The iPad Pro 2021, the premium Apple tablet packed with the well-received, ultra-zippy M1 chip, is now in hot water as reports of display quirks and RAM limitations flood in.
This week, we reported about the new iPad Pro's Liquid Retina XDR display issue. Owners of the 12.9-inch iPad alleged that the tablet, equipped with mini-LED technology, suffers from a "blooming" effect. Now, the iPad Pro is in the spotlight for purported RAM capping (via TechRadar).
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iPad Pro 2021 reportedly has a RAM cap for apps
Procreate, an advanced painting mobile app, tweeted that all iPad Pro 2021 models — regardless of their memory configurations — supply the same amount of RAM to individual apps. In other words, it doesn't make a difference if you purchased a model with 16GB or 8GB of RAM, all apps are limited to a memory cap.
Procreate didn't divulge more details about the RAM limitations, but a commenter concurred with Procreate's statement, claiming individual apps are subjected to a 5GB RAM cap.
I’m curious about the technical reason for this. Does the OS impose a hard memory limit on individual processes right now? My wife got the 16 GB RAM iPad specifically so she could have the most layers possible in Procreate, so this is a little disappointing.May 28, 2021
Another theorized that Apple implements this limitation to thwart the development of RAM-hungry apps: "It might be because Apple doesn't want app developers to be wasteful with the RAM and make things slower," Twitter user artofdaria said.
"That's correct," Procreate replied. "As we mentioned, if we have access to more, you’ll have access to more too."
Some iPad Pro 2021 users are disappointed to hear about Apple's alleged RAM cap. One Twitter commenter expressed that his wife purchased the tablet with the most RAM so she could benefit from its multitasking prowess while using the advanced digital art app.
But as TechRadar pointed out, there are some perks with buying the 16GB RAM model over the 8GB one. Aside from more storage, the extra memory can be used to retrieve app data faster, and swapping between several apps will be more seamless. However, according to Procreate, whether you have a 16GB RAM iPad Pro or an 8GB one, you'll likely not experience any changes in RAM power on a single app.
We reached out to Apple for comment but did not hear back at the time of writing. We will update this article if and when more information arrives.
