A8 Chip From 4.7-Inch iPhone 6 Appears to Carry 1 GB of RAM

[stuffradio]

1 GB uses more power when the OS has to use a cellular antenna to redownload web pages and app data incessantly, on top of being very inconvenient. If you want to talk about wasted battery, look at that issue, or perhaps silly things like parallax that consume battery and serve no purpose.



Nobody cares about specs until the user experience suffers. That's exactly the point. iOS and its apps would have room to improve if it had more RAM. A higher resolution, 64-bit iPhone 6 would have far less usable memory than an iPhone 5 from 2 years ago.

It's simply not acceptable for a premium-dollar device.

Also interesting that specs such as thinness are marveled as something to behold at Apple, yet can make the device less comfortable, less space for a more extended battery, etc. Or specs such as how responsive the screen is compared with the competition, and then they introduce massive animation delays that cause gaps in touch response.

Wouldn't having 2 GB of RAM allow more storage in the RAM, which would mean less polling by the OS which = more battery life?

 

[mdelvecchio]

Because it doesn't run flawlessly and it has needed 2GBs since the A7 came out. First of all, whenever you have to run a 32 bit app, iOS loads 32 bit AND 64 bit binaries, making it more memory constrained than the iPhone 5 or 4s with an A6 or A5. This isn't true in terms of bandwidth, bandwidth is good.
Over time you realize the apps you use are constantly closing, you may be doing something in an app and then switch to another to check something, come back and realize everything you wrote is gone and the app is reloading. It's infuriating sometimes, especially when using something in safari, like to respond to a macrumors post. That time we have to wait for our 3rd or 4th last-used-app is annoying. Facebook and safari almost always have to be reloaded on my ipad Air. I'm limited to multitasking with 2-4 apps. That's hardly multitasking.
Second, most of my crashes in the diagnostics report are for low memory, especially in safari.

you're talking about an iPad, not iPhone.

 

[kerrikins]

you're talking about an iPad, not iPhone.

I get the app reloading issue frequently on my iPhone 5S, particularly with Alien Blue. It's a bit annoying, so if more RAM would fix it then I'm all for it and think it's what Apple should do.

 

[dvoros]

1 Gig of memory

This news really sucks big time.

 

[horsebattery]

I hate to say it but the reloading tabs has nothing to do with ram - It is simply bad code by apple in mobile safari... The pages could easily be cached on the ssd but they aren't...

What in the world are you talking about here? iOS doesn't implement swap files so that isn't something that can be done. NAND storage is a couple of magnitudes slower than RAM is - among other reasons why caching is not done at that level.

 

[ee4life]

Look at the A7 silkscreen that we are comparing to. It is also a Hynix part number. So, unless that really is a B and not an 8, or the code differences indicate more density and an actual 128 bit interface, we are looking at 1 GB of RAM.

Sorry, can't find an image of an A7 with Hynix RAM (only Elpida). Can you please post a link?

At least with Elpida, the part's name (F8164) indicates the bus width as 64-bit. I assume Hynix does the same. The reason it isn't found on the site is they only show 32x products and this is a 64x 1GB part.

 

[apfelmann]

One more reason to go for the 5.5" model ... Hoping this one gets 2GB RAM

 

[apolloa]

You can read my post (it is above yours) to see what I think about the subject, but you CAN'T use phone arena as a a credible source. NEVER.

Real professional and objective websites show that the guy that you are answering to is wrong, but they also show that on tasks when the screen is ON, the iPhone is (below) but close to most of those devices, and ahead of a few.

For example, all things being equal (same nits, GPS on or off on both, etc) the iPhone has similar battery life to the Note 3 on WIFI web browsing. Ars technica confirms this too.

Proof

You claim Phone Arena isn't a credible source, and then quote anandtech hahahahahaha hahahahahaha that's an utter classic hahahahahaha

Anandtech is a well known biased Apple site, I love it when ever people quote from them. You may as we'll post an article from Mac Rumors and proclaim it's totally unbiased

 

[horsebattery]

You claim Phone Arena isn't a credible source, and then quote anandtech hahahahahaha hahahahahaha that's an utter classic hahahahahaha

Anandtech is a well known biased Apple site, I love it when ever people quote from them. You may as we'll post an article from Mac Rumors and proclaim it's totally unbiased

While the creator of Anandtech is admittedly partial to apple gadgets, their coverage is considered among the most in depth these days - just as how Siracusa of ArsTechnica is also one of the best sources for ios/osx coverage.

 

[recoil80]

Also Hynix spec sheet says RAM amount is two characters, positions 8 and 9.
8G for 1GB
BK for 2GB

The char after the 8/B is clearly not a G. In fact, looks a lot, like the character in position 4.

Is really hard to read the characters.
These are the models with 1GB of ram

H9CKNNN8GTMPLR
H9CCNNN8KTALBR
H9CCNNN8JTALAR
and I'm not sure one of these part no is on the picture, so maybe we are talking about 2GB here

 

[Casiotone]

Not sure what you guys do but I currently have 8 tabs open on my iPad 3 (512MB of ram) and can switch between them without any reloading.

I suspect that a lot of reloads people are experiencing happen due to a Webkit crash instead of lack of ram.

In iOS 7, Safari doesn't distinguish between the two scenarios, but iOS 8 will show you a message "This page was reloaded because of a problem" when a page crash happens.

I think that the 64-bit version of Webkit/Safari is buggier than the 32-bit version, causing more page crash reloads on the iPad air.

Of course we would all benefit from getting more ram, but I'm not sure the page reloads in Safari can all be attributed to lack of ram, hopefully iOS8 will get better at avoiding page crash reloadings.

 

[TommyA6]

You claim Phone Arena isn't a credible source, and then quote anandtech hahahahahaha hahahahahaha that's an utter classic hahahahahaha

Anandtech is a well known biased Apple site, I love it when ever people quote from them. You may as we'll post an article from Mac Rumors and proclaim it's totally unbiased

At least Anandtech goes into great details explaining everything. On Phone Arena the literally just ... "This phone has a 12 mpx camera, the other one has an 8 mpx one. 12 mpx wins... NEXT"

 

[pedromcm.pm]

You claim Phone Arena isn't a credible source, and then quote anandtech hahahahahaha hahahahahaha that's an utter classic hahahahahaha

Anandtech is a well known biased Apple site, I love it when ever people quote from them. You may as we'll post an article from Mac Rumors and proclaim it's totally unbiased

Anand himself, as any decent and knowledgeable human that follows the tech industry since 98, has some admiration for Apple, obviously.

And? They are very open about their approaches. Anandtech is the website where all meaningful benchmarks and data come from. Their credibility depends on it.

Phone arena is more of an website for people like you and the other one that was talking about their OnePlus One's specs. You know, people without an once of formation about the matter. You guys game, and see yourselves as "tech geeks". Phone arena is totally for you.

Anandtech isn't. Its a very objective website, just like Ars Technica.

 

[jmantn]

Is really hard to read the characters.
These are the models with 1GB of ram

H9CKNNN8GTMPLR
H9CCNNN8KTALBR
H9CCNNN8JTALAR
and I'm not sure one of these part no is on the picture, so maybe we are talking about 2GB here

Agreed, along with post 368 & 447 it seems a lot of people freaked out without actually understanding the full picture.

 

[pedromcm.pm]

What crashes? My iPhone4 has only 0,5GB and I have no such crashes...

It's different. iOS on the 5s uses more ram (more features, heavy animations, 64 bit) so while the poster was exaggerating, he has a point.

Maybe he uses way more apps than you, too.

Really, there's no excuse for Apple.

 

[toppernh]

Elpida 1GB LPDDR3 memory package in A7 has 2 512MB chips inside(32bit bus) and 64bit memory bus width.
It's confusing...

The A7 either has two independent x32 interfaces - 32 data each and separate addresses - or one 64x interface - 64 data with 32 going to each chip and one address with each signal going to both chips (except for the chip select signals).

I'm sure the A8 will be similar.

I work on memory interfaces and usually you see the two separate x32 interfaces. I would have to look at the JEDEC LPDDR3 packages specs to see what the pin out of the standard x64 PoP is but Apple uses a custom PoP so they can do what ever they want.

 

[TommyA6]

Not sure what you guys do but I currently have 8 tabs open on my iPad 3 (512MB of ram) and can switch between them without any reloading.

I suspect that a lot of reloads people are experiencing happen due to a Webkit crash instead of lack of ram.

In iOS 7, Safari doesn't distinguish between the two scenarios, but iOS 8 will show you a message "This page was reloaded because of a problem" when a page crash happens.

I think that the 64-bit version of Webkit/Safari is buggier than the 32-bit version, causing more page crash reloads on the iPad air.

Of course we would all benefit from getting more ram, but I'm not sure the page reloads in Safari can all be attributed to lack of ram, hopefully iOS8 will get better at avoiding page crash reloadings.

How many tabs you can open, obviously, depends on the webpage size. That's precisely why Apple should just add 2gb of RAM. They cannot control and optimize the internet . Some sites are way heavier than they need to be, while others are fine.

iPad 3 has 1 GB of RAM, not 512 MB (with a 32-bit CPU and OS), while iPad Air has a 64-bit CPU and OS, which uses more RAM to begin with, therefore leaving iPad Air with less RAM than iPad 3/4 (20-30 % less).

 

[nooaah]

We'll know on September 9th if there are reload issues. If there are and you people seriously think Apple chose to take several steps backwards for the sake of keeping costs down then stick with your current phones, wait til next year, or get an Android. That's what I plan on doing if this actually happens - which it WON'T.

Seriously, if apps and web browsing are worse on this phone then I'll sell off all of my AAPL shares and buy a plastic Samsung. That's how unlikely it is.

For a separate thought, I wonder if it's possible to partition some of the flash storage as virtual memory in iOS and if that could be used for Safari in place of system memory?

 

[Casiotone]

How many tabs you can open, obviously, depends on the webpage size. That's precisely why Apple should just add 2gb of RAM. They cannot control and optimize the internet . Some sites are way heavier than they need to be, while others are fine.

iPad 3 has 1 GB of RAM, not 512 MB (with a 32-bit CPU and OS), while iPad Air has a 64-bit CPU and OS, which uses more RAM to begin with, therefore leaving iPad Air with less RAM than iPad 3/4 (20-30 % less).

Oh right, I stand corrected then.

I'm a little skeptical that all 64-bit apps automatically use 20-30% more ram though.

That being said, I do know that as soon as you load one or more 32-bit apps on an A7, iOS has to load the 32-bit runtime which does take extra ram.

If you were to run only 64-bit apps on your A7/A8 device, you'd lose less ram space compared to an A4/A5/A6. I understand that some apps may never be updated to 32-bit, but it's possible that one day Apple requires all apps to have a 64-bit version on the apps store.

 

[sdugoten]

We'll know on September 9th if there are reload issues. If there are and you people seriously think Apple chose to take several steps backwards for the sake of keeping costs down then stick with your current phones, wait til next year, or get an Android. That's what I plan on doing if this actually happens - which it WON'T.

Seriously, if apps and web browsing are worse on this phone then I'll sell off all of my AAPL shares and buy a plastic Samsung. That's how unlikely it is.

For a separate thought, I wonder if it's possible to partition some of the flash storage as virtual memory in iOS and if that could be used for Safari in place of system memory?

Welcome to 2010. People have been complaining about this reloading issue and low memory issue on iphone/ipad since...........2010

https://www.google.com.hk/#q=ios+browser+reload+site:forums.macrumors.com

And...IOS8 STILL having this issue.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1740454/

 

[Rodneyt78]

The 1 GB of RAM makes sense honestly. What most people don't realize is that smartphones really do not need more than 1 GB of RAM. It's simply a marketing scheme. Even though apple implemented a 64 bit processor with A7, software optimization is the key to performance and Apple has mastered this. Just look at the benchmarks that are done on an annual basis when a new iPhone refresh has hit the market. The iPhone always seem to crush the competition even though it offers less RAM and processor clock speeds. Good software engineers can make miracles happen with performance and Apple has shown that. I'm excited for the new refresh and have confidence that it will not disappoint.

 

[vh1981]

A7 has 64bit single channel memory bus(saw in wikipedia...)

The A7 either has two independent x32 interfaces - 32 data each and separate addresses - or one 64x interface - 64 data with 32 going to each chip and one address with each signal going to both chips (except for the chip select signals).

I'm sure the A8 will be similar.

I work on memory interfaces and usually you see the two separate x32 interfaces. I would have to look at the JEDEC LPDDR3 packages specs to see what the pin out of the standard x64 PoP is but Apple uses a custom PoP so they can do what ever they want.

i saw that a7 has 64bit single channel bus links below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_system_on_a_chip

elpida's memory packages above a7 has 64bit memory bus.
if Hynix memory is used in Apple A7, the package cannot be found in Hynix's memory catalog, i guess. It's not in there.
I only saw elpida part number in A7 chip picture.

 

[chrmjenkins]

Sorry, can't find an image of an A7 with Hynix RAM (only Elpida). Can you please post a link?

At least with Elpida, the part's name (F8164) indicates the bus width as 64-bit. I assume Hynix does the same. The reason it isn't found on the site is they only show 32x products and this is a 64x 1GB part.

From the feld&volk/sonny dickson leak.

 

[mayhemburzum]

Anand himself, as any decent and knowledgeable human that follows the tech industry since 98, has some admiration for Apple, obviously.

And? They are very open about their approaches. Anandtech is the website where all meaningful benchmarks and data come from. Their credibility depends on it.

Phone arena is more of an website for people like you and the other one that was talking about their OnePlus One's specs. You know, people without an once of formation about the matter. You guys game, and see yourselves as "tech geeks". Phone arena is totally for you.

Anandtech isn't. Its a very objective website, just like Ars Technica.

Since you are quoting me and calling me stupid, ill tell you that I work for Apple and that I have access to virtually any product I want. The iPhone 5s is not better than a OnePlus, in any task apart from photo capturing.

 

[TommyA6]

The 1 GB of RAM makes sense honestly. What most people don't realize is that smartphones really do not need more than 1 GB of RAM. It's simply a marketing scheme. Even though apple implemented a 64 bit processor with A7, software optimization is the key to performance and Apple has mastered this. Just look at the benchmarks that are done on an annual basis when a new iPhone refresh has hit the market. The iPhone always seem to crush the competition even though it offers less RAM and processor clock speeds. Good software engineers can make miracles happen with performance and Apple has shown that. I'm excited for the new refresh and have confidence that it will not disappoint.

CPU/GPU is a different thing. A7 is a beast in terms of CPU/GPU Performance compared to anything out there, even a year after it came to market. The same goes for RAM speed. The amount of RAM, on the other hand, should be increased in iPhone 6 (higher resolution, 64-bit etc.)