The Apple iPad Review (2012)
by Vivek Gowri & Anand Lal Shimpi on March 28, 2012 3:14 PM ESTThe Impact of Larger Memory
Apple doubled memory capacity on the new iPad to 1GB, marking the first time in recent history that Apple's flagship product offers a similar amount of memory to the current crop of high-end Android devices. Apple's iOS can do a relatively good job with limited system memory as it will conservatively unload applications from memory in the event that it needs to free up more space. iOS does not support paging to flash, making DRAM size a hard limit for developers looking to really push the platform.
Apple has always been conservative on DRAM sizing because it's a great way of reducing the BOM (Bill of Materials) cost. If Apple can make up for having less DRAM by being more aggressive in software (read: kicking apps out of memory), it's a tradeoff that makes sense. It's really Apple's foray into gaming that has added pressure to increase memory sizes.
With the move to the Retina Display, the amount of memory needed to store a single frame increases by 4x—from 3MB to 12MB. Assuming two buffered frames you're looking at 24MB of RAM just to smoothly display what you're seeing on the screen.
The bigger problem isn't the frame buffer, but rather all of the other data you need (e.g. level data, textures, etc...). The higher the screen resolution, the more important it is to have higher quality assets in your game. Texture compression can go a long way, but at some point there's simply more data to deal with as game complexity increases. It's not just about the increase in resolution either. As GPU horsepower increases, so will the complexity of what game developers try to build.
While the frame buffer size increased thanks to the Retina Display, total system memory increased by a much larger amount. With 1GB of memory, game developers are now less constrained.
A more immediate benefit is apps and web pages will remain resident in memory longer as you open open up and switch to other apps. For example, on the iPad 2 if I open four tabs in Safari (AT, Engadget, Reddit, and Tech Report), open iPhoto, run Infinity Blade 2 and GTA 3, switching between the latter two will always require a full game reload (as in you see the intro and everything before you pick up where you left off). On the new iPad, with the same setup, I can switch between Infinity Blade 2 and GTA 3 and automatically resume where I last left off thanks to the extra DRAM. You can still create a scenario where even 1GB isn't enough, it's just that the limit is now higher than it was on the iPad 2.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
234 Comments
View All Comments
kwamayze - Friday, March 30, 2012 - link
WOW!!! What a nice review!!! Well donemichalkaznowski - Saturday, March 31, 2012 - link
Just to say as always a brilliant view. Your site is a must view for any enthusiast here in the UK. I also have appreciated your wireless router reviews of the Airport Extreme Base Station. Only you have pointed out that it has a quantum leap stability when compared to other makes of routers, something that a group of us have had to find out a very hard, frustrating and long way!Michal
x0rg - Saturday, March 31, 2012 - link
I have a suggestion. Instead of taking pictures you could take screenshots of these devices when you show how beautiful the screen is while working with Remote Desktop. Pictures taken with the camera look terrible and the whole concept of taking pictures instead of screenshots seems unprofessional for the portal like AnandTech. Things like focus, gamma, apperture are not affecting the picture quality when you just take a screenshot (Home+Power on iPad, you know that). Please replace these terrible pictures with screenshots. Thank you.slashbinslashbash - Sunday, April 1, 2012 - link
You missed the whole point of that part of the review. The point of the photos was to show that the text over Remote Desktop is actually readable in real-world use. A screenshot wouldn't convey that information.Imagine this. Say you took an iPhone 4 screenshot of the same scene in Remote Desktop, and you posted it on the site. This would be a 640x960 pixel image. Text would be readable on a desktop monitor, but it would probably not be readable on the actual 3.5" iPhone screen. That is the question, and it applies equally to the iPad3 review. A screenshot just shows you what pixels the iPad is showing; a photo shows you how those pixels look in real-life.
x0rg - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
I agree, my bad.TekFanChris - Sunday, April 1, 2012 - link
Thank you Anand and Vivek! You guys always take the iPad reviews to the next level. Comprehensive and complete.Cheers.
Death666Angel - Monday, April 2, 2012 - link
That kinda reminded me of the PS2 vs PC quality back in the days. :Djosemonmaliakal - Monday, April 2, 2012 - link
Hi Your article seems be so good . And i have got something about the upcoming iPhone 5 of Apple here @ http://wp.me/p2gN9B-lqWardawg - Thursday, April 5, 2012 - link
You forget the new iPad just came out 95% of the apps have not upgraded for the new retina display yet. So all of these comparisons are very inaccurate. It doesn't matter that the iPad has higher res and 3.1 million pixels if the app isn't upgraded for retina display it won't display as such you would expect. I expect you guys to make a new article soon fixing these concerns of mine with this article.Noobuser45 - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Anand, you're the only tech expert that I trust so I would love to have my mind put at ease with a definitive answer from you. Is it fine to charge the iPad whenever you want? Can I charge without running it down first? Can I charge for a while and unplug it before it has reached a full charge? Can I use it while it's charging? I just don't want to screw up the battery life.