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It's about the excess overhead you have. An OS that uses anywhere from say 500-750 mb of ram on os boot on a device with 2 gb of RAM has over 1gb of overhead for apps or anything else.

If you have 512 mb on your device and the OS takes up 200 mb that's not much overhead for your apps or tabs. Even less when the OS takes up around the same amount.

but I thought iOS and OSX will use as much RAM as it has available even it it does not exactly "need" that much RAM to function and as it needs more it "reshuffles" RAM to be distributed where its needed?

My guess is Safari or how iOS makes new tabs is the issue, it freezes the tabs not in the foreground making them reload when you need them again if the tab requires more RAM
 
but I thought iOS and OSX will use as much RAM as it has available even it it does not exactly "need" that much RAM to function and as it needs more it "reshuffles" RAM to be distributed where its needed?

I think it might. That's why I said 500-750. I've monitored it on some devices and it seems the OS itself never exceeds 800, or at least not that I've seen. It's when you have other apps and or tabs open when you see it purge crap. Which is fine and dandy for keeping the device running but it's not so fine and dandy when you can't have any apps or tabs stored in RAM because of the lack of it.

Also I should add I don't believe this has anything to do with safari being some kind of odd case. Reports of air 2 owners have already been saying the tab reloading happens now only with a very very large amount of tabs open and you can have apps and what not open and stills switch back to the safari tabs. Id imagine its a pretty good experience there even if 2gb of RAM isn't that much for a device with that resolution and power.
 
but I thought iOS and OSX will use as much RAM as it has available even it it does not exactly "need" that much RAM to function and as it needs more it "reshuffles" RAM to be distributed where its needed?

My guess is Safari or how iOS makes new tabs is the issue, it freezes the tabs not in the foreground making them reload when you need them again if the tab requires more RAM

Modern OS's use up the available memory as you use the device. But on a fresh boot without any apps or background services running, usage should be minimal. In the case of the iPhone 6/6+, that minimal usage tends to be around 700MB. And it seems 150-200 MB end up being reserved by the OS for core functions. So apps end up only having 100-150MB to share.
 
Modern OS's use up the available memory as you use the device. But on a fresh boot without any apps or background services running, usage should be minimal. In the case of the iPhone 6/6+, that minimal usage tends to be around 700MB. And it seems 150-200 MB end up being reserved by the OS for core functions. So apps end up only having 100-150MB to share.

I may be wrong but I think it uses 700MB because it sees 1000MB available but as soon as other things need RAM it takes back some of that 700MB
 
I may be wrong but I think it uses 700MB because it sees 1000MB available but as soon as other things need RAM it takes back some of that 700MB

I don't think so. Otherwise the iPad Air 2 would show more than 1GB usage on a fresh boot and OSX would try to use all of my 16GB that's available on my MacBook (it doesn't -- even when I have loads of stuff running, I'm rarely above 8GB usage)

Also keep in mind that OSX and iOS are very different in that iOS doesn't have virtual memory. So it's fine for OSX to use up all the available memory - it doesn't have to purge anything. With iOS, there needs to be some free space so that new apps can be loaded without killing other ones.
 
If I had 4GB I would probably consider keeping the device longer than 2 years. Which again, is exactly what Apple doesn't want. As it stands now, I don't think I'll be able to keep this phone beyond a year. The CPU and GPU are fine for my uses, but the RAM makes upgrading a necessity with how bloated iOS has been getting

Thankfully, iPhones hold their resale value remarkably well... which is the only reason I'm down with the annual upgrades.

I recall selling my wife's Mint two-year-old iPhone 4S 32GB for $370, which meant my wife came out net-positive when she upgraded it to the 5S last year. This year however due to her incessant demand for a big iPhone (she can't use a computer because she's watching our son all day) I couldn't say no when she wanted a 6+.
 
You probably won't realize how bad your iPhone is running until Apple finally releases one with 2GB+. The iPad Air 2 seems to have pretty much no tab reloading

The iPhone's & iPads in my household are running fine thanks. Comes down to use cases I suppose.

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It certainly would make the 6S future proof. Which is exactly what Apple doesn't want

Tell me, what mobile phones are future-proof? Are you saying Apple has an obsolescence agenda that no other manufacturer does?

The support for new OS's on the idevice's I've ever owned has been pretty good. On the desktop front, my 2007 imac is supported for Yosemite & runs superbly for a 7 year old computer.
 
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I don't think so. Otherwise the iPad Air 2 would show more than 1GB usage on a fresh boot and OSX would try to use all of my 16GB that's available on my MacBook (it doesn't -- even when I have loads of stuff running, I'm rarely above 8GB usage)

Also keep in mind that OSX and iOS are very different in that iOS doesn't have virtual memory. So it's fine for OSX to use up all the available memory - it doesn't have to purge anything. With iOS, there needs to be some free space so that new apps can be loaded without killing other ones.

thanks I was not sure, I know my MBP with 16GB it seems like it uses the free RAM before it starts to use the inactive RAM so even without needing 16GB of RAM I see the RAM being used
 
iPhone 6S needs 16GB RAM, ThunderBolt 3, support for 5K external monitors, and needs to run a full version of OS X. I hope that's the end-game at least.
 
No chance. How long did it take them to break the 1GB RAM cycle?

Apple, now more than ever, is way too focused on minimizing risk and maximizing profit margins to do such a thing. Remember, this is the "Cook Era"...
 
I stopped at 1. because Apple doesn't advertise RAM in the iPhone.

Of course they don't. They generally have the least, why would they advertise that? Unlike 64 bit which they go on and on about. Or OIS, or M7/M8 coprocessors, etc. If they dropped 4gb of DDR4 ram in you'd know about it pretty quick.
 
MODS- you should create an instaban rule when someone's OP mentions '2GB', 'GATE', 'BENT/BEND' etc.

I'm down with that rule..

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iPhone 6S needs 16GB RAM, ThunderBolt 3, support for 5K external monitors, and needs to run a full version of OS X. I hope that's the end-game at least.

Don't forget a full USB port and removable storage.. Ahh, to dream...
 
I think memory management and optimization is much more important than more physical memory.

I'll take an iOS device with 1gb and zero memory leaks over a device with 4gb littered with them.
 
OP, why stop at 4 Gigs of ram...why not make it 8 or even 16 Gigs of ram?

/s
 
Why would Apple suddenly start caring about being the first? They don't care what their specs look like on paper. If they did they would be in the megapixel and screen resolution wars with the rest of them.
 
Yeah pretty much. I don't 'do' political correctness. BAN HAMMER THESE FOOLS!

That makes no sense whatsoever in this case. Get a grip.

Maybe next time you make a thread asking a question you should be banned because I don't like the issue you're discussing. :rolleyes:
 
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