I thought iphone 5 had 1GB RAM as part of planned obsolescence, now they should definitely upgrade the RAM and plan their obsolescence else where
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iPhone 6 Plus Teardown: Twice as Big a Battery as iPhone 5s [Update: 1 GB RAM Confirmed]
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I thought iphone 5 had 1GB RAM as part of planned obsolescence, now they should definitely upgrade the RAM and plan their obsolescence else where
You'd be surprised.
1% of $200 profit per phone is about $2.
Not significant?
Consider a sale of 4M in 1 day.
$2 * 4,000,000?
That's $8,000,000. On the first day.
I'll say that again: Apple bagged $10 millions profits on just RAM chips on the first day of sale.
But it's definitely not 1% because RAM modules are definitely not $2-$3.
Last I checked, mobile RAM modules are priced at roughly $4-$10 even at volume pricing.
Total number of iPhone 5 sales have accumulated to 91,000,000 units as of this point. Source:
http://www.statisticbrain.com/iphone-5-sales-statistics/
So... if Apple is cashing in an extra $5 per phone?
That's $455,000,000... or just shy of half a billion dollar of profit over the whole run of the device... for just having 1GB less memory.
Again, Apple is a business. Profit margins in % may look insignificant to you, but accumulated over big numbers, and we have big profit margins.
The only thing insignificant here is how much of a negative impact an increase in RAM would have on the user experience.
As consumers, we should be asking for more. Instead, people are making up excuses after excuses because in their minds, Apple can do no fault.
Let's say it did. Most of iOS related reboots are caused by crashing apps. Most of glitches on software or loading content problems are caused by crashing apps. 1GB of Ram is simply not enough.
I love all of the self-proclaimed experts in this thread pretending they are smarter than Apple's own engineers.
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I love how everyone else assumes Apple is not a business when it's obvious that they are...
Engineers are obligated to meet financial expectations in that sort of environment, so compromises had to be made.
And now people think they are smarter than Apple's executives and board of directors? It just keeps getting better and better.
Quite a lot of it in your post.
Well, there are zero RAM chips in the A8, but giving you the benefit of the doubt for the moment, please point out for us a 32Gb package that would work.
Nope. There's a handy reference sheet here that shows you that even in a single module, going from 1Gb to 4Gb density increases active power consumption from 190mW to 240mW. That's a nearly 25% increase even in a single module setup.
In standby. Active power consumption is 200-300mW per module, and an iOS device has two modules in package, drawing a combined ~500mW in active operation. After the display and CPU/GPU, it's right up there with the wireless radio and flash storage gobbling up power.
RAM is constantly on. That's the point. When RAM is in its active state, it is consuming 5-10% of the total operating power draw of 3-6W. That's still pretty substantial.
Which two-module package would you recommend?
The fact of the matter is, setting aside the $5 hit to BOM cost and the power consumption, there are still other fundamental issues: higher density means worse heat dissipation, 16Gb packages in the height required rarely match performance specs, and even if they had been willing to lower specs in favor of capacity, the A8 production schedule predated market availability these modules, and even at time of launch (let alone at time of DVT) none has been produced in the volume needed for an Apple product.
There is no way that Apple would alienate its customers and risk losing sales over a few bucks--they know when and where to spend extra money to make it back.
Exactly right. If they were pinching pennies, they wouldn't have increased spending on other components that have no impact on performance. They're spending more on parts and materials for this phone than the 5S by far more than the amount it would have cost to bump up the RAM.
Apple knows where to invest to maximize its returns, both in performance and in profit. Apple also knows how to make informed engineering decisions.
When the actual need for more RAM exceeds other engineering needs, and those needs intersect with availability of suitable components, it will happen and they will price the resulting product around it.
Apple designs their phone for the masses and not necessarily the power user who values multitasking. 1GB is enough for the masses.
That being said, even Apple knows that an extra gig of RAM would improve the Safari web browsing user experience for the power user. But they chose not to address that issue. We can only speculate as to why.
Actually, they know it wouldn't improve the Safari experience for the power user by a sufficient margin to justify the tradeoffs. You're right that we can only speculate as to exactly what went into that calculation in the internal meetings and what weight was assigned to each factor.
But anyone who really thinks Apple decided to drop money on distortion-free radius beveling the glass cover, a punchout Apple logo, rubber sealing grommets around the switches, developing process improvements to improve the already-fine viewing angles of the display, and--for crying out loud--embossing the box, but pulled the plug on more RAM purely to pad its profits needs their head examined.
For a company that designs the best CPU/GPU in the market as well as first to 64-bit, both of which you could argue are overkill for most applications, skimping out on RAM doesn't make sense. Why not build the complete package and end the argument altogether?
So when Apple puts in a (almost pointless) 64 bit Chip into the iPhone, it is called future proofing by the loyalists. But restricting the RAM to 1 GByte is hardware optimization, especially for the masses. LMAO 
Priceless. Face it:
is playing their game of tiptoeing their improvements and upgrades. Next year you will most likely see an OIS camera on the 4.7 " version and more RAM in all models, so the die hard will buy another iPhone again and then the extra RAM will be praised.
Technology is advancing but there is only so much you can do on a ~5" device. Apple could have put in an OIS camera on the 4.7" model, kept the thickness of the 5s, combined it with a long lasting battery and slapped in easily 2-3 GByte of RAM in all models, and you had a device which would be good for the next years to come.
But of course, they want many users to upgrade again, when the next model comes out. Can't blame them, they want to make profits and keep the share holders happy. But don't fool yourself and think, that the current specs of the phone are the best, Apple could offer, and the latest models are the best, they could come up with.
Priceless. Face it:
is playing their game of tiptoeing their improvements and upgrades. Next year you will most likely see an OIS camera on the 4.7 " version and more RAM in all models, so the die hard will buy another iPhone again and then the extra RAM will be praised.Technology is advancing but there is only so much you can do on a ~5" device. Apple could have put in an OIS camera on the 4.7" model, kept the thickness of the 5s, combined it with a long lasting battery and slapped in easily 2-3 GByte of RAM in all models, and you had a device which would be good for the next years to come.
But of course, they want many users to upgrade again, when the next model comes out. Can't blame them, they want to make profits and keep the share holders happy. But don't fool yourself and think, that the current specs of the phone are the best, Apple could offer, and the latest models are the best, they could come up with.
That's exactly why: they're not skimping out. Why would they develop a 64-bit, extremely optimized CPU if they could just slap more RAM in and forget about it? For the reasons already discussed.
Again, please point out an actual shipping part that would work. If you're so convinced there's something better out there, surely you have seen it and can share with the class.But don't fool yourself and think, that the current specs of the phone are the best, Apple could offer, and the latest models are the best, they could come up with.
Sure, no problem.
LG managed to squeeze 2 GB of RAM, a 3000 mAH battery a 13 MP OIS camera and a 5.2 1080p screen into a package similarly sized of a iPhone 6 last year.
I am sure, mighty Apple could have offered something similar this year and still managed to trim a few mm here and there. No?
Comparison iPhone 6 - LG G2
That's not the question. We know there are phones with 2GB of RAM. I asked for a shipping part number for RAM that would work in the iPhone 6 that meets or exceeds all current specs at a capacity of 16Gb.
Yeah, when they designed the iPhone and where happy with the result, Jon Ive drove to the next computer hardware retailer and he chose the one memory chip, which would fit into the socket.
Unfortunately only the 1GB model fitted in. The one with 2 GB would have required to bend the 2 outer pins of the chip slightly outward, but that would have interfered with the LTE antenna.
And they could have not designed the iPhone in any other conceivable way, surely.
Yeah, there's no socket and Ive wouldn't be involved in that in the first place, but points for effort.
You’ve concluded that it’s easy, so I can only assume you’ve conducted a thorough literature review of DRAM technology, an audit of available parts, a channel check, and a comprehensive engineering analysis of the iPhone and can recommend a suitable part or propose a superior design to accommodate your preferred part. We’d all be very interested in seeing your report.And they could have not designed the iPhone in any other conceivable way, surely.
This is Apple. Are you suggesting that the most powerful technology company on earth couldn't find a way to put 2GB of RAM in the iPhone 6?
Have you read nothing? Of course they could make a 2GB iPhone if there were an actual benefit to doing so that outweighed the tradeoffs at this exact moment in time. But there isn't.