For the vast, vast majority of apps and workflows — the vast majority of people — not only won’t a 5 GB RAM limit on iPad Pro apps ever be an honest-to-Jobs, actual, real-world type problem, but odds are you won’t even notice it. Much less be irked by it. At least if people didn’t publish first, research second… or never. Which irks me, obviously.
For some very specific apps, though, you absolutely will notice. iPad apps like Procreate that can benefit from more layers, which do indeed require more RAM.
It’s for those very specific types of iPad apps that Apple’s adding this very specific new entitlement. So they can check system resources, see how much extra memory is currently available, and then request and get more of that memory to use.
So, the iPad is fundamentally different from the Mac. We can tell by them having different names and all.. When the Mac comes under memory pressure, when too many apps are asking for too much RAM, more than what the system’s hardware can happily provide, macOS starts to page out to disk. Basically swapping bits back and forth, from RAM to SSD, as required.
iPadOS — iOS — has no such concept of swap. It is… swapless. Back in the day, it just consumed too much power, wore down too much storage, and didn’t provide the utterly instant experience Apple wanted for the iPhone and then the iPad.
So, instead, when the iPad comes under memory pressure, when you do something in the foreground app that asks for more RAM than what the system’s hardware can happily provide, iPadOS does a jetsam— just kicks, jettisons, yotes a background app or several — kills them just to watch them die… to free up memory for the foreground apps.
Now, the iPad nothing may only have 3GB of RAM and cost barely over 300 bucks, but the iPad Pro can go up to 8, even 16GB and starts at $800. So why not let it be all that it can be?
Well, they do. Kinda. Sorta. It’s less than ideal from a Mac point of view but it works for the iPad.
Because you can have multiple big apps in-memory and keep them instantly responsive, all at the same time.
So, like a rage-baity poster type person can have Safari with a few tabs ready to re-post and the socials or CMS open on the left, Procreate with a bunch of layers going on the right. This video running picture-in-picture without dropping a frame, and Messages in slide over so they can trash talk what I’m saying to any friends or fellow poster who also does’t happen to know or particularly care how the iPad actually works, because so damn lazy for clout-traps.
But I digress. With 8 or 16GB, you can also multitask through a bunch of different apps, even big cross-compiled games and data-heavy social networks, without having any of them relaunch, or any Safari tabs reload. Especially on the 16GB iPad Pro. Sometimes for days.
And for the vast, vast majority of apps and workflows — the vast majority of people — not only won’t a 5 GB limit ever be an honest-to-Jobs, actual, real-world type problem, but odds are you won’t even notice it. Much less be irked by it. At least if people didn’t publish first, research second… or never. Which irks me, obviously.
For some very specific apps, though, you absolutely will notice. Apps like Procreate that can benefit from more layers, which do indeed require more RAM.
It’s for those very specific types of apps that Apple’s adding this very specific new entitlement. So they can check system resources, see how much extra memory is currently available, and then request and get more of that memory to use.
And because someone who’s working on a mountain of layers in Procreate is probably focused entirely on Procreate, and not bouncing as much between other windows or apps, Apple’s going to let that foreground, focused app, just be super RAM thirsty, at least for as long as you stay focused on it.
But the app has to be able to handle it when and if you do decide to bounce and start doing something else, and that memory being taken away as fast as it was given, because iPadOS’ priority is still making everything you do feel instantly, utterly responsive.
So if you see a bunch of articles or tweets complaining about the RAM limit, just laugh and click out of them, because they only cared about the what so far as they could rage-bait you for monetization, not the why in order to provide you with value. But If you see articles or tweets explaining it, even if they hate it, even if they suggest different limits, or swapping jetsam… for swap, give them a read and some well-earned attention, because they did their damn job and gave you that value.