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Ipad air low memory crash

I came to this forum to see if other ipad air owners are experiencing same problem with low memory crashing as I do but seems like I'm one of the few people have this. So far I have 10 low memory crash reports. I also have about 30 more crash reports but it's from various apps. I got my ipad air on the launch day, second in line, here in California. Maybe I just have a defective one, I don't know. If you have same issues, please reply so I can determine if I should return it or just live with it. Closing apps every day is a hassle. I wish Apple just put in extra gig of ram. Overall, I am extremely happy with my ipad. There are so many good this things to mention about this ipad but this is wrong thread to do that.

iOS 7.0.3

Posted on Nov 6, 2013 10:09 AM

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1,757 replies

Dec 1, 2013 8:02 AM in response to MetalHeadzz

I first experienced at least 4 crashes a day on my original iPad mini right after updating to 7.0.4. Prior to upgrading I had no issue with 7.0.3. I did all the normal stuff of backing up and restoring, re-downloading the 7.0.4 from iTunes and updating's with the setting up as a new iPad but nothing helped.


I was just outside of my one year warranty by 18 days. They did the same stuff that I did downloading 7.0.4 through a laptop and I ended up going back the next day because the crashes were still happening. Not so much application crashes as the whole device would reset back to the Apple splash screen.


The Apple Store was nice enough to replace the unit anyway. We upgraded the replacement device to 7.0.4 in the store before I left. Although it happens a lot less frequently the device still has had a few crashes not as bad as before.


My iPhone 5s has also seen some application crashes and device reboots but again not at the frequency of my original iPad mini (before being replaced).


Hardware problem or software problem, what the heck do I know. I will say on 7.0.3 my devices did not do this at the frequency that I would notice.


I remember reading an article on Engadget that 7.1 was already in the developer chain. Can't say I recall a major update being announced so soon after an incremental one. Enhanced to a software issue for me.


I am holding off updating the wife's devices until 7.1 is released

Dec 1, 2013 10:10 AM in response to Yellowtail714

Well, I tried the mac webpage on our ipad4 still running ios6. It crashed on a low memory error. However, it managed to load the page successfully and crashed when I scrolled down. I noticed that it managed the initial page load by not fully loading a couple of the pictures.

So, ios6 memory management appears to be more mature, but eventually the 1gb limit on the ipad4 is also a limitation. I also noticed that there were a number of other crashes listed on the ipad4/ios6. Perhaps we weren't so inclined to single out the OS or the hardware before this, and overlooked the flaky apps and webpages not fully tuned for mobile devices.

Bottom line, z, going back to your ipad4/ios6 is not gonna save you from crashing. But Ios6 probably does a better job avoiding or trapping these issues and recovering smoothly than ios7 at this point.

Dec 1, 2013 11:41 AM in response to HEGOM

I don't use dynamic wallpaper, so I don't think that is it. When I got my new iPad 4 a couple days ago, instead of doing a restore from icloud or iTunes, I set it up as a new iPad, then hard wire from iTunes/PC installed most of my apps one by one. Some one described this as a temporary fix for the Air's problem. I have had a couple crashes to desktop, including the magic Mac page. I don't ever remember my other iPad 4 crashing, even when I had 25 tabs open. It would just do the page reload thing that the Air does (when it doesn't crash).


So I think by a fluke I may have gotten a buggy new iPad 4.


I know that flaky memory can cause any computer to crash. So right now the power users of the iPad Air and those with flaky memory are feeling it first.


I had the iPad Air from day one. It crashed with each version of IOS7. So I am highly skeptical that another update will completely fix it. It may not crash with a new update, but there will be some kind of a performance issue, because 1 GB RAM in 2014 just ain't gonna cut it, especially with a 64 bit CPU.

Dec 1, 2013 12:05 PM in response to davidboughton

My iPad 4 loaded that magic map page without crashing as well, until I scrolled down. I agree David, I can expect to have some light issues with this iPad, being a power user, because I firmly believe 1 GB RAM is insufficient. I can tolerate the light problems with iPad 4 IOS6 until a new more powerful (and hopefully larger screen) iPad comes out. I am not switching to Android or Windows Surface Or Kindle just yet.


I was prepared to go with the Playbook with BB10 because the QNX kernel is designed better (highly efficient with resources) than most OS's out there, but Blackberry's CEO, genius that he is, reneged on his promise to port BB10 to the Playbook. He even went so far as to state he doesn't believe the tablet market has a future. Anyone with that perspective should not be CEO of a corporation that competes with Apple, Android and Microsoft.


Apple has/had a reasonably efficient OS up until IOS7. Regardless of that- I don't care how efficient your OS is, RAM is the bottleneck; it is so cheap now that it shouldn't be an issue, but it is. Apple needs to get on the ball, and soon, or I am jumping ship. I was amazed they didn't included the fingerprint gizmo on the Air, but not surprised at all now that I see they skimped hard on the memory. I also think it is long past time to start the entry level devices at 32 GB or higher. Crap, I can buy a 16 GB USB stick for less than $10....what the ****.

Dec 1, 2013 1:27 PM in response to markmc78

That's exactly what some people here need to understand...


It's a memory leak, affecting only some apps, Safari in particular.

Memory is allocated and never reallocated elsewhere, causing IOS 7 to shutdown the affected process.

Webpages with a lot of contents are to avoid in this case.


If 1 gig was not enough for the ipad air, a lot of crashs would occur in other apps,

in high def games particulary since these kinds of game need a lot of memory...

Dec 1, 2013 4:10 PM in response to MetalHeadzz

My new ipad Air had an iTunes app crashing problem. Diagnostics in Settings showed low memory errors with the crash. I returned it for a replacement iPad air yet the same problem exists. iTunes app crashes when I try to preview movies while holding the iPad in landscape (horizontal) position. Low memory errors related to the crashes with iTunes show in Diagnostics in Settings. But if I close the iTunes app and hold the iPad in the portrait (vertical) position and tap iTunes, then I can preview movies in iTunes without any low memory crashes. I reported this to a senior advisor at Apple on Friday Nov 29th. They have assigned a senior engineer to investigate it. They said to wait 3 business days.


I encourage everyone to call Apple and report this problem. That's the only way Apple can fix it.

Dec 1, 2013 4:26 PM in response to markmc78

The iPad Air has a quad core GPU with 64 bit memory interface, so it can render the games much faster than the prior generation. This also means that the device, due to its faster graphic rendering ability, needs less RAM to cache the data in. Kind of like using a smaller funnel with a larger hole- the fluid doesn't back up because it flows faster with less restriction(32 bit memory width being more restrictive than 64 bit memory width).

Dec 1, 2013 4:31 PM in response to markmc78

To complete the answer, the web page isn't rendered and discarded like the graphics in a video game. The video game is constantly morphing, the old frames and data are immediately dumped from memory. A large web page with embedded graphics, video, text and more must all be stored in RAM until you close the page. This is why the Air is reloading tabs(when it doesn't crash) because it simply doesn't have enough RAM to hold all the data.

Dec 2, 2013 6:07 AM in response to Yellowtail714

In a moment of high irony, Safari on my iPad Air just crashed three times in a row while trying to load this page: http://9to5mac.com/2013/11/08/a-week-with-the-ipad-air-in-three-words-believe-th e-hype/


This was also very shortly after a reset.


For over two years now I was looking forward to the device we now know as the iPad Air. But the buggy iOS 7 has turned my excitement into frustration, disappointment, and--considering I gave Apple a thousand hard-earned bucks for the device--anger.


APPLE, PLEASE FIX THIS NOW!

Dec 2, 2013 6:29 AM in response to Tulkinghorn

I have a free app called MemoryInfo. It shows the amount of free available RAM when it first opens, and then frees up more. I have often seen my free RAM as low as 20mb after a "stall" or "crash". Within seconds it shows as much as 580mb free, and I can run whatever had just crashed. This indicates to me (fingers crossed) that our problem can be fixed with a software update. IOS is not properly releasing memory from previously run apps. Try it, you'll see.

Ipad air low memory crash

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