What you need to know
- A new upgrade to Apple's iPhone and iPad software will bring big performance updates to some apps.
- Developers can now request access to more RAM on certain devices.
- It could mean more powerful apps can unlock the full potential of devices like the M1 iPad Pro with 16GB of RAM.
A new tool for developers in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 could seriously boost the improvement of some apps.
A new developer tool noted by MacRumors will let developers request access to more RAM on iPhone and iPad. Currently, apps are limited by Apple, on the iPad apps can only use 5GB of RAM, despite the fact Apple's M1 iPad Pro comes with as much as 16GB of RAM. Apple states:
Add this entitlement to your app to inform the system that some of your app's core features may perform better by exceeding the default app memory limit on supported devices. If you use this entitlement, make sure your app still behaves correctly if additional memory isn't available.An increased memory limit is only available on some device models. Call the os_proc_available_memory function to determine the amount of memory available. Higher memory use can affect system performance.
It seems from the description that apps might have access to differing amounts of RAM depending on the device at play, and developers can use the above function to find out how much is available on any given device.
In May we reported how apps across iPadOS 15 are limited to 5GB of RAM, leading to much speculation that Apple would eventually unlock more RAM for apps on iPad, as this latest beta feature now confirms.
Apple released beta 2 of iPadOS 15 to developers Thursday, you can find out how to install iPadOS 15 developer beta 2 on your iPad here.
