Alleged Schematic Shows iPhone 6 Coming with 1GB of RAM [Updated]

[Moto G]

Update 7:19 AM: As noted in our forums, the schematic's references DDR and NAND suggests that it more likely refers to some aspect of the device's flash memory rather than DRAM included within the A8 chip.

The post states it's flash storage.

Regardless of what some journo has written on a generic rumour site, I very very strongly disbelieve that an IC marked with "DDR" as part of its name, is a storage device. I am a qualified electronics engineer - I do this stuff day in, day out - I very strongly believe that IS NOT a storage device, and if it WERE... why would it only be 1GB? This is a RAM device, I'll put a large wad of cash on that fact.

I take it people understand that RAM often interfaces to NAND, and just because the word "NAND" appears in a schematic, doesn't mean that the IC shown *IS* NAND - those data lines are very possibly going TO NAND, outside the scope of what can be seen.

 

[Milese3]

Regardless of what some journo has written on a generic rumour site, I very very strongly disbelieve that an IC marked with "DDR" as part of its name, is a storage device. I am a qualified electronics engineer - I do this stuff day in, day out - I very strongly believe that IS NOT a storage device, and if it WERE... why would it only be 1GB? This is a RAM device, I'll put a large wad of cash on that fact.

I take it people understand that RAM often interfaces to NAND, and just because the word "NAND" appears in a schematic, doesn't mean that the IC shown *IS* NAND - those data lines are very possibly going TO NAND, outside the scope of what can be seen.

I know- but it makes it less likely that it is RAM.

 

[milo]

You people need to learn how to close some apps and hard restart your phone from time to time. I have 6 tabs open on my safari right now and am easily swapping back and forth with no refreshes on an old iphone 5. Learn to use the app closing function then get back to us.

You really need to meet the fanboys who constantly insist that there's no reason to ever close apps on iOS. That's probably the most annoying fanboy comment along with "iOS devices have enough ram".

For the record I do know how to close apps. I just shouldn't have to do it as often as I do. And there are times when I'm trying to multitask and I NEED to have other apps open at the same time as Safari. Both more ram and better optimization by Apple should help the situation.

"App closing" is a myth. When the system needs the memory it "closes" those apps for you anyway. Unless a background app has actual work to do (e.g, background audio) it uses no processor resources and its memory footprint is essentially available for use by the foreground app or iOS itself as-needed.

...and there it is.

App closing is no myth. With other apps "open" safari reloads tabs. After I manually quit all other apps, it does not reload tabs. Sure, you're parroting Apple's party line, but it's demonstrably false in real world use.

It will force developers to make better apps to use less resources though.

But apparently not including Apple.

 

[ionjohn]

How a device works is more important than what is inside. You will have a couple of weeks to decide if you like your IPhone 6. Please step down from your soapboxes and move on.

Haha so you're saying, in 2014, it's ok to have a premium device that costs $700 but only has 1 gb of ram?

Them sheeps sometimes

 

[luckydcxx]

Haha so you're saying, in 2014, it's ok to have a premium device that costs $700 but only has 1 gb of ram?

Them sheeps sometimes

what does the year we are in have to do with anything? if the device works great for what i do with it I don't care if it had 512 MB of RAM.

Specs don't matter when you have the proper optimized software!

 

[gavroche]

Thanks Apple. You just confirmed by decision. Hello Samsung Note 4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you always make major purchasing decisions based on rumors?

 

[PhiLLoW]

Got an iphone 5 and a retina ipad mini.


Both definitely lack RAM.

Apps keep reloading which is pretty annoying while multi tasking i.e browsing the web and messaging at the same time. Like others i also hate when tabs reload all the time.

Definitely hope for better performance in iOs 8.

what does the year we are in have to do with anything? if the device works great for what i do with it I don't care if it had 512 MB of RAM.

Specs don't matter when you have the proper optimized software!

The problem is....it doesn't work properly.

 

[Trapezoid]

Haha so you're saying, in 2014, it's ok to have a premium device that costs $700 but only has 1 gb of ram?

Them sheeps sometimes

Ironically you sound more like the sheep because you're implying that just because a company says they have beefier specs, that their product must be better by default

Indeed, you're the type of person marketing depts love. No research, just omg specs!

 

[alexgowers]

I think you can be certain 2gb of ram is more likely than not, it's the only real bottleneck in the current gen iPhones.

 

[milo]

iOS is so vastly more efficient than most android devices (especially Samsung's skins) that it can and easily does make do with less RAM.

Hey, let's all pretend that Safari for iOS never reloads tabs! You know, I feel much better now. At least until I have to run safari again...

Specs don't matter when you have the proper optimized software!

So logically it follows that specs do matter when you don't have the proper optimized software.

And we don't, as evidenced by the constant tab reloads in Safari. If iOS 9 fixed the issue with safari it would be a lot easier to forgive the lack of increase in ram. But there have been no reports that it does, hence the ram complaints. Really, insisting over and over that apple could fix the problem in software is irrelevant unless they actually do fix it.

 

[ionjohn]

what does the year we are in have to do with anything? if the device works great for what i do with it I don't care if it had 512 MB of RAM.

Specs don't matter when you have the proper optimized software!

Read the other posts, a lot of people have issues regarding the lack of ram.

Proper optimized software? Lol yeah there's so much you can do with 1gb

----------

Ironically you sound more like the sheep because you're implying that just because a company says they have beefier specs, that their product must be better by default

Indeed, you're the type of person marketing depts love. No research, just omg specs!

I'm not implying that, I said it's ridiculous to only have 1gb in 2014, last year, they announced a 64 bit processor that only has 1gb... and this year they won't add more ram, don't you think it's a bit funny? We'll probably get 4gb in like 2020 and now the 64 bit processor will have a purpose.

 

[Kariya]

Yeah, no way these spidermonkeyers have any idea what they're talking about after hundreds of hours of testing and years of experience designing one of the most successful consumer devices in history. They're just wrong. No other way around it.

In case you were wondering, I'd love 2 gigs of ram in my phone, and I've got a suspicion that this rumor is complete bunk. But whatever the case, neither of us is qualified to make the statement you made.

Why? because Apple made the device means its perfect no questions asked?

As a user i know when the device is trying hard to manage memory. Tabs reloading or disappearing altogether, apps slow relaunch and stuttering aren't marks of an OS that has enough memory to play with.

But hey ho, Apple made the device so they're automatically right.

 

[Phil A.]

My Note 3 has 2GB of system memory.

I'd take it back then because everyone else's Note 3 has 3GB

 

[murgo]

The lack of RAM is a real problem. Tabs and Apps reloading frequently is one of my main gripes with the iPhone/iPad. I seriously hope they squeeze in at least 2GB.. RAM's cheap as hell these days.

 

[0092762]

I take it people understand that RAM often interfaces to NAND, and just because the word "NAND" appears in a schematic, doesn't mean that the IC shown *IS* NAND - those data lines are very possibly going TO NAND, outside the scope of what can be seen.

Actually System RAM generally does not interface to NAND. It interfaces to the memory controller, which has been inside the CPU for the last decade (started with AMD K7 I think)

From looking at the schematic, this chip looks to be a 1Gbit (128MB) cache DRAM for the NAND storage (16 or more GB) on the iPhone. I have never seen memory capacity on a chip written in Gigabytes. It's always Gigabits.

 

[Trapezoid]

I'm not implying that, I said it's ridiculous to only have 1gb in 2014, last year, they announced a 64 bit processor that only has 1gb... and this year they won't add more ram, don't you think it's a bit funny? We'll probably get 4gb in like 2020 and now the 64 bit processor will have a purpose.

Ok you didn't say any of that in your first post. You just laughed at "sheep" buying a "premium" device with 1gb of RAM.

I agree with you about why apple went 64bit, though, but your op made it sound like RAM was the end all be all of "premium"...No big deal, apologies for misunderstanding

 

[bobob]

Bro, check the MacRumors article. They updated it saying that it's a schematic from the flash storage device, NOT the RAM.

How is MacRumors going to put all those extra pageviews back in the box from this 'mistake'.

 

[AppleScruff1]

I don't care if it doesn't have enough RAM and iOS 9 is full of bugs, I'm buying it anyway!!


Disclaimer: Humorous post, but true for many.

 

[Michael Goff]

I don't care if it doesn't have enough RAM and iOS 9 is full of bugs, I'm buying it anyway!!


Disclaimer: Humorous post, but true for many.

If it has an Apple logo, it can't be full of bugs and it automatically has enough RAM because Apple has magical optimization powers.

Heck, they could make the iPhone run on 64k memory if they wanted. We should be happy we're getting 1GB.

>_>

 

[cmaier]

App closing is no myth. With other apps "open" safari reloads tabs. After I manually quit all other apps, it does not reload tabs. Sure, you're parroting Apple's party line, but it's demonstrably false in real world use.

Instead of name-calling, how about engage your thought processes? The reason safari needs to "reload tabs" is because you are returning to safari. It was previously "in the background." And some other app needed the RAM, so the OS sent a signal to all still-resident apps to reduce memory. Safari complied by flushing tab content. If still more memory is required for the foreground app, then other still-resident apps are actually retired from memory entirely.

You thus proved my point. Which was that the FOREGROUND app always has access to as much RAM as it needs (within the address space) and killing apps does not give the FOREGROUND app anymore memory.

If you want to kill other BACKGROUND apps so that still *other* BACKGROUND apps can stay fully-resident, that's a different situation entirely. But that's not the reason most people wrongly kill background apps.

 

[Born Again]

More RAM = more cached apps

Safari can get a good use of this increase, as well as Mail.

If Apple dont increase the RAM, ill be sad.

Mo Ram mo problems!

Apple doesn't believe in specs

 

[cmaier]

Regardless of what some journo has written on a generic rumour site, I very very strongly disbelieve that an IC marked with "DDR" as part of its name, is a storage device. I am a qualified electronics engineer - I do this stuff day in, day out - I very strongly believe that IS NOT a storage device, and if it WERE... why would it only be 1GB? This is a RAM device, I'll put a large wad of cash on that fact.

I take it people understand that RAM often interfaces to NAND, and just because the word "NAND" appears in a schematic, doesn't mean that the IC shown *IS* NAND - those data lines are very possibly going TO NAND, outside the scope of what can be seen.

First, RAM does not interface to NAND. It has to go through the memory or bus controller.

Second, I designed microprocessors for 13 years, and I don't know what a "qualified electronics engineer" is.

Third, the schematic shows pins like ALE and CLE that would be found on NAND flash and not DRAM and appears to be MISSING standard DRAM pins (like RAS, CAS, etc.)

Fourth, the DRAM would be in the CPU package, whereas the schematic says the chip in question is its own BGA package.

So you're clearly wrong, and I urge whatever agency granted you "qualified" status to revoke it ;-)

 

[MacSince1990]

Thanks Apple. You just confirmed by decision. Hello Samsung Note 4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not that this is in any way proof that the iPhone 6 uses 1 GB of RAM (for all we know that's just a part number and there will be two of them, or it could be fake/for the iPhone 5S), but which part of your user experience do you expect 2 GB of RAM will improve upon over 1 GB?

 

[iolinux333]

First, no, the superuser community for smartphones demanding obscene amounts of RAM for the iPhone just isn't that big, and they've largely already moved to Android.

Second, a lot of you guys are stuck in this PC mentality that more RAM = faster phone. But in the mobile space this just isn't true anymore. iOS is so vastly more efficient than most android devices (especially Samsung's skins) that it can and easily does make do with less RAM. It looks like Apple is still going to go with more than 1GB RAM, but the truth is that they really don't need to. Most mobile apps just don't use very much RAM especially on the iPhone.

Most apps don't use up 1gig ram. Some apps do, and apologizing doesn't help.

Did you agree way back when that 640k was enough for anyone? This might be a controlled leak by Apple to dampen down the outcry by launch day. I think you're right that superusers are moving to android. I came from there and I'm planning my move back if the i6 actually is in line with all the rumors: a slightly bigger iPhone 5s and *thats it* !?! WTF ?!? Two years of hardware development time and they come up with a slightly bigger iPhone 5? Well now. OK. Whatever.

I'm looking at the HTC E8 with dual sims right now. It may be the perfect handheld device Stellar voice and music quality, stellar 13MP camera and display, holds a 128MB microSD, LTE., etc., etc. And half the price of iP6.

 

[MacSince1990]

First, RAM does not interface to NAND. It has to go through the memory or bus controller.

Second, I designed microprocessors for 13 years, and I don't know what a "qualified electronics engineer" is.

Third, the schematic shows pins like ALE and CLE that would be found on NAND flash and not DRAM and appears to be MISSING standard DRAM pins (like RAS, CAS, etc.)

Fourth, the DRAM would be in the CPU package, whereas the schematic says the chip in question is its own BGA package.

So you're clearly wrong.

Erm... aren't the memory (RAM) chips in the iPhone just that... separate BGA memory chips? They aren't part of the CPU package..? Or am I misunderstanding you..?

Personally, I've been a not-engineer for 27 years, for whatever that's worth.

I'm not sure where this guy got the idea that anyone thought the 1 GB was referring to NAND/storage, though. I think he might be the only one >_>