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Comment by suresk | Hacker News Reader

I find it slightly odd that Apple goes into a decent amount of technical detail on the processor in the iPad - calling out the number of registers and transistors - but still doesn't ever disclose how much RAM is in the thing. This is especially vexing, as my biggest complaint with my current iPad is that it doesn't have enough of it.

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They aren't trying to inform you of useful specs, they are trying to wow you and make you think this thing is new and revolutionary. If they don't mention the RAM, then they probably haven't upgraded it.

> If they don't mention the RAM, then they probably haven't upgraded it.

Apple have never mentioned the amount of RAM in any iOS device.

They have actually, I think at least a couple of times with the 3GS and then the 4, when they said they "doubled the memory". But not sure if they said exactly how much that was, but everyone knew how much they had before anyway, so it was easy to guess.

Thats also why the Ipad1 now crashes on almost every app now - just has 256 megs of ram.

My iPad 1 has been basically a brick for awhile.

The iPad 1 still runs a surprising number of modern apps. My son plays newish games like Angry Birds Star Wars 2 or Asphalt Heat 7 without crashes or minimal lag. Not bad for a 4 year old device with only 256 Megs of RAM.

I'm not sure what apps you're running, but I haven't had the same experience. If the app can be downloaded from the store and doesn't prevent you from opening it on older devices (ex: CSR Classic) it'll run just fine.

The browser on my iPad 1 crashes constantly now (running the newer OS). Are you running iOS5 or the OS it came with? Do you do much web browsing on it?

Me too and this is frustrating. With 64bit processor we would expect bigger ram since data grow it's size. 1GB seems too small and I fear I'll hit the memory size wall again too soon. May be the next iPad will have a bigger ram.

Good point. I haven't done much browsing on it in a while, it's mostly used for my son's apps. I'll need to play around with that a bit. It's running the OS 5.1.1.

I experience the same crashing issues. Usually with Safari.

It's ok though. It's a 4 year old device I've used literally every day since launch day. I'm pretty ok with how far its gotten me and am surprised it has survived given how much abuse I throw at it.

My wife's iPad 1 still works great, and I honestly can't remember the last time it crashed.

You must not have upgraded to ios 6. Otherwise even opening the app store, or loading theverge.com in safari cause reproducible crashes for me. Goodreader is the only app that still appears to work reliably - albeit much slower than it used to be.

The processor is Apple's own design and its performance is a distinguishing feature. RAM is commodity tech, and Apple will never pick a number that makes everyone happy. I agree that it'd be nice to get that number, but I can also see which one a marketer would rather feature.

ARM and Samsung probably get a little credit for the processor too.

No, Samsung shouldn't get a little credit here. Does Foxconn get credit for the Xbox 360?

The 5/5s have 1GB, I would expect the new iPads to come in at the same.

Though you're probably right, iPads have had 1GB of RAM since the iPad 3.

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