Software is more logic and procedural thinking than it is math. 
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It’s only 0.5GB more than previous models, if you say that’s substantial.
Thanks so much, webwalrus!
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Bingo. Math is my worst subject but the little bit of coding that I’ve done it centers more around the concepts than raw numbers.
I saw the kids strong in math pick up the Algorithms a bit better but everyone got it eventually.
I’ve given up on wanting to code full time but I certainly want to be good enough to do stuff like my own web dev and scripting stuff.
More on topic this is where I align with computer science. The idea is that you use resources efficiently. Every newbie probably has similar experiences where you write 20 lines of code …you’re proud because it works and your Teacher comes up and then delivers the same functionality in say 5 lines of code.
I like the limits on compute resources imposed by Apple because it benefits efficient coding.
Programming can be treated as part of mathematics on a fundamental level. After all “advanced” maths is all about logic and abstraction. But that’s probably not the kind of school maths you have in mind.
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Ah, I see. I was looking at the 11" numbers for some reason. On the 11" I think it’s a very substantial bump. Not so much on the 12.9.
Yup - I see the two as heavily related too.
The people that say “I can’t do math” though, in my experience, are usually talking about exactly what you said - “school math”. Not being able to add huge numbers in their head, and being challenged by the weird stuff when high school math got into advanced algebra / calculus.
I haven’t met too many people who don’t understand enough math to “get” basic programming - although I’ve met some people who were logically challenged enough that they couldn’t handle it. 
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But Math does not lock up the market on logic.
I studied with Kaplan for the LSAT (which I never did take). The entire course was logic which I certainly didn’t have any formal background in. And I’m so glad I did take the course. The vast majority of the exam is not based on any math.
Then there was the Logic Games’s. Yikes. So I hired a tutor. Those games could readily induce a killer migraine.
At any rate, after a few sessions I looked at my tutor and asked “This is Algebra, isn’t it??”
A math major, he laughed and said “I guess all of these problems could be reduced to algebraic equations!”
“Ah, no wonder!”
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If you want to see if coding is for you, Swift Playgrounds on iPad is a great way to start (and it approaches Swift, which is the language of the future - and now present - for Apple devices).
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Agree with this 100%. It actually has you writing code to accomplish a task you can see happening on your screen, so you get good visual feedback. And it will let you write absolutely ridiculous code if you want - it doesn’t insist that you get the “correct” answer.
And honestly, even if you don’t want to program Apple devices, the logical requirements of most programming languages (C/C++, PHP, JavaScript, Swift, Java, Python, etc.) are largely identical - it’s just learning the individual language syntax.
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I think this is the statement that sums it up! I don’t like the concept because the iPad can do so much more but this is definitely reality.
I have griped about this a lot on other outlets, primarily YouTube, and will mirror it here. The story I see is that a few years ago, Apple let the Mac fall by the wayside and people got pissed. Apple at the time, was all in on iOS and iPadOS was becoming a thing. Even Apple TV got back to back year hardware updates for the first time ever. It’s hard to argue that some of the biggest turds in the many years of the Mac lineup came between 2016-early 2019 (butterfly keyboards, constant fan usage and throttling because of poor thermals, Flex-gate, etc.). All of a sudden the Mac needs to be revitalized but you can’t take anything away from the company’s bread and butter: the iPhone. So instead, the iPad (and maybe the Apple TV) have to take the backseat. Only this year Apple thinks it has a win for the iPad: The M1 chip which the Mac made famous but has its roots in the iPad. So hardware, no problem. Software is the problem. iPad only got a bandaid in terms of new software features compared to the iPhone last year. Now once again this year Apple doesn’t have the software engineering resources to do much more than catch the iPad up to the iPhone for the most part. At the end of the day, if that’s the way Apple needs to play it then that’s the way they need to play it. But, don’t make such a big deal about the hardware in April and not be able to follow up with the software in June. That’s just a pit of false hope for a lot of people. I know they never promised us anything concrete with the software but you can never tell me they weren’t baiting us to part with our money and implying things to come that never came. Even if it is just the few of us who plunked some money down on a “Pro” machine. I know many will disagree with me but it is hard to deny when I look back at the ending slides of each OS during WWDC and next to TVOS, iPadOS has the least amount to show for it.
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I think it would help if Apple outlined what 16GB is for.
(I’m typing this on a 1TB 2021 12.9" iPad Pro so obviously I have some faith the 16GB memory will be worthwhile. Perhaps the word “eventually” should be in that last sentence.)
I have been reading this whole thread from day one when it started. I have felt the itch to reply, but I never did it… I do not consider iPadOS 15 as another letdown, but still - the WWDC keynote helped me to realize that Apple has something else in mind for its iPad line than I apparently have. That is why I finally ordered a Macbook Air M1 16 GB and I love it. More on that here (if somebody is interested):
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As-is, can it be used for anything? If a given app is limited to about 5 GB, slide-over could give you maybe two of those apps running simultaneously. So maybe 10 GB at a time. I’m presuming the rest of the 16 GB could at least be used as cache to avoid the iPad having to swap a bunch of RAM out to SSD, although on the M1 I’m not sure how much more efficient that’s going to make things.
iPadOS does not have any sort of swap file. That’s why iOS/iPadOS is so strict about killing apps use too much memory.
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I know it’s not anything conventional, but I thought it had something for maintaining state. Do the apps basically write relevant settings out to the SSD when they’re running, so they can resume after being terminated?
Something like that. Because iOS can kill you at any time (due to RAM usage, battery usage, etc.) programmers have to write their code defensively, saving anything important.
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Thank you! I believe I have it installed on at least one of my iPads. At any rate, I think it’s free. Great place to start!
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iOS 15 beta 2 introduced this com.apple.developer.kernel.increased-memory-limit.
Edit: It seems to exist even on ios 14. But it was never open to use nor documented until now. It was probably a private entitlement before.
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