All iPads Sort the 1GB ram debate once and for all...

[Count Blah]

They didn't. They just have a reliable track record of releasing patches.

Most software companies, especially OS software companies, have a reliable track record of releasing patches. Whether the patches actually fix problems is the issue in question. Apple has let numerous software problems languish without addressing them. Some so severe, the people's machines are Inoperable.

 

[ZBoater]

...Some so severe, the people's machines are Inoperable.

Care to share some specific examples of inoperable Apple products? I'm curious.

 

[ohbrilliance]

Every tab refreshes when I select it, even though it is already showing the content (some programmer needs to be flogged for that behavior).

More like 'even though it is already showing a *rendition* of the content. The underlying HTML has probably been zapped, and all you're seeing is a rendering of the content visible within the frame.

 

[Count Blah]

Care to share some specific examples of inoperable Apple products? I'm curious.

Stick your rolling eyes. I am not in front of a computer right now. Go to the iMac section and search for the 2007/2008 iMac. The kexts for the graphics cards were screwed up for anything past 10.6.2. So iMac that were sold as top of the line, less than a year earlier, have a high percentage of failure when upgrading the OS past 10.6.2. The iMac becomes inoperable after a shirt period of use. The users who are stuck with this albatross can not go past 10.6.2.

If you go past 10.6.2, you get a constant spinning beachball for just about any task. It's software because the machines work fine with windows, and te machine goes back to normal operability after reverting to 10.6.2

So yes, apple has ignored serious software problems that clusters were/are having.

 

[ZBoater]

Stick your rolling eyes. I am not in front of a computer right now. Go to the iMac section and search for the 2007/2008 iMac. The kexts for the graphics cards were screwed up for anything past 10.6.2. So iMac that were sold as top of the line, less than a year earlier, have a high percentage of failure when upgrading the OS past 10.6.2. The iMac becomes inoperable after a shirt period of use. The users who are stuck with this albatross can not go past 10.6.2.

If you go past 10.6.2, you get a constant spinning beachball for just about any task. It's software because the machines work fine with windows, and te machine goes back to normal operability after reverting to 10.6.2

So yes, apple has ignored serious software problems that clusters were/are having.

How convenient. You mean the iMac that was released in 2007 with 10.4 and discontinued in 2009? That iMac? The one that was replaced in 2009 with a new version and new OS (10.6)?

Oh, right. How dare they.

 

[Count Blah]

How convenient. You mean the iMac that was released in 2007 with 10.4 and discontinued in 2009? That iMac? The one that was replaced in 2009 with a new version and new OS (10.6)?

Oh, right. How dare they.

Lol, your defense of apple knows no bounds. Yes the one that was still sold as the top of the line in 2008. The one where a significant number of customers could not upgrade their OS about a year later. The one where TONS of data had been given to apple for years and years, and has never been fixed. A machine that is listed as supported by 10.6.3+, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9 by apple, but will result with a spinning beachball upon update.

So a machine that was sold as new, was screws about a year later - inoperable!!!

Sorry to burst your bubble concerning the company you devote hours a day defending to the hilt.

Apple is a great company, but if they can ignore a problem, due to little/no impact to revenue, they will do such.

 

[ZBoater]

Lol, your defense of apple knows no bounds.

So a machine that was sold as new, was screws about a year later - inoperable!!!

Sorry to burst your bubble concerning the company you devote hours a day defending to the hilt.

And your use of hyperbole and exaggeration knows no bounds either. Sorry to disappoint, buy it takes a bit more than a rant to burst my bubble. Try harder.

 

[Count Blah]

And your use of hyperbole and exaggeration knows no bounds either. Sorry to disappoint, buy it takes a bit more than a rant to burst my bubble. Try harder.

So you are ignoring the fact that my point was correct. A top of the the line iMac is rendered inoperable in about a year,due to a software issue from apple, and they have never corrected it.

That is the issue you rolled your eyes about, as if it never existed. My parents iMac is stuck at 10.6.2, because any software update past that renders the machine inoperable.

 

[Yahooligan]

When is 1GB not 1GB?

When iOS uses memory compression. Surprised nobody mentioned this, iOS is using memory compression similar to Mavericks. Obviously more memory would be a good thing, but memory compression does help iOS 7 function as if it had more memory.

 

[ZBoater]

So you are ignoring the fact that my point was correct. A top of the the line iMac is rendered inoperable in about a year,due to a software issue from apple, and they have never corrected it.

That is the issue you rolled your eyes about, as if it never existed. My parents iMac is stuck at 10.6.2, because any software update past that renders the machine inoperable.

And how long after being replaced by a newer model do you expect Apple to continue supporting discontinued hardware?

No, I did not ignore you. I showed you how that iMac had already been discontinued by the time 10.6.4 was released. So if this is the best you can come up with as an example of Apple not supporting its customers, then you've made my point for me.

Thank you.

 

[screensaver400]

And how long after being replaced by a newer model do you expect Apple to continue supporting discontinued hardware?

No, I did not ignore you. I showed you how that iMac had already been discontinued by the time 10.6.4 was released. So if this is the best you can come up with as an example of Apple not supporting its customers, then you've made my point for me.

Thank you.

Those iMacs were officially supported after 10.6.2. But they shipped serious bugs in the software that affected those models, and failed to fix them, even though the software is officially supported.

If Apple wants to cut off official support for older hardware, fine. But don't allow people to upgrade to software with serious compatibility issues.

 

[v0lume4]

I guess I'm amongst the few who have no problems with my Air's RAM. Rarely does anything crash and Safari never has. Been playing a lot of Oceanhorn, too, which is pretty resource intense.

Oceanhorn is AMAZING!

 

[ZBoater]

Those iMacs were officially supported after 10.6.2. But they shipped serious bugs in the software that affected those models, and failed to fix them, even though the software is officially supported.

If Apple wants to cut off official support for older hardware, fine. But don't allow people to upgrade to software with serious compatibility issues.

I guess I misspoke.

So you are telling me that a 2008 iMac cannot be upgraded to the latest version of Snow Leopard?

https://discussions.apple.com/message/12626392#12626392

Apple says you can. Not only that, once on Snow Leopard, you can even upgrade to Mavericks.

http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/

That's pretty impressive that the support iMacs all the way back to 2007. So in looking at the Apple discussions, of course there are issues (isn't that what forums are for?) but there is a lot of people running 10.6.8, and even 10.9 (Mavericks) on their old iMacs. It may not run great, but it runs, certainly not "inoperable".

So even though they shipped the machine with 10.5

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP485

They are officially supporting it all the way up to 10.9. That's pretty impressive.

 

[cababah]

I honestly think it is hardware and not software-related. I checked with a memory app and opened a couple pages in safari (only running app) and could see that I was already using ~ 90% of total memory. Quite sad...


https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cmemory-for-ios7/id676608274?mt=8

 

[Beta Particle]

Crashes mean bugs in the apps or in the OS. Handling low memory conditions is a basic requirement of any OS.

On iOS apps do just crash when they're out of memory. iOS does not have a swap file.

 

[deeddawg]

On iOS apps do just crash when they're out of memory. iOS does not have a swap file.

Only if you're confusing "crash" with "terminated by iOS". Yes, a crashlog will be generated, but technically that's iOS doing what it's designed to do in killing the foreground app after (1) asking all apps to free up memory, then (2) terminating every other background app in an effort to free up memory before finally (3) terminating the foreground app. For a web browser to do that when no other apps seem to suffer the same trouble just doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't we see the problem even worse with some of the multi-GB games?

Correct that iOS doesn't have a swap file. That's why it has a different memory management style than a paging OS.

See https://developer.apple.com/library...tual/ManagingMemory/Articles/AboutMemory.html and https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/technotes/tn2151/_index.html

I have a handful of low memory logs on my rMini. Oddly only Safari seems to create them when other memory hungry apps have no issues. Same on my iphone5s; five low memory logs, seven Safari.

Even stranger, all but a couple show thousands of free pages and even a couple of them (rMini) show Free Pages of 29730 and 23703. At 4kb a page, that's 93MB and 116MB of free memory at the time of a LowMemory crashlog.

Also odd is the lack of complaints of Safari low memory crashes on mini1s and ipad2s. Shouldn't the situation be even worse? Even if apps truly use a full 30% more RAM on the 64bit platform (I'm not convinced the reality is that large a figure), we should still see more low memory issues on the 32 bit platform when there's half as much memory.

Certainly there's something going on, but I'm just not seeing the evidence to support any conclusion as to the root cause.

 

[MartinAppleGuy]

Is the 1GB of ram in the new iPads really the issue people here are making it out to be? Sorry to bring this up again but I searched the forums and couldn't find a definitive answer.

I'm planning on getting an iPad air (upgrading from a trusty iPad 2) but was wondering if the Air will hold me over another two years? I know its very speedy at the moment but 2 years down the line and with iOS 9 around, will it keep up without being severely limited by the 1GB of RAM? I personally don't mind tabs refreshing as I'm used to it on the iPad 2, plus the iPad isn't my daily driver so it won't affect my productivity in that sense. My other two options are to get the rMini but I'm not sure i'll like the smaller screen and I dont need the portability as I dont take it outside the house, or to wait till the iPad Air 2 comes out next fall with 1.5-2GB RAM, but that isn't much fun at all is it

Any clarification or advice is welcome!

Wait a year for 2Gb RAM; and get more than the year you waited extra out of it. Buying at the start of ram cycles is much better that at the end.

----------

Only if you're confusing "crash" with "terminated by iOS". Yes, a crashlog will be generated, but technically that's iOS doing what it's designed to do in killing the foreground app after (1) asking all apps to free up memory, then (2) terminating every other background app in an effort to free up memory before finally (3) terminating the foreground app. For a web browser to do that when no other apps seem to suffer the same trouble just doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't we see the problem even worse with some of the multi-GB games?

Correct that iOS doesn't have a swap file. That's why it has a different memory management style than a paging OS.

See https://developer.apple.com/library...tual/ManagingMemory/Articles/AboutMemory.html and https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/technotes/tn2151/_index.html

I have a handful of low memory logs on my rMini. Oddly only Safari seems to create them when other memory hungry apps have no issues. Same on my iphone5s; five low memory logs, seven Safari.

Even stranger, all but a couple show thousands of free pages and even a couple of them (rMini) show Free Pages of 29730 and 23703. At 4kb a page, that's 93MB and 116MB of free memory at the time of a LowMemory crashlog.

Also odd is the lack of complaints of Safari low memory crashes on mini1s and ipad2s. Shouldn't the situation be even worse? Even if apps truly use a full 30% more RAM on the 64bit platform (I'm not convinced the reality is that large a figure), we should still see more low memory issues on the 32 bit platform when there's half as much memory.

Certainly there's something going on, but I'm just not seeing the evidence to support any conclusion as to the root cause.

512 devices don't use transparency effects. And after you take the 30% off of the iPad Airs 999Mb of RAM; the Air is really acting as a 666Mb of ram 32bit device. So that is an extra 150Mb; but is having to deal with 4X the resolution (as system memory is used as VRAM), and all the extra affects not on older devices. So I would say that the iPad 2 is better off than the new air in terms of ram.

I see another" iPad 1" happening when the next is update bricks the device. iOS 7 is nothing like previous iOS releases and needs more ram. How can apple justify that 1Gb of ram was needed for ios5 with the iPad 3, and still 1Gb of ram on the new air with iOS 7.

 

[deeddawg]

having to deal with 4X the resolution (as system memory is used as VRAM), and all the extra affects not on older devices

I'm curious what amount of memory you think the extra pixels consume.

Also, why would Safari be the forerunner in showing up the theorized memory limitation?

Why not another app like a large game?

 

[ZBoater]

... And after you take the 30% off of the iPad Airs 999Mb of RAM; the Air is really acting as a 666Mb of ram 32bit device.....

And what about memory compression?

 

[MartinAppleGuy]

I'm curious what amount of memory you think the extra pixels consume.

Also, why would Safari be the forerunner in showing up the theorized memory limitation?

Why not another app like a large game?

Games don't take up all that much RAM. I found Real Racing 2 to use less ram that a tab or 2 in Safari depending on what web site you are on. Remember, now that Safari has an infinite amount of tabs as a limit, the ram can be maxed out by any user. Games on the other hand are designed to not use all system ram (as this leads to a force quit when there is only around 3Mb left in ram). This is what is happening to people and it is most apparent with Safari because it is really upto the user how many tabs are open, and indirectly how much ram they are using. It will only get worse with time when new versions of iOS come out. All the techniques like ram compression and battery saving that are in mavericks all in iOS 7, and lets he honest, iOS 8 is only going to consume more ram due to new features. It will take a few years before new techniques are thought of, and by that time the iPad Air will be out the picture.

As for the extra ram usage do to an increase in resolution, I'd say 50-70 would be a close number. This will vary on the task in hand, as again, multiple tabs in Safari have images that have to be rendered by the GPU, and kept in ram, which is acting as VRAM.

----------

And what about memory compression?

It certainly helps, but right now, with ram compression, people are having problems. So it would be even worse without it. Remember that the ram compression increase would vary directly with 512 devices, so aconting for it or not, the ratio of 512:666 will still be the same.

 

[ZBoater]

You are assuming Safari was coded to consume unlimited tabs and crash the system once it exhausted resources.

That is a very bad assumption.

 

[Count Blah]

I guess I misspoke.

So you are telling me that a 2008 iMac cannot be upgraded to the latest version of Snow Leopard?

https://discussions.apple.com/message/12626392#12626392

Apple says you can. Not only that, once on Snow Leopard, you can even upgrade to Mavericks.

http://www.apple.com/osx/how-to-upgrade/

That's pretty impressive that the support iMacs all the way back to 2007. So in looking at the Apple discussions, of course there are issues (isn't that what forums are for?) but there is a lot of people running 10.6.8, and even 10.9 (Mavericks) on their old iMacs. It may not run great, but it runs, certainly not "inoperable".

So even though they shipped the machine with 10.5

http://support.apple.com/kb/SP485

They are officially supporting it all the way up to 10.9. That's pretty impressive.

Here is the link to the local thread about this - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1262891/

It is not all iMacs, just a certain subset. Those users can not advance past 10.6.2, even though Apple claims the hardware is supported past that point. It's 100% software, since it works in Windows, and works if you downgrade the kexts back to 10.6.2

A software issue, that apple refuses to fix. No amount of bending over backwards to defend, and puff up Apple is going to change that fact. Supply links to Apple's "supported devices", "How to Upgrade", "Mavericks" all you like, these machines still are inoperable when upgrading past 10.6.2

Calling Apple impressive for stating they support the machine, when they are clearly ignoring a serious software issue that has been know for years, is insulting. Plugging your ears, singing "lalalalalala" and spouting off the same "Apple is great, they give us chocolate cake" mantra does not change the fact that they have left a generation of devices to die on the vine over a software fix that they refuse to address.

And that is why I brought this up to begin with, you are ALWAYS saying apple will fix all of the iOS7 problems with software updates - Here is one clear example where they have not. So it is NOT a given. If it does not impact revenue, they are just as likely to let the problems persist, and move those resources to the next revenue generator - Impacted users be damned.

 

[ZBoater]

...We know that you can't possible allow a single black mark on Apple. They are the perfect company, at least that is what you are constantly portraying in here.

Those are your words, not mine. What I portray here is some common sense. No tech company is perfect, as any internet forum will show. But that Apple supports a 6 year old system with their new OS is pretty impressive. It's a shame you are so intent on ignoring that.

No, not every system will work perfectly ever time. But if it works and is supported, there are a million reasons YOUR system may not work that have nothing to do with Apple. Accusing Apple of ignoring you is somewhat paranoid.

Apple has plenty of black marks, but there is no need to make up new ones. You need to relax and breath a little bit. Or not. Seems like the problem is yours, not Apple's.

 

[blackhand1001]

It's nonsense. Do you really think Apple would release a product that was seriously hampered by the amount of memory installed?

The Safari crashes are down to it being an early 64-bit version on iOS7. They'll shake the bugs out in future iOS updates and this whole memory thing will be forgotten about.

Yes. The ipad 1.

 

[007p]

You are assuming Safari was coded to consume unlimited tabs and crash the system once it exhausted resources.

That is a very bad assumption.

This.

The majority of things wrong with the RAM of the iPad air come down to one application. Safari. How about we stop basing everything off Safari and accept that the 64-bit version of it that's currently on iOS 7 has some major problems.