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iPhone - 128MB LPDDR
iPhone 3G - 128MB LPDDR
Oh man, I remember these two being particularly brutal. Anyone remember the checkerboard when scrolling on the web? If you would scroll a bit too fast (and in reality it was not very fast) the website would just disappear and you'd get a checkerboard pattern until it could load more of the website into RAM. I also remember trying to fill out some forms online and it would often reload the page if you switched to another tab to check something, losing all the form data you typed in. This included sites like MacRumors when making a post. Even when they moved to 256GB RAM on the 3GS and copy/paste came out, every time I would switch tabs when writing on MacRumors I would copy all the text I had just typed before switching just in case the tab reloaded, which still happened sometimes. This was back before MacRumors was updated to try to save your post draft as you type.
 
It would be nice to know the history of ram amounts on every iPhone going back at least the last 10 years to see the improvements in each model considering that ram is one of those specifications that gets improved upon seldomly

If anybody has that information handy, that would be great if you could post it, it would be nice to see a chart of the ram on each iPhone model
iPhone: 128 MB
iPhone 3G: 128MB
iPhone 3GS: 256MB
iPhone 4: 512MB
iPhone 4S: 512MB
iPhone 5: 1GB
iPhone 5S: 1GB
iPhone 6: 1GB
iPhone 6S: 2GB
iPhone 7/+: 2 or 3 GB
iPhone 8/8+/X: 2 or 3 GB
iPhone XR/XS: 3 or 4 GB
iPhone 11/11Pro: 4GB
iPhone 12/12Pro: 4 or 6 GB
iPhone 13/13Pro: 4 or 6 GB
iPhone 14/14Pro: 6GB
iPhone 15/15Pro: 6 or 8 GB
 
And this is precisely why Apple doesn’t talk about RAM. Optimization is what’s important. I don’t even feel like the RAM on my iPhone 13 is limiting.

Chasing spec sheets doesn’t do any good. Look at the platform as a whole.
It’s snappy.

Should Apple stop upgrading phones every year? Maybe people would be happier with bigger changes? One year isn’t a lot of time.
 
It’s snappy.

Should Apple stop upgrading phones every year? Maybe people would be happier with bigger changes? One year isn’t a lot of time.
I think they should. Phones have matured to the point where year to year upgrades are so small.

People get so hyped up about Ray Tracing but it’s not the end all be all. I still disable it on my 4090 as I prefer high fps and it still tanks your fps.
 
that's not how ram works.

You're right, I was trying to be facetious much too quickly. But seriously what's the big draw? Even on my 13 pro max I find that backgrounded apps are set into some sort of "last used" state where they don't update, even with only a few apps running on a freshly rebooted device and with background app refresh on.
 
iPhone - 128MB LPDDR
iPhone 3G - 128MB LPDDR
iPhone 3GS - 256MB LPDDR
iPhone 4 - 512MB LPDDR
iPhone 4S - 512MB LPDDR2
iPhone 5 - 1GB LPDDR2
iPhone 5C - 1GB LPDDR2
iPhone 5S - 1GB LPDDR3
iPhone 6 & 6 Plus - 1GB LPDDR3
iPhone 6S & 6S Plus - 2GB LPDDR4
iPhone SE 1 - 2GB LPDDR4
iPhone 7 - 2GB LPDDR4
iPhone 7 Plus - 3GB LPDDR4
iPhone 8 - 2GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 8 Plus - 3GB LPDDR4X
iPhone X - 3GB LPDDR4X
iPhone XS & XS Max - 4GB LPDDR4X
iPhone XR - 3GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 11, 11 Pro & 11 Pro Max - 4GB LPDDR4X
iPhone SE 2 - 3GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 12 & 12 mini - 4GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 12 Pro & 12 Pro Max - 6GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 13 & 13 mini - 4GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 13 Pro & 13 Pro Max - 6GB LPDDR4X
iPhone SE 3 - 3GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 14 & 14 Plus - 6GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 14 Pro & 14 Pro Max - 6GB LPDDR5
iPhone 15 & 15 Plus - 6GB LPDDR5
iPhone 15 Pro & 15 Pro Max - 8GB LPDDR5
SE 3 has 4GB of ram.
 
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Oh man, I remember these two being particularly brutal. Anyone remember the checkerboard when scrolling on the web? If you would scroll a bit too fast (and in reality it was not very fast) the website would just disappear and you'd get a checkerboard pattern until it could load more of the website into RAM. I also remember trying to fill out some forms online and it would often reload the page if you switched to another tab to check something, losing all the form data you typed in. This included sites like MacRumors when making a post. Even when they moved to 256GB RAM on the 3GS and copy/paste came out, every time I would switch tabs when writing on MacRumors I would copy all the text I had just typed before switching just in case the tab reloaded, which still happened sometimes. This was back before MacRumors was updated to try to save your post draft as you type.
I’d forgotten but now you’ve reminded me I absolutely do remember that. It was still so amazing compared to the Nokia I’d come from.

Sadly now you probably need 1GB of RAM per tab just to run all the ad tracking JavaScript
 
It was time for a RAM upgrade in iPhones.

This only occurs every few years or so; and I typically wait for RAM to double, from my last phone.

As such, I will be trading in my 11 Pro Max for a 15 Pro Max this year.
 
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Meh. I don’t dislike this, but I don’t find RAM to be a problem like it used to be (when every app would get flushed from memory just by switching from one to the other, and all the apologists would say it’s not a problem), so I don’t really care / see this as having an impact on me — but I’m glad to see them upgrading it before it becomes a problem again!
Perhaps you’re not a power user when it comes to multitasking. I am frequently facing this issue on my iPhone 14 Pro 256gb
 
iPhone - 128MB LPDDR
iPhone 3G - 128MB LPDDR
iPhone 3GS - 256MB LPDDR
iPhone 4 - 512MB LPDDR
iPhone 4S - 512MB LPDDR2
iPhone 5 - 1GB LPDDR2
iPhone 5C - 1GB LPDDR2
iPhone 5S - 1GB LPDDR3
iPhone 6 & 6 Plus - 1GB LPDDR3
iPhone 6S & 6S Plus - 2GB LPDDR4
iPhone SE 1 - 2GB LPDDR4
iPhone 7 - 2GB LPDDR4
iPhone 7 Plus - 3GB LPDDR4
iPhone 8 - 2GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 8 Plus - 3GB LPDDR4X
iPhone X - 3GB LPDDR4X
iPhone XS & XS Max - 4GB LPDDR4X
iPhone XR - 3GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 11, 11 Pro & 11 Pro Max - 4GB LPDDR4X
iPhone SE 2 - 3GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 12 & 12 mini - 4GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 12 Pro & 12 Pro Max - 6GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 13 & 13 mini - 4GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 13 Pro & 13 Pro Max - 6GB LPDDR4X
iPhone SE 3 - 3GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 14 & 14 Plus - 6GB LPDDR4X
iPhone 14 Pro & 14 Pro Max - 6GB LPDDR5
iPhone 15 & 15 Plus - 6GB LPDDR5
iPhone 15 Pro & 15 Pro Max - 8GB LPDDR5
Thanks! This is great

Pretty amazing that the ram was at or below 4 GB through 2019 and has doubled in just four years
 
hopefully 3nm means better battery life

Going to a smaller process only means better battery life if all other variables stay the same, which never really happens.

Apple always increases the speed of the cpu, neural engine, gpu, etc.; and this is the case with the A17, so battery life remains the same as the previous generation(s) - but you get greater power.
 
Are we supposed to be impressed? Don’t cheaper android phones have 16 gb ram?
Didn’t the Galaxy S21 Ultra start at 12 GB of RAM with a 16GB option…
Then the very next year the S22 started at 8 GB of RAM and could only go up to 12?
That should tell you right there, that it doesn’t matter, when higher options are literally being downgraded because there’s no noticeable improvement.

also, looking at how the pixel fold has 16 GB of ram, but it’s outperformed by iPhone 12s with 1/4 the amount.
 
Should Apple stop upgrading phones every year? Maybe people would be happier with bigger changes? One year isn’t a lot of time.
In any given year, there are probably over 4 billion folks that don’t have an iPhone. Those people would be happy with “whatever the phone is when they buy it”, so Apple continually updates to keep those billions interested (It’s always best to sell a new thing over a thing that’s over a year in the market, unless price is more of a factor).
 
100% confirmed that all the Pros across the board are getting 8GB and not only if you get a certain storage option? I just preordered a Max with 256GB but was debating with 512GB.
 
I think people forget that because of the very high level of optimization between iOS and the Apple-designed SoC, it's extremely efficient in memory usage. That's why I think the iPhone 15 Pro models will be surprisingly fast because of having 8 GB of RAM available, which means no memory swapping between RAM and SSD local storage in many cases.
 
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