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iPad Why is my iPad Pro M5 so bad at RAM management?

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BruiserBear

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
So I bought an iPad Pro M5 8 months ago, and I was excited that it had 12gb of RAM for background tasks and not having to reload apps and web pages so often.

Well, it turns out that the iPad Pro is absolutely terrible at managing it’s RAM usage, or it’s not even utilizing the full amount. It will reload apps and web pages sometimes when I’ve just gone over to another app and come back sometimes. I don’t understand what’s going on here, but I think I’ve seen people complain about this before.

Is this just a known thing with the iPad Pro?
 
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chrono1081 said:
I think too many confuse reloading webpages with bad ram usage. That's not the case at all. Reloading web pages is usually something a developer controls and same with apps when they enter the foreground and background.
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I’m mostly talking about apps. I’m in an app, go to the browser, check my email, go back to that original app, and it reloads. No way all 12 gigs of ram were used doing that stuff.
 
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BruiserBear said:
I’m mostly talking about apps. I’m in an app, go to the browser, check my email, go back to that original app, and it reloads. No way all 12 gigs of ram were used doing that stuff.
Click to expand...

Again though that is nothing to do with ram. A developer is the one that chooses if they're maintaining state when the app exits and enters the foreground. They have tools at their disposal to maintain everything you were doing before the app state changes.

EDIT: To expand a bit more. When I'm making an app and my app exists the foreground (like when you're switching apps), I store anything the user is doing in that "scene" and the app comes back into the foreground I repopulate all of that so you are right where you left off.

Lazy app devs (yes devs who don't do this ARE lazy) won't store the state of the app, so when the app comes back to the foreground the views are called again but they're refreshed as if the app is running for the first time again (which is sometimes what you want, sometimes not).

It's on the developer to manage the app lifecycle because when your application enters the foreground again the screens get redrawn. (This is overly simplifying it but you get the idea).
 
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I have an M5 iPad Pro 11 and have noticed this too. I think Safari is putting to sleep tabs I haven't used in awhile, which is fine. Apps are horrible at keeping their state if unused for just a little while.

I don't know, it's done this with every iPad I've ever owned. <shrug>. Wish it acted more like Mac OS.

While I'm not an expert, I agree with @chrono1081 .
 
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I prefer the aggressive RAM management of iOS/iPad OS. It kills apps/processes when low on RAM to maintain performance, rather than swap to the SSD which lowers performance, as well as abuse the ssd over time which should be used for fast read/write storage only imo.
 
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I have made comparisons on these forums in the past between 8GB, 12GB and 16GB RAM iPad with iPadOS 17, 18 and 26. And while all experience reloads, the worst by far are 8GB one, which reload all the time depending on the app you use. 12GB are much better, and 16 are somewhat better. But don't expect to have an experience similar to MacOS. iPadOS ejects stuff from RAM not just when RAM is low but also to reduce the impact on battery life (stuff in RAM uses more energy) and contrary to Android there is no user control on that. And there is no OS level swap contrary to what people believe. The swap feature intruduce with iPadOS 16 is a single app feature that allow RAM intensive app to request the use of more RAM than the amount that a regular app can already take, which is around 3/4 of physical RAM, up to the full physical RAM of the device using swap to make up for the part used by the OS.
Having said that, Apple does not provide an activity monitor and thrid party ones are totally unreliable (I have tested most of them), so there is no way to know exactly how the RAM management algorith works.
 
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Digitalguy said:
I have made comparisons on these forums in the past between 8GB, 12GB and 16GB RAM iPad with iPadOS 17, 18 and 26. And while all experience reloads, the worst by far are 8GB one, which reload all the time depending on the app you use. 12GB are much better, and 16 are somewhat better. But don't expect to have an experience similar to MacOS. iPadOS ejects stuff from RAM not just when RAM is low but also to reduce the impact on battery life (stuff in RAM uses more energy) and contrary to Android there is no user control on that. And there is no OS level swap contrary to what people believe. The swap feature intruduce with iPadOS 16 is a single app feature that allow RAM intensive app to request the use of more RAM than the amount that a regular app can already take, which is around 3/4 of physical RAM, up to the full physical RAM of the device using swap to make up for the part used by the OS.
Having said that, Apple does not provide an activity monitor and thrid party ones are totally unreliable (I have tested most of them), so there is no way to know exactly how the RAM management algorith works.
Click to expand...
iPadOS definitely ejects stuff from RAM more than macOS, but as another user said, some of it is due to the choice (or negligence) of the app developer. For instance, when looking at search results in the Gmail app and then exiting the app, it has had issues of immediately refreshing back to the inbox view, even if instantly switching back to the Gmail app. Whether Google considers that a feature or a bug, similar happens on other apps, which isn't by design of the OS itself.
 
With Apple and iPads and iPhones, doesn't really matter if you have 12GB RAM or 16GB. They are are really bad at keeping tabs open in the background and apps too. Just the way iOS works. Don't be fooled in buying more RAM, except for this new AI stuff, but no true multitasking yet.
 
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I don't have that issue at all. Are you playing graphic intensive games in between or using any other power hungry apps?
 
I’ve never noticed. I use iPad in single window mode. If an app dumps memory for a current app, I’d blame the current app not the resting app. But also the OS is making sure there is no lag on the window with focus and I’m fine with that.
 
BruiserBear said:
So I bought an iPad Pro M5 8 months ago, and I was excited that it had 12gb of RAM for background tasks and not having to reload apps and web pages so often.

Well, it turns out that the iPad Pro is absolutely terrible at managing it’s RAM usage, or it’s not even utilizing the full amount. It will reload apps and web pages sometimes when I’ve just gone over to another app and come back sometimes. I don’t understand what’s going on here, but I think I’ve seen people complain about this before.

Is this just a known thing with the iPad Pro?
Click to expand...
Try a different browser and see if behaviour is same
 
Beam Browser is specifically made for iPad. It is what Safari should be. You won't have the problem you are having if you use Beam.

www.beambrowser.app

Beam Browser for iPad

Sidebar-first design. Command bar. Spaces. Keyboard shortcuts. No subscriptions. Just power.
www.beambrowser.app www.beambrowser.app
 
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