The iPhone 4S Appears to Have 512MB RAM

[cvaldes]

So did you buy the stodgy minivan when you were a young, single guy instead of the hot little impractical sportscar?

Or did you do the sensible thing, knowing eventually you'd have a wife, two kids, strollers, kids sports gear, musical instruments, bicycles, etc.?

Or did you buy that US Robotics 56K modem back in 1995, even though high-speed FiOS access would eventually come along?

Mmm?

 

[garylapointe]

I'm a little bummed if they didn't upgrade the RAM, it's gotta help the experience a little right? Certainly it would help with the experience of iOS 7, right?

When I paid $100 to jump from 16GB to 32GB would have been a good time for them to stick it in there; that's a pretty pricey 16GB when you factor in the next 32GB (32GB to 64GB) is only $100...

Gary

 

[marty11]

So did you buy the stodgy minivan when you were a young, single guy instead of the hot little impractical sportscar?

Or did you do the sensible thing, knowing eventually you'd have a wife, two kids, strollers, kids sports gear, musical instruments, bicycles, etc.?

Or did you buy that US Robotics 56K modem back in 1995, even though high-speed FiOS access would eventually come along?

Do you buy expired milk and then boast to your kids how their "nutritional experience" is still the envy of the world?

 

[iSee]

You just forget one thing.... Apple bought Siri / Nuance. Their licensing costs were the costs to acquire them and they can do with it what they want. ...

Siri and Nuance are two different companies. Apple bought Siri, not Nuance.

 

[D.T.]

So did you buy the stodgy minivan when you were a young, single guy instead of the hot little impractical sportscar?

When I was young[er] and single, I bought a hot impractical sportscar.

...and now I'm much older, have a sweet little baby girl, I'm married ... and I have a hot, impractical sportscar.

... oh, wait.

 

[patriciasrusch]

I am kinda happy that the RAM remains 512MB. It helps the developer to think clearly what's needed to be developed within the constraints of the ram. Instead of Chrome Browsers today, taking 50MB per tab.

patriciasrusch@linuxmirroreast.com

 

[MacinDoc]

Kinda makes sense, as Apple can continue to use exactly the same A5 as it is using in the iPad 2. Keep in mind that that the A5 is already bigger and hotter than the A4, so adding additional RAM would have cost more and made things worse in terms of size, heat, battery life and cost.

Not to say that I wouldn't have wanted more, given the choice, just saying that it makes sense from a business and design standpoint.

 

[MRU]

Isn't it sad this 8 month old A5 chip is faster than the Dual core Galaxy S2 that was released just months ago?

BrowseMark 89567pts vs 50504pts from the Galaxy. And this is doing it underclocked.

I'd say it's more of a slam to Android's browser in 2.3.4 / 2.3.5 than to the SGS2's processor.

Also touchwiz is a bit poo on the SGS2 runs a heck of a lot of unnecessary Samsung processes in the background (hence generally poor but sometimes ok - always inconsistent battery life).


One benefit of iOS and fixed ram means users do not have to micromanage tasks and background applications. The SGS2 and HTC Sensation both turned me into an OCD task manager addict, constantly checking remaining ram and killing background processes to free up more of it. Also to make sure no battery sapping processes were running as there is often a surprisingly large amount of stuff running you never launched - but automatically launched.

That being said after using Android for last few months 512 still seems a little tight to me, and really does make the 4S to me more of the minor hardware upgrade than anything else, however as I'm eligible for a free upgrade shortly from my carrier - I have no doubt I'll end up with a 4S at some point in the near future.

 

[The Highlander]

If I recall correctly, this same thing happened to the iPhone 4. A lot of people speculated and/or said that it only had 256mb ram. It came out to be that it did have 512mb.

I am still hoping it has 1gb. The iPhone gets REALLY slow when RAM is dropping. Jailbroken or NOT.

If you jailbreak you need a tad more RAM to run all the stuff you add on to it.

Apps like KillBackground do very well because RAM IS limited and USERS know it. So to everyone saying it's ok, it's not needed because iOS is super efficient maybe they don't "push" the device to the limit.

We need more RAM and that is what made me jump from the 3gs to the i4.

If there is no 1gb, I will NOT upgrade to the 4S nor iOS5 on my i4 (probably).

I have the iPad 2 and it LAGS when its low on RAM. Jailbroken also.

 

[Ammo]

I'm looking forward to the teardown.

I said this earlier and I'll say it again: Some have mentioned that less tasks will be able to be run in the background because of Siri taking up so much RAM. I'm going to guess Siri has 512 MB RAM partitioned off exclusively to it, then the rest of the phone has 512 for everything else (similar to how the Atrix had an extra 512 MB partitioned off for the Lapdock only).

Again, how silly would it look if the 4S ran fewer tasks in the background than the iPhone 4?

Why hasn't Siri been announced for iPad 2? Likely due to RAM restraints. Of course, I'm sure it will be included with iPad 3. Apple seems to have this "give/take" approach to iPhone and iPad.

iPad leads with processor (A4 and A5) to be included in next iPhone, iPhone leads with new innovation (FaceTime for iPhone 4 then on iPad 2, Siri for iPhone 4S then perhaps iPad 3/2S? (lol, I could see people pooping themselves worse than last Tuesday if Apple actually named iPad 3 the 2S)) to be included in next iPad.

 

[Mr. Gates]

So it requires a special chip but it should be allowed to run on other devices because it can't be that much more taxing?

Is your only reason to post just to stir things up? These posts look like they are only ment to be inflamatory in their contridictions.

Are you crazy ?

This is a RUMOR site !

Here is what I said :

"Not likely.

Rumor is that it is a dedicated chip handling SIRI"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Gates View Post

"Yeah, that's where I got it.

Sad too.

I gotta wonder if there is a reason other than to make it a 4S exclusive.

Is it that much more taxing on the system and RAM ?

Especially considering that the service relies on the internet"




How is this upsetting you? I'm just presenting some possibilities.

True or not :Who knows ?

"inflamatory in their contridictions"

Care to explain ?

You don't make any sense !

How am I stirring things up by presenting a possibility of a technical specification ??

I think YOU are Trolling Me dude !

 

[mikerr]

limited RAM is going to force another iPhone purchase in the future when their new OS can't run well on 512M RAM.

And that is exactly why they do it.

 

[deV14nt]

Last week, the Infinity Blade developer first suggested that the iPhone 4S still had 512MB of RAM, just like the iPhone 4:

"I'm still shocked that, with the iPhone 4S, I'm literally running around with a 1080p video camera in my pocket, with an eight megapixel camera, 64GB of hard drive space and an A5 chip with 512MB of memory. This is a really powerful computer, right?

I'm more concerned with the hard drive statement. That phone must be huge!

Of course he's a developer, so he must be right.

 

[ErnestoD]

Multitasking

My Wife still uses with no problems at all the I-Phone 3S , she is using for her companies around 12 email accounts , 4 Facebook accounts 3 Twitter account,
all different kind of apps like the camera and also FileMaker Go, so the amount of RAM never seem the be a issue ....more important for her at moment is Battery time....

greetz,

Ernesto

 

[TechZoomOrg]

512 MB RAM for iPhone 4S is totally unacceptable even if the processor is dual-core.

I am not liking this at all.

 

[BergerFan]

It just confirms, how efficient and optimised, iOS really is. Very little bloat within the code, I suspect.

 

[odedia]

I have a 3GS running iOS 5 and it doesn't do that, anymore. Wait and see iOS 5, it's great. If you still have problems, restore as a new phone.

I am running iOS 5 since beta 1 to the current GM, and performance is terrible. Plus, the battery life is terrible, I'm talking 4-5 hours wait time before it dies. Probably related to either iCloud or iTunes WI-FI syncing. The 3GS is simply not built for this type of an operating system. Would love to hear other people's thoughts with the 3GS+iOS 5 cause currently version 4 is far superior for this device.

 

[bushido]

Yes, it does, it's on the top of the unit. If you have an iPad 2 3G, it's a little hole in the black plastic strip. If you have a WiFi-only iPad, I believe the top is just metal, no plastic strip.

The iPad/iPod touch now come with front-facing cameras and built-in microphones for FaceTime.

oooh now i feel like a noob haha good 2 know i always checked the bottom next to the speaker and discovered nothing ^^

 

[George Knighton]

Apple has always been stingy with RAM--whether it's in their computers or iStuff.

Are they stingy or do they just know how to write code properly?

:runs for cover:

 

[Hell0W0rld]

Wonder when the first smartphone with 4GB Ram will come out...

 

[diamond.g]

Did the apps that tell how much RAM an iOS device has have to be updated? I seem to recall Apps reading wrong amount of RAM when the 4 first came out.

 

[aeaglex07]

It just confirms, how efficient and optimised, iOS really is. Very little bloat within the code, I suspect.

i have to agree. It seems to run smoother than iOS 4.

 

[435713]

deleted

 

[aeaglex07]

TBH it doesnt matter if the 4S only has 512MB of RAM, its still 68% faster the previous model.

 

[Vindicator]

If I recall correctly, this same thing happened to the iPhone 4. A lot of people speculated and/or said that it only had 256mb ram. It came out to be that it did have 512mb.

I am still hoping it has 1gb. The iPhone gets REALLY slow when RAM is dropping. Jailbroken or NOT.

If you jailbreak you need a tad more RAM to run all the stuff you add on to it.

Apps like KillBackground do very well because RAM IS limited and USERS know it. So to everyone saying it's ok, it's not needed because iOS is super efficient maybe they don't "push" the device to the limit.

We need more RAM and that is what made me jump from the 3gs to the i4.

If there is no 1gb, I will NOT upgrade to the 4S nor iOS5 on my i4 (probably).

I have the iPad 2 and it LAGS when its low on RAM. Jailbroken also.

IMO the 4S still great with 512mb RAM, but I was really really want 1GB Ram on my iPad 2, Safari and background app reload/lost state too often, it's very noticeable compare to my iPhone 4.