Found another issue with the RAM (iP6+)

[UKapple73]

ive had my iphone 6 plus for 10 days now and ive noticed an annoying issue with the memory. I listen to playlists that i create in another app (due to ios smart playlists not working as well as they did in 2008 but thats another story), the issue is that the music app will be kicked out of memory much quicker than before on my 5s, so i constantly lose my place in the playlist and have to reload it in the app etc.

this is surely another symptom of the 1GB ram issue, to go along with the safari tab refreshes.

Now i get all the arguments for keeping it at 1GB, fragmentation for developers etc etc but surely Apple will have that problem whenever they do increase the RAM, they are just delaying the inevitable. What are they gonna do, keep it at 1GB forever??!!

And before all the apologists come on saying its fine etc, its not. They made a mistake this time keeping it 1gb, especially in the 6plus, as the apps probably take up more memory due to the resolution?

 

[Newtons Apple]

Apple will raise the RAM when they feel it is required. For most the 1GB of RAM is good. It sure works for me on both my phone and iPad Air units.

We will likely see it in the Next generation of devices in 2015.

 

[UKapple73]

Yeah but it's not good though is it, for the reasons I've just explained

 

[RosOne]

Maybe something should be done with that "other music app"?

 

[UKapple73]

No because it's the stock Apple music app that's being kicked. The other just creates a playlist for me, and then I close it

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I love the phone I really do, but it's an irrefutable truth that it hasn't enough memory to keep an effing playlist going......

 

[The-Pro]

Apple creates its products in a way that , lets say, 98% of people are 100% happy with it. the other 2% who do more demading tasks and know something about the hardware are not considered as much because if they wanted to make those 2% happy they would make less profit with no real benefit to the company.

Most users will be using safari and if it reloads tabs it reloads tabs. They dont care why or know what could have been done to not make it happen. The majority of the consumers have know idea about how the technogy works so they dont go, Oh I wish apple would have added more ram then this wouldnt be happening.

So yeah, it is designed to work well for the majority of the people who use it, apple target group because they buy the most devices.

Apple will increase the ram when the their software needs it and when it is worth it for them profit wise.

Also when they release the iPhone 6s and the upgraded iPhone 6 plus they can double the ram and then do their marketing wizardry about double performance etc etc.

I totally agree with you though, they should have increased the ram. I would love to know the other reasons why they didnt. Maybe it would have a greater impact on battery life as more apps will be open in the background doing things. Who knows.

 

[UKapple73]

I see what you're saying, however I'm not really a power user and this music app thing will annoy a fair few I reckon, especially if they use big playlists
On the other hand maybe you're right and I'm just in the 2% that Apple don't give a monkeys about

 

[youradhere4222]

I've been noticing some lag on my IP6+. It sucks because it's such a great device. But they had to go cheap somewhere I guess.

 

[Imory]

ive had my iphone 6 plus for 10 days now and ive noticed an annoying issue with the memory. I listen to playlists that i create in another app (due to ios smart playlists not working as well as they did in 2008 but thats another story), the issue is that the music app will be kicked out of memory much quicker than before on my 5s, so i constantly lose my place in the playlist and have to reload it in the app etc.

this is surely another symptom of the 1GB ram issue, to go along with the safari tab refreshes.

Now i get all the arguments for keeping it at 1GB, fragmentation for developers etc etc but surely Apple will have that problem whenever they do increase the RAM, they are just delaying the inevitable. What are they gonna do, keep it at 1GB forever??!!

And before all the apologists come on saying its fine etc, its not. They made a mistake this time keeping it 1gb, especially in the 6plus, as the apps probably take up more memory due to the resolution?

Yeah, same thing happens if I listen to a podcast from the podcast app. For instance, say I pause what I'm currently listening to and open up a few safari tabs then decide to launch an app, the podcast goes missing. It's gone.

Happens on the 5 and the 5S.

 

[r-m]

I know you're posting about the plus, but I'm certainly noticing more app reloads (when I only really use a few) with my iPhone 6 than I did with my iPhone 5S.
I don't know if that's my iPhone 6, the iphone 6 generally, iOS 8, or apps not compatible. Seeing a lot more "page had an issue and was reloaded" errors in Safari too (as well as the tab reloads).

 

[UKapple73]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Apple know full well that the phones are struggling a bit with 1gb, but are saving it for the S upgrade next year.
This is what really winds me up about profiteering businesses, it's all about holding back the tech to sell the next one

 

[Newtons Apple]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Apple know full well that the phones are struggling a bit with 1gb, but are saving it for the S upgrade next year.
This is what really winds me up about profiteering businesses, it's all about holding back the tech to sell the next one

I think Apple will same teh RAM increase for the iPhone 7

 

[willmtaylor]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Apple know full well that the phones are struggling a bit with 1gb, but are saving it for the S upgrade next year.
This is what really winds me up about profiteering businesses, it's all about holding back the tech to sell the next one

I think Apple will same teh RAM increase for the iPhone 7

To the OP, I agree that there seem to be unfortunate consequences to an unfortunate design decision (or would it be indecision)?)

I'm also thinking/speculating that Apple thought the aesthetic redesign and size options were "good enough" to be selling features for the iPhone 6 and that the 6's will have a RAM bump and sapphire screens, but that's a conversation for another thread perhaps.

 

[r-m]

Interesting tweet I just saw from a developer:

a full screen image buffer on the 6+ takes up 5 times the space of one on a 5s. Yet they both have the same amount of RAM.

https://twitter.com/bengottlieb/status/517308089520119808

 

[thefredelement]

It's also iOS8, if you can remember back to a year ago with the introduction of the 64 bit platform on iOS7, it sucked!

Safari on the air was almost unusable at some points.

It STILL reloads and it's still annoying but it's not nearly as bad as it was.

Actually now that you mention it, the Podcast app on the iPad Air totally sucks.

Hopefully 8.1,8.2,8.3 come along and optimize RAM usage - who knows, maybe they're trying to deploy some type of memory compression into iOS as seen in OS X 10.9+

and sure, bigger screens use more memory, but if they can make it OK on an iPad then hopefully they can make it OK on a 5.5" phone. (the only difference between a 5s and an iPad Air is panel size and clock speed).

But the real bottom line is, we need more RAM! It's just that simple. If you bought a laptop for $900 that kept reloading apps you'd be pissed!

 

[CyanLite]

It's also iOS8, if you can remember back to a year ago with the introduction of the 64 bit platform on iOS7, it sucked!

Safari on the air was almost unusable at some points.

It STILL reloads and it's still annoying but it's not nearly as bad as it was.

Actually now that you mention it, the Podcast app on the iPad Air totally sucks.

Hopefully 8.1,8.2,8.3 come along and optimize RAM usage - who knows, maybe they're trying to deploy some type of memory compression into iOS as seen in OS X 10.9+

and sure, bigger screens use more memory, but if they can make it OK on an iPad then hopefully they can make it OK on a 5.5" phone. (the only difference between a 5s and an iPad Air is panel size and clock speed).

But the real bottom line is, we need more RAM! It's just that simple. If you bought a laptop for $900 that kept reloading apps you'd be pissed!

No matter how much Apple optimizes this issue will rapidly become worse as time goes on and as apps become 64 bit supported (most aren't yet), which will increase the memory overhead significantly.

Apple messed up big time here.

 

[got556]

Why they didn't go with 2gb of RAM for the 6+ or even both phones at this point, I will never understand. Apple has been getting by for a very long time with very little RAM compared to the competition, but when they implemented 64bit architecture and adding all these extra background services, they should have known better.

 

[cynics]

I see a lot of discussion about RAM usage limits from the dev community. I was surprised the new phones didn't have more as much effort is put in from devs to work around it.

Since there are limits in place there would be no fragmentation just a better user experience as more apps can remain suspended. You'd be less likely to be "kicked out". Then the phone would be ready for when 2gb of ram is the requirement for iOS updates. As of now this issue will continue until all 1gb iPhone versions are no longer getting updated (years).

Frankly as I play with the 6 I'm not all that impressed. I get reloads far to easily, mediocre battery life, questionable reliability, the OS was shipped incomplete (ApplePay, beta feel), incompatibilities with OSX (cloud, imessage, etc), did I mention a beta feel?

Thankfully they have a high resale so I can way it out for iOS 8.1/2/3/etc.

I feel updating iOS yearly is far to big of a task and a unnecessary one. I'd be fine if it was just perfected more and more. Same goes for OSX.

 

[thefredelement]

I see a lot of discussion about RAM usage limits from the dev community. I was surprised the new phones didn't have more as much effort is put in from devs to work around it.

Since there are limits in place there would be no fragmentation just a better user experience as more apps can remain suspended. You'd be less likely to be "kicked out". Then the phone would be ready for when 2gb of ram is the requirement for iOS updates. As of now this issue will continue until all 1gb iPhone versions are no longer getting updated (years).

Frankly as I play with the 6 I'm not all that impressed. I get reloads far to easily, mediocre battery life, questionable reliability, the OS was shipped incomplete (ApplePay, beta feel), incompatibilities with OSX (cloud, imessage, etc), did I mention a beta feel?

Thankfully they have a high resale so I can way it out for iOS 8.1/2/3/etc.

I feel updating iOS yearly is far to big of a task and a unnecessary one. I'd be fine if it was just perfected more and more. Same goes for OSX.

Developers managing memory is becoming a thing of the past with the iOS SDK, especially with Swift. That doesn't mean someone can't write sloppy code that takes a lot memory.

Totally agree about the dev/release cycle, it seems somewhat clear Apple bit off a lot with iOS 8, iPhone 6, Apple Watch, OS X 10.10 AND Swift all at the same time. - That's insane.

On the bright side, it will get better, it always gets better.

On the not bright side, iOS 8 is weak, Xcode 6.1 just went GM yesterday and the devices still only have 1GB of RAM...

By the time the iPhone S update rolls around and all this new tech has had a year to 'settle' I'm sure it'll be a lot more optimized. I'm hoping next year's release cycle is all about improvements.