All iPads It's over, returned iPad Air (updated:re-purchased!) - due to constrained 1GB RAM

[s2mikey]

I've had my iPad Air since launch and it hasn't crashed once.

I also use safari a lot.

Thats where Im at and its also why feel that this issue may be a physical RAM problem as in the RAM itself is possibly defective. Sounds hokey but if this was truly a widespread, low-mem condition how could so many of us NOT be experiencing it? That doesnt jive at all.

And, why mostly Safari? I play some graphic heavy games and they FLY on my Air. Why dont those crash? You telling me that Real racing 2 or FIFA 14 uses less RAM than a few Safari tabs? Bull sheezit.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Why wait for iOS 7.1? Magically software is gonna fix ram limitations? I see how all you guys think. No wonder apple makes billions. Give you gimped RAM, gimped color gamut displays, yet you guys line up to buy them.

I'm starting to think this has all been made up. Sorry but the 'sheep' references and your insinuation about Apple making money off the back of them sounds like it has come straight from the 'Alternatives threads'.

My Air has not crashed once whilst using Safari and I've just tested this by opening up 8 tabs. Unless you are attempting to view several live streams or looking at dodgy porn sites, I doubt you can crash an iPad by opening as you say '2 tabs'. If it is an issue, I'm yet to encounter it.

 

[darngooddesign]

Ummmmm, no. I don't even know where to begin on this one. 64 bit tabs? As in browser tabs? Then the 64 bit calendar entries and 64 bit contact records probably take up more space...

I'm not even sure if I misspoke it, but I would have meant tabs in a 64 bit browser, not 64 bit tabs.

Don't forget all your music too. Better convert it all to 64bit...

Dammit. I just finished ripping my CDs at 32 bit.

 

[Pompiliu]

Why wait for iOS 7.1? Magically software is gonna fix ram limitations? I see how all you guys think. No wonder apple makes billions. Give you gimped RAM, gimped color gamut displays, yet you guys line up to buy them.

I voted with my wallet! NO THANKS. iPad 4 is still great. Will save up for next model 2014 with more ram.

You really don't know how ram works.
BTW, you realise that ipad 4 has 1gb too?

Go buy an android tablet, i'm sure you'll be happier with >1GB ram and phone apps.

 

[maflynn]

[MOD NOTE]
Closed for moderator review and clean up

Thread is reopened, lets review the Guidelines for acceptable debate

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[syd430]

This is in fact a true problem with the Air. Tabs are refreshing much more compared to my iPad 3 and 4. Sometimes they even start refreshing when switching back and forth in rapid succession. All of this is just with several tabs open. Not a deal breaker for me, but I have on a number of occasions lost what I was typing because I briefly switched to another tab.

This thing really should have had 2gb IMO. The 3, 4 was fine with 1gb but not this.

 

[AppleRobert]

This is in fact a true problem with the Air. Tabs are refreshing much more compared to my iPad 3 and 4. Sometimes they even start refreshing when switching back and forth in rapid succession. All of this is just with several tabs open. Not a deal breaker for me, but I have on a number of occasions lost what I was typing because I briefly switched to another tab.

This thing really should have had 2gb IMO. The 3, 4 was fine with 1gb but not this.

Doesn't happen with mine. Maybe praying before my purchase helped!

----------

Thats where Im at and its also why feel that this issue may be a physical RAM problem as in the RAM itself is possibly defective. Sounds hokey but if this was truly a widespread, low-mem condition how could so many of us NOT be experiencing it? That doesnt jive at all.

And, why mostly Safari? I play some graphic heavy games and they FLY on my Air. Why dont those crash? You telling me that Real racing 2 or FIFA 14 uses less RAM than a few Safari tabs? Bull sheezit.

Color me confused cause I am not having any problems with whatever I have done so far. Maybe we have a "super" Air?

 

[Count Blah]

iOS is so efficient that even 512MB is adequate for almost every use. 1GB is very generous and nobody needs more.

I LOVE claims like this. Obviously someone who doesn't look in their logs. 1gig is generous for the Air? You have got to be kidding me/us.

 

[robE89]

I LOVE claims like this. Obviously someone who doesn't look in their logs. 1gig is generous for the Air? You have got to be kidding me/us.

And also love claims like this thinking that "low memory" errors are actually related to low memory...and not to stability issues and crashes. We all know that iOS 7 was rushed to ipad and has a lot of errors.

 

[s2mikey]

Doesn't happen with mine. Maybe praying before my purchase helped!

----------



Color me confused cause I am not having any problems with whatever I have done so far. Maybe we have a "super" Air?

Right - we must have accidentally received the iPad Nitrogen.

 

[s2mikey]

Quadrupling RAM to 4GB would not be a negligible cost. It would put a serious dent in the margins which are necessary in order for Apple to continue creating best of breed products in every category.

iOS is so efficient that even 512MB is adequate for almost every use. 1GB is very generous and nobody needs more.

Ummm - this is a bunch of BS. Alls big margins do is ensure that grey haired investor apes make a lot of money. It has ZERO to do with the quality of the products. And, best products in every category? hard to say that when they have miniscule percentage of the PC/laptop market and even less for businesses. Their phones are good but the Samsungs are always nipping at their heels. Big margins also indicate that the products are pretty expensive.

Dont make it seem like 10 Wall Street investors getting rich means better products for you and I. They could not care LESS about any of that. I love my ipad but lets not slob the knob too much here. Its like - they are getting rich off of us and you make it seem like we should thank them for it or something.

 

[darngooddesign]

Quadrupling RAM to 4GB would not be a negligible cost. It would put a serious dent in the margins which are necessary in order for Apple to continue creating best of breed products in every category.

iOS is so efficient that even 512MB is adequate for almost every use. 1GB is very generous and nobody needs more.

1GB was adequate for the previous 32 Bit devices, but not for these 64 Bit devices.

Unless Apple releases an update with noticeably better memory management there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that 64Bit iOS7 is more resource heavy than 32Bit iOS7. I don't think Apple's cost on that extra gig of RAM is much, especially at the volume they buy it; we can see that by the fact that Apple didn't feel the need to up the price of the iPad 3 which had twice the RAM (admittedly only 512MB more) of the iPad 2 AND a retina screen.

 

[robE89]

It's the way Apple make the product less future proof, it's obvious because with a 2gb ram, the ipad air would have been a perfect product. The air will manage a year with 1gb of ram because apps won't make the transition to 64bit over night but it can become a bit of an headache in 2 years.

 

[screensaver400]

This is in fact a true problem with the Air. Tabs are refreshing much more compared to my iPad 3 and 4. Sometimes they even start refreshing when switching back and forth in rapid succession. All of this is just with several tabs open. Not a deal breaker for me, but I have on a number of occasions lost what I was typing because I briefly switched to another tab.

This thing really should have had 2gb IMO. The 3, 4 was fine with 1gb but not this.

My $0.02... I have the same problem with the iPad Air. I did set it up as a new iPad, so I know it's nothing held over from my iPad 3.

Maybe iOS 7.1 will help address this, maybe not. There might well be software optimizations, and the x.1 update has traditionally improve iOS significantly.

That said, compared to my iPad 3, iPad Air is still an improvement with Safari. The page renders faster, so even if a tab gets booted out of memory, it's less of an inconvenience to redownload and rerender it.

 

[racer1441]

While it may not be a RAM issue as OP proposes, the iPad air (or iOS7 on the ipad) suffers from some very real and reproducible problems. Take a 2048x2048 wallpaper, and "set both" homescreen and lockscreen. It restarted my ipad, and other peoples' ipads every time.

There is another one where you press some settings menu twice in a row, and that will cause the settings app to crash (or maybe the ipad to restart).

I have had several crashes, restarts and resprings in the two weeks I owned the air. I am not even counting the app crashes.

I don't know if it is RAM or software, but it is something.

If you haven't experienced it yet, just wait.

Just tried the wallpaper one, didn't do a thing.

 

[Scarpad]

Sad fellas - I returned my iPad AIR this morning! Yes, you need to read this because I have had a hard time with this iPad AIR due to the fact it will crash due to low memory so often when I use safari and I'm not even using more than 2 tabs at once. I really think this new 64bit architecture is just constraining the ram big time and the paltry 1GB is not going to cut it with 64bit apps.

I've had a good time with my iPad 4, 3, and 2 (which is on iOS 6) and I again feel apple is really just milking this iPad 1GB RAM model one last year before next year they will unleash a larger RAM model. They very well know this 1GB ram is not cutting it but what do you do if you were apple? Release nothing for 2 years time and then release the 64-bit design and more ram or just do what you gotta do now to look relevant?

Sorry to see you go iPad AIR, but my wallet cannot sustain heavy damage this year when the next year apple will release a better model with more ram. Back to my stable iPad 4 (which really is no slouch!)

I have not done one thing on my Air where it felt constrained, least of which browsing the internet, I think you talked yourself into returning it.

 

[Lucille Carter]

Sad fellas - I returned my iPad AIR this morning! Yes, you need to read this because I have had a hard time with this iPad AIR due to the fact it will crash due to low memory so often when I use safari and I'm not even using more than 2 tabs at once. I really think this new 64bit architecture is just constraining the ram big time and the paltry 1GB is not going to cut it with 64bit apps.

I've had a good time with my iPad 4, 3, and 2 (which is on iOS 6) and I again feel apple is really just milking this iPad 1GB RAM model one last year before next year they will unleash a larger RAM model. They very well know this 1GB ram is not cutting it but what do you do if you were apple? Release nothing for 2 years time and then release the 64-bit design and more ram or just do what you gotta do now to look relevant?

Sorry to see you go iPad AIR, but my wallet cannot sustain heavy damage this year when the next year apple will release a better model with more ram. Back to my stable iPad 4 (which really is no slouch!)

So I hope this means we do not hear about this anymore.

 

[Count Blah]

I have not done one thing on my Air where it felt constrained, least of which browsing the internet, I think you talked yourself into returning it.

Lots of people liked their Ford Pinto. It doesn't mean it was Not one of the worst cars ever made. AKA - your mileage may vary.

 

[MTL18]

Apple is a business that needs people to buy devices more frequently than 6 years. It is unsurprising that they figured this out after people (like me) manually upgraded things like RAM in MacBooks to make them 6 year devices (2008 model still ticking!).

Why does the cheap MacBook PRO come with 4gb of ram? That won't last 2 years. Apple isn't stupid, they know that 4gb will be useless in 2015 yet they push out this laptop (you also can't upgrade it anymore - 4gb is 4gb).

Apple releases state of the art devices that work flawlessly for x time (my experience shows 2-3 years for OSX, 1-2 years for iOS) before they start to date themselves.

Giving 2gb of RAM would future-proof this too much. People with Airs wouldn't upgrade in 2014 or 2015.

If you return every Apple product because it is missing 1 component that you deem necessary, you won't own many. They all have their flaws. This iPad also doesn't have a finger scanner, flaw? The iPhone 5S still doesn't have NFC. Flaw? A piece will always be missing. That's Apple...

Next year's iPad will be missing another "essential" component to a few but is a non-issue for most. They will sell like hotcakes to most, with a few complaining. Ah Apple...

 

[charlieroberts]

It's the way Apple make the product less future proof, it's obvious because with a 2gb ram, the ipad air would have been a perfect product. The air will manage a year with 1gb of ram because apps won't make the transition to 64bit over night but it can become a bit of an headache in 2 years.

It may be true, however, people are upgrading their ipads way more often than 2 years, on design alone.

Face it, people like to upgrade their ipads!

My advice for people looking to buy an ipad air:
Buy it and enjoy it, if in two years the ram feels like a constraint which i doubt, btw, sell it and buy a refurb of whatever ipad there is with 8TB of ram. It wont const you that much to upgrade and you will have enjoyed your air.
I mean, there is seriously NOTHING you can do about it. Its not like your going to buy another brand, have you tried using those things??

 

[lilo777]

Quadrupling RAM to 4GB would not be a negligible cost. It would put a serious dent in the margins which are necessary in order for Apple to continue creating best of breed products in every category.

iOS is so efficient that even 512MB is adequate for almost every use. 1GB is very generous and nobody needs more.

IOS efficiency has nothing to do with this. It's all about the size of the application data on which OS has no effect.

 

[007p]

I'm curious, if this is such a problem because of '64-bit' safari, what's to stop us using a '32-bit' browser? Even if its impossible today, what about when a jailbreak comes out?

Is there no way to test now the difference other than by using older devices?

 

[calvol]

If you return every Apple product because it is missing 1 component that you deem necessary, you won't own many. They all have their flaws. This iPad also doesn't have a finger scanner, flaw? The iPhone 5S still doesn't have NFC. Flaw? A piece will always be missing. That's Apple...

Next year's iPad will be missing another "essential" component to a few but is a non-issue for most. They will sell like hotcakes to most, with a few complaining. Ah Apple...

The downside of this is Apple loses sales to more discriminating customers who will wait for better specs like myself, just bought a $119 Asus tab with 1GB ram. No way I'll pay $500+ for an underspec'd machine!

 

[PaulSorensen]

Sad fellas - I returned my iPad AIR this morning! Yes, you need to read this because I have had a hard time with this iPad AIR due to the fact it will crash due to low memory so often when I use safari and I'm not even using more than 2 tabs at once. I really think this new 64bit architecture is just constraining the ram big time and the paltry 1GB is not going to cut it with 64bit apps.

Are these specific websites that are causing the problem? I have a new iPad Air and it seems fine — both in Safari, and the many other apps that I use on a daily basis. And I'm not sure that you're sufficiently informed to be able to diagnose the problem as "due to constrained 1GB RAM".

 

[deeddawg]

The downside of this is Apple loses sales to more discriminating customers who will wait for better specs like myself, just bought a $119 Asus tab with 1GB ram. No way I'll pay $500+ for an underspec'd machine!

Indeed, but understand that it can often be cheaper to let the most discriminating consumers go buy something else.

Let's say the extra cost to meet your requirements is $5 per unit, and let's say maybe one person in a hundred actually does NOT buy the device and buys something else. To break even, Apple would have to add $5 cost for each of 99 units in order to convince you to buy. I bet they're just fine losing that one sale vs. adding $495 cost across the other 99 units.

Obviously this is a very simplistic example, but the general truth holds; not every potential customer is worth getting.