etc.)
Good For Now
Good deal. Yes, of course there will always be a better one in version two but that is why we have people to pass down our hardware too. I'll buy the iPad 1.0 and then when 2.0 comes out someone else gets the 1.0 if I want to upgrade. In our family we almost never sell the computers but rather pass them along. It is a great way to make it cost effective and a 7 year old doesn't need the latest and greatest. I'm sure Apple will keep improving the hardware, and software - iBet on it.
In the mean time the iPad as is represents a great deal and a great tool. We could use two to four for business application now.
Good deal. Yes, of course there will always be a better one in version two but that is why we have people to pass down our hardware too. I'll buy the iPad 1.0 and then when 2.0 comes out someone else gets the 1.0 if I want to upgrade. In our family we almost never sell the computers but rather pass them along. It is a great way to make it cost effective and a 7 year old doesn't need the latest and greatest. I'm sure Apple will keep improving the hardware, and software - iBet on it.
In the mean time the iPad as is represents a great deal and a great tool. We could use two to four for business application now.
Enough said.
If you started an app named "We Rule", you'd know what the message was about. What need would there be for quotation marks then? They even capitalised it for clarity.