Official iPhone 6 Plus Reviews Report 1 GB RAM

[wizard]

Apple has always been cheap with RAM -- always --

I really don't wanna believe the company that I am such a huge fan of would do something seemingly so "cheap" without it first being exhaustively researched. I don't know though, people on here are screaming that Apple is just penny pinching, and that it will hurt performance. I am torn...

They only recently wised up with the Macs and apparently only did that because of the move to soldered in RAM. The Macs for a long time barely came with enough RAM to boot up much less run real apps.

I honestly don't know what Apples problem is here. Right from the very beginning they where complete asses about being honest about the specs for iPhone.

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I don't care about the specs. I just want Safari to stop reloading every 5 minutes. And no, I don't have 8+ tabs opened. Barely 2 or 3.

Just realize that the reloads aren't always RAM related. Sometimes the web site expects to be reloaded when it's window takes focus.

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The only people screaming for more RAM are us nerds on this forum and some others.

Most iPhone users don't even know what RAM is.

Sadly that is certainly true. You can see that even in this thread there are a large number of people that have no clue at all as to what RAM does in a computer. Blissfully ignorant really.

 

[wizard]

I asked my friend who works at Apple and actually develops iOS. He said iOS is more efficient and doesn't need more ram. In fact having more ram will simply encourage developers to be sloppier lazier and you end up with the same performance but greater battery drain. If you only give the developer 1gb they will learn to code better and maximize the resource they have. If they can't do it it will just weed out the inferior developers.

That may very well be Apples position but I have to be honest here, the apps that cause the most problems are Apples. Beyond that some apps just need more RAM than others. By staying at 1GB they effectively prevent innovation and the ability for good developers to enhance their apps is severely limited.

As for power use, if your systems lack of RAM forces you to reload over a cell connection you immediately start burning up more battery time than a doubling of RAM would. This is what kills me because that LTE connection is a power hog plus it just increases my data usage. So the users get screwed two ways.

 

[iphone5att64]

That may very well be Apples position but I have to be honest here, the apps that cause the most problems are Apples. Beyond that some apps just need more RAM than others. By staying at 1GB they effectively prevent innovation and the ability for good developers to enhance their apps is severely limited.

As for power use, if your systems lack of RAM forces you to reload over a cell connection you immediately start burning up more battery time than a doubling of RAM would. This is what kills me because that LTE connection is a power hog plus it just increases my data usage. So the users get screwed two ways.

Another reason for more RAM.

"Extensions have a lot of promise, but these are brand-new APIs, and as with anything new there are going to be situations where expectations don't match up with reality. There's one example from an application we've already looked at—SwiftKey doesn't currently support gesture-based "Flow" typing on iPads, specifically because extensions have such a low memory ceiling that the feature can't be implemented."

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/09/ios-8-thoroughly-reviewed/4/

 

[ee4life]

As for power use, if your systems lack of RAM forces you to reload over a cell connection you immediately start burning up more battery time than a doubling of RAM would. This is what kills me because that LTE connection is a power hog plus it just increases my data usage. So the users get screwed two ways.

LTE TX/RX is a bursty power draw, the RAM draw not as much, so it's not cut-and-dry.

Let's say your LTE consumes 2W during active TX/RX and the extra RAM would consume an average of 0.25W constantly. If over the course of a minute using the phone it spends 5 seconds transmitting/receiving "reload" data over LTE, would that have more or less impact on the battery than the constant draw of the RAM would over the same period of time?

Those are just made up numbers so maybe I'm off base, and even if not there are of course scenarios where the LTE would be a bigger problem than the extra RAM (switching tabs with very high frequency; constantly reloading resource-intense sites), but there are even more use cases where the RAM draws extra power with LTE not being a factor: working in airplane mode, watching a locally stored movie, playing an offline game, etc.

 

[pbasmadj]

Once again, To market with a device that is behind the competition. Good job Apple.

I always laugh at these people. You would think if somebody sincerely believed what they were saying, they would be happy with whatever X device that they have, and not on the Apple forum commenting on the device that they find "inferior". The psychology is quite interesting. I sure as hell am not about to go over to the Galaxy forum, for any reason, at all. What people don't understand is Apple's design ideology. Has Apple ever been about producing the highest spec machines, no. Have they always been about making great suites that are fun and simple and great to use, yes. Get a clue man.

 

[atomiton]

That may very well be Apples position but I have to be honest here, the apps that cause the most problems are Apples. Beyond that some apps just need more RAM than others. By staying at 1GB they effectively prevent innovation and the ability for good developers to enhance their apps is severely limited.

As for power use, if your systems lack of RAM forces you to reload over a cell connection you immediately start burning up more battery time than a doubling of RAM would. This is what kills me because that LTE connection is a power hog plus it just increases my data usage. So the users get screwed two ways.

They actually aren't discouraging innovation, but rather, they are directing it. While it does limit things, you will find that when a developer/artist/creator is bound by limitations, they can be more focused on creating efficiencies.

You are, essentially, forcing devs to be more resourceful. While it's a slower road to development, ultimately, it's a more carefully trod, thoughtful path that reaps benefits over the long term.

It also maintains compatibility with older devices for a longer period of time, allowing iOS devices to maintain a higher resale value, increases the perceived value of the device and allows Apple to charge a higher price.

All these decisions are related and carefully orchestrated. Apple has never sold specs, look at the original Macintosh.

 

[Liberty.]

They actually aren't discouraging innovation, but rather, they are directing it. While it does limit things, you will find that when a developer/artist/creator is bound by limitations, they can be more focused on creating efficiencies. You are, essentially, forcing devs to be more resourceful. While it's a slower road to development, ultimately, it's a more carefully trod, thoughtful path that reaps benefits over the long term.

While this is 100% true, 1GB is still very limited.