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iPod touch iPod Touch 4G impressions & Question about RAM - Please Help

L

lakhany07

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 21, 2008
16
17
So I finally decided to update my ipod touch (was using the 1g) and man is it refreshing. I went for the 64gb and wow, faster, crisper, smoother, everything. If I had to pick I would say the thing that constantly amazes me is just how clear the screen is. That retina display is killer for me. But there are some concerns that I have and was hoping some people here could help me out.

I've heard all the criticism, crippled still camera, lack of ips, no gps etc but honestly those aren't a big deal to me. The only thing I saw that made me cringe was the 256 mb of ram, and I know I know, I shouldn't complain about it if it doesn't make a difference anyway but I think it has. Well i'm not sure so i'm here asking. I'm new to the whole multitasking but to my knowledge, the app has to updated to support it right? Well i've been messing around with it and made sure for this situation I used the updated ones and its great to be able to jump in and out of pvz without waiting but sometimes the app isn't suspended anymore?

Meaning I will play flight control for instance, get out of it and go do something else. Sometime later when I go back it makes it start from the beginning again? It isn't in its suspended state anymore? I suspect that the reason it happens is because the ipod is running out of ram to hold it in that state but I am not sure. If so then the 256 is kind of annoying. Can someone help me out? It even does it when I only have like 7-8 apps open in the multitasking bar. Usually i'll have, pvz, flight control, mega jump, mail, safari, pandora and a couple others.

Sorry for such a long message, I was just wondering if someone could help, thanks for reading.

(Btw if your on the fence in getting one, for sure get it, its leaps and bounds ahead of my 1g)
 
I develop for these devices. You're correct, if you've run out of memory, background apps will get a signal and will get shut down.

When an app receives the a memory low signal, it's should save it's state and exit. Some apps, (mostly games I've noticed) don't handle this very gracefully and if you're paused in a level, they just restart from from the beginning of that level.

A lot of developers are still coming up to speed on all of the multitasking features of iOS 4.x. Give them a little time to get all the loose ends battened down. App developers are pushing out new versions all the time. If you like the app, give it a good rating. And then click on the support link for the App in iTunes and leave the developer some feedback on how it handles multitasking.

The 256mb RAM isn't a big deal. It's the sweet spot to develop for right now with iPhone 3GS, iPad, and iPod Touches all coming with 256mb. Most of the other developers I know are coding for 256mb as well.

(I just bought one to do testing on.)
 
I'm close to filling up my 1st 16GB iPod touch. And its not bad. Some of the power hungry apps will drain the battery, but a quick wall charge up...and I'm back to gaming.

I don't think the 256mb is not going to be a problem. You have to realize with the iPhone you have more components. In the iTOuch you have less so technically you don't need that much.

I compared my 1st Gen with the current iTouch and the 4th gen was a lot faster. Eventhough I have less than 400MB of space left, the 4th GEn was pretty fast.

It also depends on what you have running in the background. A lot of my apps have the Push feature which I've turned off. I only have maybe 2-3 Apps with Push on. You can also do a reset on your iPod.

Play around with it. Test it out on different networks. I
 
oh okay, so the reason my apps will restart is because I am out of RAM? so does this mean that for the ipod touch, the sweet spot is around 6-8 apps multitasking and then they will start to restart?

Just out of curiosity how much RAM does each app task? I assume they vary depending on the level of complexity, but roughly is it 20-30? or how does that work? it just sometimes will get aggravating when I leave the game to open up a few other apps and come back to find that my original takes a while to open back up. I assume half of the 256 or more is running the iOS, and does having other apps, not opened, just having them on your iPod touch eat up RAM?

Thanks for all your help, I just could never find anywhere on the internet that explains this stuff.
 
Every app is different. High end games, Video Apps, and Apps with internal web browsers tend to use more memory than others.

Also, Apps shouldn't restart when you get low on memory. Only the apps that haven't been used recently should be effected, and they should gracefully save state and resume exactly where you left off. If they don't, let the developer know.

The Apple Developer guides are pretty clear about memory It's supposed to be transparent to the end user. Everything should just work.
 
ohh okay, so let me this straight, the multitasking works like this? If you have an app that is updated to take control of it, you can use that it, when you close it its constantly running in the background? and if you run out of RAM or do not use it recently it will go into a suspended state and start back, which probably will add 1-2 seconds to get it to work?

Again thanks for all the help but I just can't find anywhere on the web that thoroughly explains this.
 
also is it good to clean out your multitasking bar or should u not worry about it?
 
also does anyone know how long the battery is supposed to typically last while doing things other than listening to music? Like playing games, recording video, sending email, going on the internet etc?
 
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