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iPad Pro M4 with 8gb of ram iPad Pro owners: Are you upgrading to the M5 to get more ram?

Sensamic said:
You know what, this is Apple we're talking about.

The way I see it, they do things differently from the rest of electronic companies. That's why I don't see a huge benefit going from 8GB RAM to 12GB or 16GB with them.

They go at a different pace than others, they might or might not optimize their OS to work better with different amounts of RAM, they only upgrade the RAM and storage in base models every couple of years (always late), etc.

So, knowing how they are, I just don't trust that paying for more RAM will actually make things work better (Mac, iPad, iPhone, etc).
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Just to be clear, I didn't upgrade to future proof, I did upgrade because I had enough of reloads with 8GB RAM. You may not have that issue with your usage of the iPad, but with the tabs I browse and the apps I use I do.
If anything, instead of trying to future proof with a 16GB RAM iPad I "embraced" planned obsolenced and took the cheapest option that didn't bother me as much now, which means I'll have to upgrade sooner. Will it get worse soon? Maybe, but I don't expect major changes in RAM usage with iPadOS 27 and 28 because the iPad 9 and 10 respectively need to be supported, but who knows. There is also the option to stay 1 or 2 OS behind. So I guess I am good for another 3-4 years, before 12GB start bothering me as 8 do now.
So yes, for me the "huge" benefit you mention is there, it's not as huge when you go to 16 (but I am still testing).
Having said that, RAM usage is only going up, at best it's staying the same, unless proper swap to disk is introduced, but at this point I don't believe that will ever happen on iPad (the current swap to disk is only for RAM intensive apps that want to use more than the standard amount of RAM apps are allowed to use, it's not a OS level thing), so 8GB are no longer an option for me on the larger iPad, and I'll be selling my M4 (my M1 and M2 are 16GB, but at some point I may be selling the M1 too).
 
Went from 8gb m4 to 12gb base m5. I upgrade so often just decided to get the base. Not having any issues with safari tabs reloading and no lag multitasking between windows when I did experience it before. I figure if I do skip m6 the m5 base with 12gb of ram will still be just fine for awhile.
 
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Jacoblee23 said:
Went from 8gb m4 to 12gb base m5. I upgrade so often just decided to get the base. Not having any issues with safari tabs reloading and no lag multitasking between windows when I did experience it before. I figure if I do skip m6 the m5 base with 12gb of ram will still be just fine for awhile.
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Same, I am confident I can skip the next generation (Spring 2027, whether it's M6 or directly M7) and skip directly to the following one (Autumn 2028, very likely M8) and even then have time for it to be on a good sale in 2029, that's 4 years.
 
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macphoto861 said:
I decided to go ahead and try the M5, picked it up yesterday afternoon. Happy to report that the 12gb of RAM does appear to be helping in my case. I have not yet had a single instance of Lightroom being bumped when I go do other stuff… every time I return to LR, it’s still just the way I left it.
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Update… I’ve had a few Lightroom relaunches, but far fewer than I was getting with the M4.
 
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I am happy with my 11” M4 iPP. Having 8GB of RAM is not a huge deal for me since I just use it for content consumption and paying bills.
 
macphoto861 said:
Update… I’ve had a few Lightroom relaunches, but far fewer than I was getting with the M4.
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Yeah, that is what I expected to hear. The problem with doing any even moderately complex workflow on the iPad has always been that without swap memory you never knew what the state of a given program might be in. Apps do really inconsistent things when put in the background and even those that don’t might get dumped out of memory at random. More RAM helps a bit for a while, but not that much in my experience.
 
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zhenya said:
Yeah, that is what I expected to hear. The problem with doing any even moderately complex workflow on the iPad has always been that without swap memory you never knew what the state of a given program might be in. Apps do really inconsistent things when put in the background and even those that don’t might get dumped out of memory at random. More RAM helps a bit for a while, but not that much in my experience.
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exactly, and when Apple introduced "swap memory" in iPadOS 16 people believed it was a OS level thing like on desktop, while it was ONLY to give developers the possibility to use more RAM than previously possible for their app, a single app (on iPadOS 15 they increased the limit to 5GB, then to 6 and 12 for the 8 and 16GB version, while before there was no difference for the 16GB iPad, and then with iPadOS 16 they increased it to 8 and 16 respectively, so that people stopped complaining that app could not use all the RAM of the iPad, but they had to introduce swap memory otherwise there would be no memory left for the OS). The developer has to request a special access to that much RAM, but again it's for a single app, not a system level thing.

Unfortunately there is no control on how RAM is allocated on iPadOS (Samsung gives you some control on their Android tablets) and you need to have lots of RAM if you multitask and hope for the best. RAM helps more than "a bit", I can tell you as I have several iPads with 16GB RAM and they do way better than 8GB ones. And those 12GB also help quite a lot compared to 8, but you still must be carefull not to do too much if you want to avoid reloads, so now I am considering using multiple iPads to spread the workflow...
 
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zhenya said:
Yeah, that is what I expected to hear. The problem with doing any even moderately complex workflow on the iPad has always been that without swap memory you never knew what the state of a given program might be in. Apps do really inconsistent things when put in the background and even those that don’t might get dumped out of memory at random. More RAM helps a bit for a while, but not that much in my experience.
Click to expand...
I’ve spent the day alternating my work between the two iPads, and I’m seeing far fewer instances of Lightroom being dumped than before on the M4 (possibly due to me having restarted it during the transfer)… in other words very little (if any) difference compared to the M5.

This has me questioning whether or not to keep it, because although I was willing to pay the upgrade cost if it meant no more Lightroom restarts when leaving for a bit and returning, it still does happen occasionally, and it’s not happening as often on the M4 now.
 
No way, not for more ram.

Apple has a history of providing only the bare minimum ram, now suddenly they begin offering more, I’m not interested.

When one purchases a new MacBook they charge insanely high prices to upgrade ram, a practice that’s existed for years.

Many people fall for this angle proving one more time just how successful Apple is at influencing and controlling their customers. The company’s greed knows no limits.
 
More ram is not a bad reason to upgrade from the M4. If however you have the 1TB M4 with 16gb of ram, it really doesn’t pay to upgrade to the M5 since the 1TB still comes with 16gb. Apple didnt double it to 24gb. The iPad Pro lasts a very long time, so the more ram the better. After 7 years, I am finally about to upgrade my 2018 1TB iPad Pro with 6gb of ram, so it’ll be a HUGE improvement for me. I haven’t decided if I’ll get the 1TB M4 or M5 iPad Pro yet since they both come with the same amount of ram. 🤔
 
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