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Why Still Only 1GB of RAM on the iPhone 6?

M

macUser2007

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 30, 2007
1,506
204
With the move to 64bit, why are the new iPhone 6 models still with only 1GB of RAM on board?

Is this just squeezing every penny out to maintain profits, customers be damned? Or planned obsolescence, like in "And today we introduce the iPhone 6S, with the great new feature being 2GB of RAM, so iOS9 runs so much better on it!"

See this article from Tom's Hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-iphone-ios-ram-memory,27476.html

QUOTE:
On the other hand, 64-bit iOS apps on the iPhone 5S have increased their RAM usage from the longer memory addresses by 20 to 30 percent. The 64-bit apps are typically more memory-bloated on all operating systems, so this isn't a major surprise, but this is a problem that will only get worse for iOS users who have 1 GB of RAM. As iOS becomes a more mature operating system that can support multiple apps and extensions running at the same time, devices with 1 GB of RAM will soon find themselves bottlenecked by the low amount of memory.
Click to expand...
 
A few reasons:
- Profits (heaven forbid you cost your company a couple more $$$ per device!)
- Planned obsolescence (once the next few iOS updates come out and require 2gb of RAM to run smoothly, most will be compelled to upgrade from your now laggy iPhone 6)

Basically this GIF can describe it best, just imagine it's Tim Cook below ;)

2ccfbe5f_moneyvl.gif
 
Last edited:
I don't understand why people care about the ram. Unlike the Android skins (Samsung TouchWiz and HTC Sense) which not using 3 GB they lag. My iPhone 5 runs smooth on iOS 8. Apple doesnt have the ram demand.
 
Big Dawg 23 said:
I don't understand why people care about the ram. Unlike the Android skins (Samsung TouchWiz and HTC Sense) which not using 3 GB they lag. My iPhone 5 runs smooth on iOS 8. Apple doesnt have the ram demand.
Click to expand...
You've never had safari or another app have to reload when you were multitasking I take it. This happens quite often for me. That's lack of RAM.
 
Safari is probably a software issue not ram. I'm sure the iPhone 8 will have more ram haha. Apple can make iOS 9.0 run on 1gb of ram again. Trust me.
 
Apple has never advertised how much RAM is in iDevices so I think it is mostly that they felt it was what was needed for the phone, and probably had nothing to do with them planning to start advertising how much RAM is in the 6S next year.
 
Big Dawg 23 said:
I don't understand why people care about the ram. Unlike the Android skins (Samsung TouchWiz and HTC Sense) which not using 3 GB they lag. My iPhone 5 runs smooth on iOS 8. Apple doesnt have the ram demand.
Click to expand...

Yes it does
 
Big Dawg 23 said:
I don't understand why people care about the ram. Unlike the Android skins (Samsung TouchWiz and HTC Sense) which not using 3 GB they lag. My iPhone 5 runs smooth on iOS 8. Apple doesnt have the ram demand.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you should read the article posted, which discusses Apple's (pioneering) move to 64bit and the increased overhead resulting from this. We also have multitasking now....

I understand cost-cutting, but the 64gb iPhone 6 Plus I just ordered is almost $1000 by the time you pay taxes, so skimping on a part which costs a few cents more may come back to bite Apple. I would be certainly p!s$ed if next year I couldn't have my flashlight on while I am on the phone, because there is not enough RAM to keep both running at the same time.

Also, it's good to keep up with what the competition is doing (from the Tom's Hardware article):

With the release of Android KitKat last year, Android received significant RAM utilization and management improvements to the point where KitKat can now operate smoothly even on devices with only 512 MB of RAM. With the new Android L version, things should improve even more for RAM usage thanks to the switch to ART and compressed memory addresses for 64-bit Android apps.
...
We've already seen Android devices with 3 GB of RAM, and with 64-bit ARMv8 chips arriving on the market soon for Android devices, we will begin to see handsets with 4 GB of RAM as we go into the next year. Apple's iOS devices will once again remain behind in the amount of RAM they support, but 2 GB should easily last for another two generations before Apple moves to 4 GB. The move to 2 GB of RAM would definitely be a major improvement for iOS devices.
Click to expand...
 
Big Dawg 23 said:
I don't understand why people care about the ram. Unlike the Android skins (Samsung TouchWiz and HTC Sense) which not using 3 GB they lag. My iPhone 5 runs smooth on iOS 8. Apple doesnt have the ram demand.
Click to expand...

I know things run great, but despite that I really hope the iPhones next year have more RAM. I think even the upcoming iPads should have more RAM.
 
mrkramer said:
Apple has never advertised how much RAM is in iDevices so I think it is mostly that they felt it was what was needed for the phone, and probably had nothing to do with them planning to start advertising how much RAM is in the 6S next year.
Click to expand...

RAM is advertised indirectly when they say twice as fast or loads quicker.
 
QuarterSwede said:
You've never had safari or another app have to reload when you were multitasking I take it. This happens quite often for me. That's lack of RAM.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's by design. Because of the way memory management is handled in Safari, the browser will reload inactive tabs in part to make any links, interactive elements, etc. are usable. Safari would do the same thing in 2GB of RAM as well because that's one of the ways Apple can continue to use 1GB of RAM when some Android phones bog down with twice that amount.
 
 
Browser reloading is not a feature, it is an issue!
I'm sick and tired of logged in websites having to reload just because I had to do a few other things before getting back to it!
Never seen it happen on any Android handset with 2gb or more RAM!

----------
ZBoater said:
No, he would have said that you are holding it wrong.
Click to expand...

Lol or probably that multitasking is a delusional concept!
 
Tubamajuba said:
...Could have kept going, but you get the point. And those aren't including the threads that moderators closed for being duplicates of news articles.
Click to expand...

Thanks. But silly me, I thought this Tom's Hardware article had some valuable insights....

And yes, browser reloading is not a "feature," it's a work around a real-world problem, which may just get worse as more 64bit apps come along.
 
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