Early Looks Inside Apple Watch's S1 Chip Confirm 512 MB RAM, Unexpected Suppliers

[Lennyvalentin]

Apple said the battery is replaceable.

In theory, yes. Considering the display is glued to the case you'd need a way to replace the glue as well as it will get f'd up by tearing the watch open by force, which would necessitate some way of removing all the existing traces of glue from the case and display first.

This would be a lot of work, and time = money, so in the end I think it'd be quite possible you're just issued a refurbished replacement watch body instead if you come in for a battery replacement.

 

[69Mustang]

It's an amazing bit of engineering, but IMO creating a tiny circuit board with normal components on it and then covering it in epoxy does not make it a single chip

This has been bothering me since they announced the watch. Calling it a 'chip' implies its a single wafer, or a SoC which this is not.

It's been bothering me, as well.

Come on guys. This is Apple we're talking about. Co-opting terminology or simply creating their own is what they do. It's part of the magic.

But yes, this bugs me too.

Okay, it's not a System on a Chip (SoC), how does System on a wafer sound (SoW)?

Like something only a farmer could appreciate: seeds or pigs.

 

[bmunge]

I believe a widely supported view is that Apple erred by not upping to 2Gb for the iPhone 6; as a 6Plus user, I can tell you that having apps reloading from scratch when switching once, and often crashing in use after a while is frustrating.

If an app is crashing after being in use for awhile it's due to a programming error, not RAM constraints. iOS fires memory warnings that you can handle in your app appropriately. The amount of RAM the phone has is not an issue to anyone beyond spec whores that like seeing it on a spec sheet.

 

[Iconoclysm]

The watch doesn't have a low res screen.

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This is where you have marketing and finance driving the show. Marketing needs a specific price point and finance needs a specific gross margin. There is no reasonable justification for the iPhone only having 1GB RAM.

Here we go again. Yes, there is reasonable justification that has nothing to do with money and comes in the form of battery life.

 

[639051]

Here we go again. Yes, there is reasonable justification that has nothing to do with money and comes in the form of battery life.

Nonsense, stop spouting garbage. Memory is such a low power draw that it would be a blip on the radar.

 

[Michael Goff]

$17k for something with 512MB RAM, in 2015?

You're paying 17k for a golden watch. Let's not pretend otherwise.

 

[macduke]

Here come all of the posters to tell us that they won't buy the Watch until it has 2GB of RAM.

Actually, besides the iPad Air 2 this is one of the rare times that Apple has put enough RAM into an iOS device.

I don't understand why it was written like that .. very confusing.

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I don't think I have ever seen RAM written as Gigabit before ... that's so strange.

Typically in component manufacturing RAM is listed in Gigabits. Look up articles from the last few iPhone and iPad launches. When iFixit cracks those babies open, they can usually see on the chip how many Gigabits it is because that's the number they print on the outside of it.

$17k for [removed: "something"] a solid gold watch with 512MB RAM, in 2015?

FTFY.

I'm trying to do some research on the Broadcom chip. It says it includes/supports FM, but I can't verify what frequencies.

Any bets on whether we'll get FM Radio functionality? (If it has an FM antenna, of course.)

Probably not. Most iPhone chips over the years have supported FM. People always thought they would add that functionality and they didn't. Granted it makes more sense in a watch that doesn't always have an internet connection if you go for a run, but whatever. Still not likely.

If an app is crashing after being in use for awhile it's due to a programming error, not RAM constraints. iOS fires memory warnings that you can handle in your app appropriately. The amount of RAM the phone has is not an issue to anyone beyond spec whores that like seeing it on a spec sheet.

Yeah there are a lot of programming errors, especially in Safari when it comes to tabs reloading. But I can tell you this much: I've owned every iPhone generation except the 5S. My iPhone 5 was on iOS 8 beta. When GM shipped on my 6 Plus it was so much more prone to crashing that my 5. So unstable. It has gotten a little better but it's still pretty ridiculous. On the other hand, my iPad Air 2 which has 2GB of RAM keeps upwards of a dozen tabs loaded, and often keeps applications in memory which makes it really fast to switch between three apps at a time. It's a much better experience overall. I'm growing to loathe my 6 Plus but absolutely love my Air 2 and that's the main difference between the two internally. The A8X is faster but that doesn't account for what I'm experiencing. I can't wait to get a 6S with 2GB of RAM. It's nothing to do with spec-whoring for many of us. Sure spec-whores exist, but it's not me, especially since I agree that apps need to have better memory management as well. ESPECIALLY Safari, lol. Third party browsers don't have nearly as many problems as it does. But more RAM does help. We really need both.

 

[ScottHammet]

It's an amazing bit of engineering, but IMO creating a tiny circuit board with normal components on it and then covering it in epoxy does not make it a single chip

Same is true of a modern CPU...there are components now on the "chip" that used to be separate, discrete components (e.g. math coprocessor).

 

[Hurda]

The fact that a simple watch has 50% of the memory of the latest, top of the range iPhone should ring alarm bells..

They probably couldn't find a DRAM-maker with smaller chips.

 

[joeblough]

4 gigabits = 512 megabytes

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It's not common but it's acceptable practice.

since the beginning of time, memory datasheets have called out the density in bits. that's just how it is.

 

[darcyf]

Remember when we all used to marvel over the power and size of our desktop computers compared to the clunky, room-filling behemoths of yore?

Those desktop computers are the clunky, room-filling behemoths now.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Nonsense, stop spouting garbage. Memory is such a low power draw that it would be a blip on the radar.

There is nothing nonsensical about it and over the course of a day, it is a significant enough power draw to consider being efficient. Other phone manufacturers have explicitly said so as well. So, as for calling this garbage and nonsense, please keep in mind that you're dead wrong the next time you want to walk out on that limb.

 

[ZCT]

$17k for something with 512MB RAM, in 2015?

So if it were 2GB, you'd have bought it then?

 

[BvizioN]

The fact that a simple watch has 50% of the memory of the latest, top of the range iPhone should ring alarm bells..

Yeah.....but!!!

I think you are about to say goodbye to 1gb of Ram on iPhone this year, while I am almost certain you will be stuck with 512mb of ram on the apple watch for quite good few years.

 

[ZCT]

When used correctly, "b" means bit, "B" means byte. So 4Gb = four Gigabit = 4,000,000,000 bit = 500,000,000 Byte = about 500 Megabyte = 500 MB.

Unfortunately, you will often see the wrong letter used, and then you have no idea what the numbers mean.

Although obviously (to be pedantic / accurate) there are 8 bits in a byte, 1024 bytes in a Kilobyte, 1024 Kilobytes in a Megabyte and so on.

Because of binary we're always dealing with powers of 2, not simple decimals.

Also IEC 80000-13 and Metric-Interchange-Format recommends terms like Mbit and Gbit since it does not always follow that people use a lower case b for bit and an upper case B for byte.

 

[paulsdenton]

A 512mb computer on your wrist.

This was the thing of dreams not so long ago.

True; and not that long ago!

I wonder how it compares to the computers in the 1969 moon rocket, the IBM 360 and the other early computers.

 

[639051]

There is nothing nonsensical about it and over the course of a day, it is a significant enough power draw to consider being efficient. Other phone manufacturers have explicitly said so as well. So, as for calling this garbage and nonsense, please keep in mind that you're dead wrong the next time you want to walk out on that limb.

Give me a break.

We already went over this last year. More power is drawn from the LTE radio and the like having to refresh pages, launch apps, etc because of the lack of RAM on the device. Each time an app closes to dump the memory for another app and then you go back to use it sucks up more CPU power.

It's a blip on the radar, it's about $$$$$ with Apple. Android devices have been well above 1GB for years now and I've had many devices last as long as my iPhone 6+ with a little bit bigger battery. Android suffers more battery drain simply due to the OS not being anywhere near as power efficient as iOS (due to a number of things), but can still pull out good enough on time to please most.

It's a tired argument, for Apple it was a cash grab pure and simple.

Edit : Here's a great read on quite old hardware. Since then advancements have been made across the board, including lower power draw for RAM.

https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/atc10/tech/full_papers/Carroll.pdf

I'll "cherry pick" to show my point (again even back then when RAM consumed much more) :
"Despite maintaining full state, RAM consumes negligible power—less than 3 mW"

Edit 2 : Why is this STILL an argument anyways??? We are discussing this on a post about a WATCH having half the memory of the current iPhone, with a HUGE gap in battery size. If the RAM power consumption argument was a serious issue how exactly would Apple pull off 512MB RAM in a device with a 205mAh battery?

 

[dtich]

Wow, that looks so basic and straightforward. I could have designed that in my lunch break.

Yeah, clearly Apple are ripping us off with this DISGUSTINGLY over priced watch at $349. Damn that Tim Cook and his evil greed.

maybe there's a bit of /s in there, but if not....

i challenge you. get all those parts, for that money, and build us an apple watch. let's see how well it turns out.

you are paying for MUCH more than parts. in fact, i'd say parts are the least of what goes into the retail price. the design and software IS the watch. the parts are just parts. from a bin in a warehouse outside beijing. dime a dozen as they say.

can we please stop all this whining that the ifixit price should equal the unit price. gimme a freakin break. ALL CONSUMER ELECTRONICS HAVE INSANE MARKUPS. get it? got it? good.

 

[JoeRito]

Nice break down. Watch is a great device, but absolutely redundant! Not interested in buying one.

 

[imax2k2]

And I'll bet my entire AAPL portfolio that this years iPhones have 2GB RAM. even though some clowns think it's not necessary and just encourages developers to build inefficient apps.

Yep, the fact that, everytime I go back to safari, the page needs to refersh with very limited open apps is really annoying, when I got the iPhone 6P this year, I was hoping to keep it for a few years this time, sadly I will probably pull the trigger if the 6S has 2gb ram.

 

[639051]

Yep, the fact that, everytime I go back to safari, the page needs to refersh with very limited open apps is really annoying, when I got the iPhone 6P this year, I was hoping to keep it for a few years this time, sadly I will probably pull the trigger if the 6S has 2gb ram.

Mine has to last till the next gen after the 6S (or whatever its called).

 

[bawbac]

On the other hand, my iPad Air 2 which has 2GB of RAM keeps upwards of a dozen tabs loaded, and often keeps applications in memory which makes it really fast to switch between three apps at a time. It's a much better experience overall. I'm growing to loathe my 6 Plus but absolutely love my Air 2 and that's the main difference between the two internally. The A8X is faster but that doesn't account for what I'm experiencing. I can't wait to get a 6S with 2GB of RAM. It's nothing to do with spec-whoring for many of us. Sure spec-whores exist, but it's not me, especially since I agree that apps need to have better memory management as well. ESPECIALLY Safari, lol. Third party browsers don't have nearly as many problems as it does. But more RAM does help. We really need both.

But we keep hearing that 512MB is more than adequate and Apple consumers should stop whining.

 

[Jsameds]

why do you call the watch simple? Seems like a fairly complex product to me.

Compared to the iPhone 6 it's a tinker toy.

 

[ZCT]

maybe there's a bit of /s in there, but if not....

i challenge you. get all those parts, for that money, and build us an apple watch. let's see how well it turns out.

you are paying for MUCH more than parts. in fact, i'd say parts are the least of what goes into the retail price. the design and software IS the watch. the parts are just parts. from a bin in a warehouse outside beijing. dime a dozen as they say.

can we please stop all this whining that the ifixit price should equal the unit price. gimme a freakin break. ALL CONSUMER ELECTRONICS HAVE INSANE MARKUPS. get it? got it? good.

Er yeah, it was a total sarcastic riff off all the stupid posts claiming the Apple Watch is overpriced or too expensive. I think it is a ridiculous point of view, hence the eye roll after my post parody.

 

[Glideslope]

It's an amazing bit of engineering, but IMO creating a tiny circuit board with normal components on it and then covering it in epoxy does not make it a single chip

No it does not. I believe they were attempting to portray the S1 as "a computer sealed for durability." However, no one ever knows with Apple Marketing.