How fast and fluid does your new iPhone 6/6 plus feel?

[vgamedude]

I don't see why Safari would have a need for more RAM... We're talking about a phone here, not a desktop computer.
The phone can mostly only display a single window at once. Applications in the background only need to be active if they're actually doing something in the background - and if they are, only the active portion of the applications really needs to be loaded in RAM. There is no point in keeping the fully loaded tabs of Safari in RAM when Safari is not in the foreground: there is no background processing being done there. Keeping these tabs in RAM would only deprive the application in the foreground and the active applications in the background of that RAM.
That's why iOS works well with a low amount of RAM : it's only used when it is needed and the OS is pretty aggressive about giving that RAM to the applications that really need it.

The problem with Safari is not with a lack of RAM (I suspect Safari would behave the same even with 64 Go of RAM), it's not a problem with the OS (the design is good, the application gets all it needs to implement different strategies), it's really only a problem with the strategy chosen for Safari.
You could solve tab reloading without any additional RAM, you just need to serialize the tab content to the filesystem everytime you need to free some RAM and then reload it from the filesystem when it is needed again (with necessary checks to avoid stale content). Doing that, you can have dozens of tabs without needing any additional RAM, at the cost of some disk space.

I suspect some alternative browsers might do that, especially if they are power users oriented. Safari is certainly not power user oriented, and the strategy chosen by its developers makes sense if you consider the average user use case with only a couple of tabs opened and mostly forgotten instead of manually closed.

Depending on how fast flash storage is on the iphone though speed and such could take a hit by passing off the tabs to flash storage instead of RAM. That is a solution though, I've said it before too that apple should allow a option for that. I'd give up a couple gigs of my storage for a swap partition without hesitation.


"There is no point in keeping the fully loaded tabs of Safari in RAM when Safari is not in the foreground"

I disagree with this heavily by the way. Maybe you haven't found a reason for it but it's silly to say objectively there isn't a reason for it. I browse 4chan heavily and if I'm in the middle of a thread and I have my spot saved and the location where I made my post and then the tab reloads on me I have to go through hundreds of anonymous posts to find mine and find my place in the thread meanwhile theres tons of new posts because it reloaded as well.

It also messes up post tracking but if you don't use the site I can't really explain that very well.

That's just one example too.

 

[phpmaven]

Smokin' fast an buttery smooth. I will say that there is a few miiliseconds more of a delay when you pull up the task switcher before you can touch another app. That may be an IOS8 issue since I updated my 5S to IOS8 and noticed the same thing.

 

[dharadvani]

Apple isn't going to pay you for this you know that right?

Why would they? Why would I be interested in their money? For the record, you're the only one talking about the superiority of one platform over the other.

You keep saying RAM has no effect and that android needs more ram all this stuff, nothing to support it. You have the burden of proof on you buddy not me, RAMs purpose is clear and has been for a while.

Interestingly, you're just as confused about burden of proof in debate as you are about the magical healing powers of RAM. The burden of proof lies with the affirmative case, and that's you, my friend. The status quo never carries the burden of proof.

You are arguing that increasing the RAM would solve all ills and doesn't involve any other tradeoffs. That's the proposition requiring proof.

Now add another gigabyte of ram with the same applications above. Far more RAM then right? What's so hard about that? It's simple math.

What's hard about that is that it's utter ********. When you add more RAM, all of it will be in use in a mobile environment. You're not going to clean boot your phone to run a single app, and your system memory usage is not going to remain constant when there's more memory available to it. Modern software expands to fill the memory available to it, and surrenders memory to threads with higher priority or in response to the system's traffic cop.

Fire up a computer with 4GB of RAM and run things on it for a while. Then add 4GB. The OS will increase its RAM usage considerably on the exact same hardware.

You can make a rough comparison in Android, too: take two phones running a clean version of 4.4 with similar hardware, one with 1GB and one with 2GB. Launch the same apps and load the same websites. Even if you put together a set of processes and active memory pages that adds up to less than 1GB on the first phone, the second one with 2GB will not have 1GB of extra free memory.

 

[geoff5093]

I love how this guy is defending only using 1GB of RAM, like adding another gig would decrease battery life by any measurable amount. Why don't you complain about Apple using a larger screen? Maybe they should have kept the same resolution display? Who needs LTE, just go back to 3G. Why would I enable iCloud? All of these things consume a lot more power than an extra gig of RAM. maybe it's about time Apple uses a decent battery. I mean if Android phones the same physical size and smaller have batteries in the mid-2000mAh range, why can't Apple?

 

[vgamedude]

Why would they? Why would I be interested in their money? For the record, you're the only one talking about the superiority of one platform over the other.

Interestingly, you're just as confused about burden of proof in debate as you are about the magical healing powers of RAM. The burden of proof lies with the affirmative case, and that's you, my friend. The status quo never carries the burden of proof.

You are arguing that increasing the RAM would solve all ills and doesn't involve any other tradeoffs. That's the proposition requiring proof.

What's hard about that is that it's utter ********. When you add more RAM, all of it will be in use in a mobile environment. You're not going to clean boot your phone to run a single app, and your system memory usage is not going to remain constant when there's more memory available to it. Modern software expands to fill the memory available to it, and surrenders memory to threads with higher priority or in response to the system's traffic cop.

Fire up a computer with 4GB of RAM and run things on it for a while. Then add 4GB. The OS will increase its RAM usage considerably on the exact same hardware.

You can make a rough comparison in Android, too: take two phones running a clean version of 4.4 with similar hardware, one with 1GB and one with 2GB. Launch the same apps and load the same websites. Even if you put together a set of processes and active memory pages that adds up to less than 1GB on the first phone, the second one with 2GB will not have 1GB of extra free memory.

I never said android was superior I said I didn't have the problem on the note 3 that's all.

You know what the purpose of RAM is I take it? It's obvious. So the iphone runs out of ram, purges apps and tabs, because it HAS NO RAM LEFT. Add more RAM and guess what!? THERES RAM LEFT.


"
What's hard about that is that it's utter ********. When you add more RAM, all of it will be in use in a mobile environment. You're not going to clean boot your phone to run a single app, and your system memory usage is not going to remain constant when there's more memory available to it. Modern software expands to fill the memory available to it, and surrenders memory to threads with higher priority or in response to the system's traffic cop."

So why even add more RAM then according to you to anything? If somehow software always magically fills it all up. Even if the software started magically using more memory you WOULD STILL have far more left than on a 1gb phone.

 

[Bako-MacAddict]

0 to 100 real quick real quick

Nice one ... lol

 

[sunking101]

Why would they? Why would I be interested in their money? For the record, you're the only one talking about the superiority of one platform over the other.

Interestingly, you're just as confused about burden of proof in debate as you are about the magical healing powers of RAM. The burden of proof lies with the affirmative case, and that's you, my friend. The status quo never carries the burden of proof.

You are arguing that increasing the RAM would solve all ills and doesn't involve any other tradeoffs. That's the proposition requiring proof.

What's hard about that is that it's utter ********. When you add more RAM, all of it will be in use in a mobile environment. You're not going to clean boot your phone to run a single app, and your system memory usage is not going to remain constant when there's more memory available to it. Modern software expands to fill the memory available to it, and surrenders memory to threads with higher priority or in response to the system's traffic cop.

Fire up a computer with 4GB of RAM and run things on it for a while. Then add 4GB. The OS will increase its RAM usage considerably on the exact same hardware.

You can make a rough comparison in Android, too: take two phones running a clean version of 4.4 with similar hardware, one with 1GB and one with 2GB. Launch the same apps and load the same websites. Even if you put together a set of processes and active memory pages that adds up to less than 1GB on the first phone, the second one with 2GB will not have 1GB of extra free memory.

Surely more RAM and also better control of it by the o/s is the solution here? Otherwise we will always be stuck with 1GB.

 

[dharadvani]

I love how this guy is defending only using 1GB of RAM, like adding another gig would decrease battery life by any measurable amount.

Good grief. I'm not defending anything or anyone. I'm saying that it's not as simple as just increasing the RAM, and that the "problem" of Safari being very aggressive about resetting tab content is not sufficient justification.

Power is one consideration of many. If there were a performance need to make room in the energy budget, it could be done. But keep in mind that power consumption of memory is a factor when you have only 1-2% of the power availability of a typical desktop computer, but are delivering much more relative performance and trying to tackle the same bloated content.

You know what the purpose of RAM is I take it? It's obvious. So the iphone runs out of ram, purges apps and tabs, because it HAS NO RAM LEFT. Add more RAM and guess what!? THERES RAM LEFT.

These things don't happen in a vacuum. 2-3GB Android phones still run out of RAM and routinely so. The problem is that websites are allowed to eat memory like it's unlimited because on a desktop browser, it is. On a mobile browser, that's not the case. Android phones (1) have more RAM and (2) aren't as aggressive at capping it, but even still, they can't handle a dozen tabs of 4Chan like you want.

Android and iOS can both deliver some pretty spectacular 3D gaming performance using 500MB of active RAM. More RAM is not just a checkbox on a build sheet somewhere. Just because you visit CPU and RAM-hungry websites and want a pocketable device to sit on all of them doesn't make it a reasonable expectation or a worthwhile tradeoff.

Apple chose differently, and that means browser tabs get kicked out of memory faster than some Android competitors.

So why even add more RAM then according to you to anything?

Because sometimes you need more as baseline usage grows. But you're talking about throwing more RAM at a resource-limited device for peak usage because you are occasionally inconvenienced by your own browsing habits.

That means you're clearly not looking at this from an engineering perspective.

 

[vgamedude]

Good grief. I'm not defending anything or anyone. I'm saying that it's not as simple as just increasing the RAM, and that the "problem" of Safari being very aggressive about resetting tab content is not sufficient justification.

Power is one consideration of many. If there were a performance need to make room in the energy budget, it could be done. But keep in mind that power consumption of memory is a factor when you have only 1-2% of the power availability of a typical desktop computer, but are delivering much more relative performance and trying to tackle the same bloated content.

These things don't happen in a vacuum. 2-3GB Android phones still run out of RAM and routinely so. The problem is that websites are allowed to eat memory like it's unlimited because on a desktop browser, it is. On a mobile browser, that's not the case. Android phones (1) have more RAM and (2) aren't as aggressive at capping it, but even still, they can't handle a dozen tabs of 4Chan like you want.

Android and iOS can both deliver some pretty spectacular 3D gaming performance using 500MB of active RAM. More RAM is not just a checkbox on a build sheet somewhere. Just because you visit CPU and RAM-hungry websites and want a pocketable device to sit on all of them doesn't make it a reasonable expectation or a worthwhile tradeoff.

Apple chose differently, and that means browser tabs get kicked out of memory faster than some Android competitors.

Because sometimes you need more as baseline usage grows. But you're talking about throwing more RAM at a resource-limited device for peak usage because you are occasionally inconvenienced by your own browsing habits.

That means you're clearly not looking at this from an engineering perspective.

"aren't as aggressive at capping it, but even still, they can't handle a dozen tabs of 4Chan like you want."

Actually the note 3 I had did.

"Android and iOS can both deliver some pretty spectacular 3D gaming performance using 500MB of active RAM. More RAM is not just a checkbox on a build sheet somewhere. Just because you visit CPU and RAM-hungry websites and want a pocketable device to sit on all of them doesn't make it a reasonable expectation or a worthwhile tradeoff."

4chan isn't very hungry it's very basic yotsuba style image board.

"Because sometimes you need more as baseline usage grows. But you're talking about throwing more RAM at a resource-limited device for peak usage because you are occasionally inconvenienced by your own browsing habits."

Not occasionally, all the time, and it's not just me.

So the solution I guess is to keep the processor at this speed also, after all it affects the battery life to much so the next cycle will retain the same processor, and RAM, and screen.

You're making this way too difficult and trying to act like it isn't a simple solution to a simple problem.

The problem:

Not enough RAM. This is clear to many, read the ipad air review on ArsTechnica and go use one to get an idea of what I'm talking about. It's the best example I can give you, especially as someone who owned an iPad Air for around a month.

The solution:

Apple to stop penny pinching this hard and add more RAM. Yes they need to make profits, yes it's good when they are large, but this is absolutely pathetic.

 

[Applefan4]

My Galaxy S5 have 2GB of ram!! If I clear the active application tray and I open 5 apps and then go back into active application tray and tap any of them, they will still reload! Quick, but they will still reload! Are you saying that this shouldn't happen?

I can even make a video of it you you don't believe it.

I believe you since the same thing happens in Note 3 to me. I have 5 tabs open in chrome, you tube, FB and Subway surfers open. I pause Subway Surfers and quickly go through chrome tabs, facebook and youtube. I go back to the game and it reloads.

 

[darklyx]

Scrolling Speed of 6 vs 6+

I was at the apple store early this morning and I got the chance to play with both. It seems to me that the 6+ sometimes stutters when scrolling long lists in certain apps (you can see this clearly in the Notability app). It looks like it is pushing very hard to get those 400 plus pixels to perform. This was not seen in the 6 where everything was fluid and stutter-free. Now, it may be due to ios 8, but I could see a difference. I haven't be able to get either phone, but I am thinking that the 5.5 display will be really nice when the S version comes out next year. Just my 2 cents.

 

[dharadvani]

Surely more RAM and also better control of it by the o/s is the solution here?

No. More RAM is not the solution and there's nothing wrong with how it's controlled by the OS, either in Android or in iOS.

More RAM for tab refreshing is nothing more than a band-aid to hide the problem. The solution is responsive web design that's careful of its memory footprint and data refresh needs. Software developers got lazy with the advent of over-resources desktop PCs, and they had a cold wakeup call with the rise of mobile devices. Now look at what they can achieve on limited hardware.

Some of those benefits are now making their way back to software on Windows, Macs, and Linux desktops. The same needs to happen with the web.

Otherwise we will always be stuck with 1GB.

Why?

 

[sunking101]

No. More RAM is not the solution and there's nothing wrong with how it's controlled by the OS, either in Android or in iOS.

More RAM for tab refreshing is nothing more than a band-aid to hide the problem. The solution is responsive web design that's careful of its memory footprint and data refresh needs. Software developers got lazy with the advent of over-resources desktop PCs, and they had a cold wakeup call with the rise of mobile devices. Now look at what they can achieve on limited hardware.

Some of those benefits are now making their way back to software on Windows, Macs, and Linux desktops. The same needs to happen with the web.

Why?

There's no way on earth that Apple can blame the websites for this. The internet is what it is and if PCs and Macs can handle the websites then mobile devices should also be made powerful enough to do so. As for the 'why?' bit, you seem to be suggesting it!

 

[dharadvani]

4chan isn't very hungry it's very basic yotsuba style image board.

Sigh. Image boards are tremendous memory hogs. How much memory do you think decoding an image file takes?

You're making this way too difficult and trying to act like it isn't a simple solution to a simple problem.

The problem:

Not enough RAM.

It's not difficult at all. You're making it into a tremendous chore. The problem is that you're equating browser tab management with system performance when it's not. You're also confusing memory management for memory capacity. How many desktop computers are still out there, chugging away, with 2GB of RAM? The problem is not a lack of RAM.

The solution:

Apple to stop penny pinching this hard and add more RAM. Yes they need to make profits, yes it's good when they are large, but this is absolutely pathetic.

Penny pinching has not a damn thing to do with it.

 

[sunking101]

Sigh. Image boards are tremendous memory hogs. How much memory do you think decoding an image file takes?

It's not difficult at all. You're making it into a tremendous chore. The problem is that you're equating browser tab management with system performance when it's not. You're also confusing memory management for memory capacity. How many desktop computers are still out there, chugging away, with 2GB of RAM? The problem is not a lack of RAM.

Penny pinching has not a damn thing to do with it.

So why then, since time immemorial, has adding RAM to a system been a cheap and certain way of boosting performance?

 

[vgamedude]

Sigh. Image boards are tremendous memory hogs. How much memory do you think decoding an image file takes?

It's not difficult at all. You're making it into a tremendous chore. The problem is that you're equating browser tab management with system performance when it's not. You're also confusing memory management for memory capacity. How many desktop computers are still out there, chugging away, with 2GB of RAM? The problem is not a lack of RAM.

Penny pinching has not a damn thing to do with it.

I honestly can't believe you right now.

Image board isn't a hog when all the images are lowered to a 3kb thumbnail and the rest is text. It's a mobile site as well. That's not a memory hog.

If it doesn't need more RAM and 1 ram is so great then why does the iPad Air crash? why do they reload tabs so often? If 1gb is so fine then why hasn't apple fixed these issues this whole time?

Oh and browser tab management and how they function is a part of system performance. How is it not? Safari is one of the most top used apps on everyone's phone and when it's inadequate in an area it's a problem.

 

[sunking101]

Also, why can Macs and PCs be purchased with additional RAM over and above the standard spec if it is of precisely no benefit and will actually cause the device to run less efficiently?

 

[dharadvani]

There's no way on earth that Apple can blame the websites for this.

Apple's not blaming anything.

The internet is what it is and if PCs and Macs can handle the websites then mobile devices should also be made powerful enough to do so.

A typical Mac or PC has a power supply delivering 30-100 times more power to a hardware package delivering 5-20 times the processing performance and 5 to 30 times the GPU power.

Something's gotta give. ARM-based mobile devices are not magic. RAM by comparison is one of the areas where they're closest to parity.

As for the 'why?' bit, you seem to be suggesting it!

No, I'm not.

 

[vgamedude]

Apple's not blaming anything.

A typical Mac or PC has a power supply delivering 30-100 times more power to a hardware package delivering 5-20 times the processing performance and 5 to 30 times the GPU power.

Something's gotta give. ARM-based mobile devices are not magic. RAM by comparison is one of the areas where they're closest to parity.

No, I'm not.

You could have googled but ill do it for you. Keep in mind that mobile ram would use even less power.


"Interestingly the amount of RAM has little or no effect on power consumption of PC components. A stick of 4 GB DDR3 RAM will draw about the same amount of power as a stick of 8 GB DDR3 RAM (assuming that they have the same clock speed). - See more at: http://www.buildcomputers.net/power-consumption-of-pc-components.html#sthash.lzLSZDZu.dpuf"

Google will yield numerous sources that back that up. Have fun.

 

[dharadvani]

So why then, since time immemorial, has adding RAM to a system been a cheap and certain way of boosting performance?

Because RAM for a long time was the primary constraint and paging to hard drives was extremely slow and inefficient. It was also a cheap upgrade in terms of cost, since you didn't have to worry about power, size, or thermal profiles in a giant tower.

With SSDs and the stabilization of desktop requirements, it's no longer true that adding RAM to a typical desktop or laptop delivers the performance boost it used to. Most computers come with more than enough.

 

[sunking101]

Apple's not blaming anything.

A typical Mac or PC has a power supply delivering 30-100 times more power to a hardware package delivering 5-20 times the processing performance and 5 to 30 times the GPU power.

Something's gotta give. ARM-based mobile devices are not magic. RAM by comparison is one of the areas where they're closest to parity.

No, I'm not.

OK, I'm not disputing the power differences between desktops/laptops and mobile devices.
However, if Android can manage this browser reloading issue far better than iOS, can we at least determine that iOS - or certainly Safari - is poorly coded? Why too do Android smartphones keep increasing their RAM quota?

 

[dharadvani]

You could have googled but ill do it for you. Keep in mind that mobile ram would use even less power.

Which makes the difference in consumption more significant, not less.

Get a clue. 4 packages of RAM increases power consumption 50-100% over two, and LPDDR RAM's power draw is much more significant in a small system. On a desktop pulling 150W, the power difference is negligible. On a mobile device pulling 5W, it's not. What are you even talking about?

 

[vgamedude]

Which makes the difference in consumption more significant, not less.

Get a clue. 4 packages of RAM increases power consumption 50-100% over two, and LPDDR RAM's power draw is much more significant in a small system. What are you even talking about?

more ram has no effect essentially on power consumption. Don't try to ignore sources, you just lost buddy. You're wrong sorry, get over it.

 

[dharadvani]

more ram has no effect essentially on power consumption. Don't try to ignore sources, you just lost buddy. You're wrong sorry, get over it.

If you think that's a source, no wonder you've been such a waste of time. DDR3 desktop RAM consumes about 3W per module. That's more than the entire iPhone logic board combined consumes. So yes, changing capacity in a single module only changes power consumption by a meaningless fraction of a watt for a desktop PC.

But that's not true on a mobile device. Take a look at the mobile packaging: just by some manufacturing process tweaking, Samsung's made a huge difference, even at the same total capacity: "Samsung LPDDR2 and LPDDR3 memory can add up to three days of standby battery life for a smartphone, a 23 percent improvement of the LPDDR1. This equates to an increase in standby battery life from 12.5 days to 15.4 days." http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/file/media/Samsung_LPDDR2_Brochure-0.pdf

Just so you understand how badly you're doing, a single LPDDR3 package consumes about 0.25W. The iPhone uses two modules (0.5W). Getting to 2GB and meeting their current specifications requires four modules or two very high power modules, potentially doubling power consumption and causing RAM power consumption to eat into power available for the CPU and GPU.

 

[sunking101]

If you think that's a source, no wonder you've been such a waste of time. DDR3 desktop RAM consumes about 3W per module. That's more than the entire iPhone logic board combined consumes. So yes, changing capacity in a single module only changes power consumption by a meaningless fraction of a watt for a desktop PC.

But that's not true on a mobile device. Take a look at the mobile packaging: just by some manufacturing process tweaking, Samsung's made a huge difference, even at the same total capacity: "Samsung LPDDR2 and LPDDR3 memory can add up to three days of standby battery life for a smartphone, a 23 percent improvement of the LPDDR1. This equates to an increase in standby battery life from 12.5 days to 15.4 days." http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/file/media/Samsung_LPDDR2_Brochure-0.pdf

Just so you understand how badly you're doing, a single LPDDR3 package consumes about 0.25W. The iPhone uses two modules (0.5W). Getting to 2GB and meeting their current specifications requires four modules or two very high power modules, potentially doubling power consumption and causing RAM power consumption to eat into power available for the CPU and GPU.

Apple should quit their obsession with thin casings then, increase the RAM and bung in a much bigger battery.