iPhone 6 buyers were slightly disappointed to learn that Apple’s newest smartphones only come with 1GB of RAM, but according to the Chinese site GeekBar, Apple is planning to beef up performance on the iPad Air by packing 2GB of RAM onto the new tablet.
The third-party Apple repair site posted a photo on Weibo of what it claims are the new 2GB RAM chips made by Japanese manufacturer, Elpida. Take a look at the chips below :
Previous rumors last month claimed the iPad Air would get a RAM upgrade, but until now there hasn’t been any hardware leaks to back it up. We can’t verify whether the chips are genuine iPad parts, but Geekbar had a solid track record of iPhone leaks leading up to last month’s announcement. They correctly leaked the new barometer sensor, and NFC chip.
Other iPad Air upgrades are expected to include a slightly thinner design with recessed volume buttons, 8MP camera, A8 processor, FaceTime HD camera, anti-reflective coating, Touch ID and Apple Pay. The new iPad lineup will be announced at a press event on October 16th, at Apple’s campus in Cupertino.
Source: Weibo
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
10 responses to “2GB RAM chips allegedly destined for iPad Air 2 leak online”
Why are power users so certain Apple should have more than 1GB of RAM on their iPhones? Wouldn’t Apple know best what’s necessary in this case? Why hobble a product with insufficient RAM if it was that necessary. Obviously Apple could afford to increase RAM memory as well as any other Android manufacturer if it were absolutely necessary. Haven’t benchmarks shown that IPhones perform just as well if not better than Android flagship smartphones with 2X or more RAM memory? It’s possible that iOS code is a lot more efficient than Android code and can function well with less RAM memory. Apple has all these engineers who can design A-series processors to be very efficient and the programmers who code iOS. Wouldn’t they know better than any power user what the device needs in terms of system RAM?
“Wouldn’t Apple know best what’s necessary in this case?”
And yet they still sell phones with 8GB of space when their oft ware updates require 5GB of free space. Fact is, half of my family members can’t install iOS 8 because they have 16GB phones and unless they completely wipe their phones, they can’t update.
Apple doesn’t always know best. They have lagged in RAM, especially for the price they charge. The original iPad had 256MB of RAM which is why it was only supported for 2 years of software updates. To put things in perspective, the iPad today has only twice the RAM it had in 2011. People don’t upgrade and replace their iPads as often as their phones and RAM has a lot to do with the continued viability of a product through future OSes.
There is a big difference between what you think is right and what people at Apple do. As a seller you have to make sure people will be buying new products and putting double will delay the upgrade big time. I thought it was obvious to anyone. Bottom of the line is – although in your opinion the don’t always know best – yet they keep making a lot of money ;)
“As a seller you have to make sure people will be buying new products”
Do you think under powering them for planned obsolescence is something that makes you want to rebuy? No. I don’t know why Apple only put 1 GB of RAM in their devices for so long, but it is definitely a big flaw and it doesn’t make me want to recommend them *more*. I see the impacts of that lack of RAM their products I have owned like the iPad 1/2, but it shows even more in their phones as time goes on.
“I see the impacts of that lack of RAM their products I have owned like the iPad 1/2, but it shows even more in their phones as time goes on.” This is a really interesting observation. I’m guessing you ran some diagnostics and found that the OS reached the point where it was swapping to flash memory. Considering the memory compression, you’d probably have to push past 2GB before you hit this point.
Don’t you love it when people comment on matters they don’t understand.
Just because Android needs to perform Just in Time compilation, which requires a boatload of memory, people believe that iOS has the same requirements.
There is nothing unique about iOS that would free it from basic computational reality.
Apple has increased the memory footprint of iOS since their devices started sporting 1GB of RAM. More features running at one time plus the larger framebuffer, especially in the 6+, means less memory for tabs and applications.
Apple’s SW/HW integration helps them to some extent, but planned obsolescence is what it is. There’s nothing stopping them from having 2GB RAM in their phones with practically the same battery life.
My point is not that Apple shouldn’t increase the RAM, but rather a reply to the previous commenter who seemed to be pretty certain that his performance issues is a direct result of memory limitation. Even if that is the case, which it isn’t, then it should be based on facts. All that’s being done here is a couple people making false assumptions.
Just so you know, you can install iOS 8 on space-strapped phones. You just have to plug it into a PC/Mac running iTunes, and update it through there. It doesn’t take up the space that it does doing an over the air upgrade.
If they don’t have that much space, and have an 8GB phone they have to back up their phone, restore it and wipe it to install the OS.
That is, believe it or not, too technical for a lot of people. My mother in law has an old PC she doesn’t use for almost anything anymore and I spent 2 hours with iTunes for windows trying to upgrade her and I was unable to get it to work.
Aw shucks, you couldn’t upgrade your mother-in-law. Guess what buddy, none of us can. What are you trying to break the laws of physics or something?