The iPhone 4S Appears to Have 512MB RAM

[firewood]

1. More RAM eats more power thus reducing battery life.

Before someone says that this amount is trivial, please check the refresh current specs for 512MB of RAM and calculate the number of day/weeks of standby that this will cut battery life.

A phone with a dead battery is a useless phone.

2. iOS doesn't need the RAM as much as the competition. Many developers have reported that iOS makes a lot more efficient use of RAM. The competition requires their 1GB to produce a user experience often inferior to iOS with 512MB. Maybe the competition will need to put in 2GB just to help catch up?

 

[blackcrayon]

512 mb isnt much at all

i'm running iOS5 on my iPhone 4 and i have only 282 mb left even after reboot and all apps but mail and phone closed. when i have apps "frozen" in the background which according to apple isnt taking any ressources its even dipping below 100 mb. that's why i always close all my apps from the multitask thing which is annoying with lots of apps open.

i was hoping for 1GB so i dont have to close those damn apps all the time one by one

iOS automatically closes background apps when it needs RAM. So there is rarely any reason to hunt through the multitask bar to close apps (it might help i some isolated cases but it's not something that is needed as a routine).

"Paused" apps are just holding onto RAM in case you need to switch back to them in the near future. I believe iOS 5 is even more efficient in the RAM department as it will actually swap very small app memory footprints (a few MB) out to disk, probably because the user would never notice that small amount of RAM being loaded back when the app is returned to.

 

[cbud]

only a few open pages in Safari at a time

More RAM would be great for Safari. When searching the web I like to open links into new pages/tabs as I come across them and then review/compare them all together. As of now, I can only have a few pages stored in memory, so once I flip to the new page the whole things has to load again, sucking away at my battery and data plan. It would be nice if Safari could cache 5 or 10 pages at time. I am lucky if I get 3 to stay in memory.

c

 

[trondah]

So, the amount of RAM does not matter to user experience. Is this a new low for Apple fan rationalization skills?

Is your iPhone 4 or 4S running out of memory? No? So what is your conclusion then?

 

[skinned66]

Doesnt need more. My bionic had a gig and 600 was free nearly all the time.

This is worth repeating. I've never seen my iPhone 4 with more than 384MB in use (iOS4); it's worth noting it's jailbroken so I've got even more background processes running than a stock iPhone 4 right from power-up. I doubt all of the new features the 4S has are going to pin the RAM enough to require more.

I believe the people that suggested the main motivator being power conservation are likely correct. I'm not up to speed on engineer's options were for single or paired memory chips, but if half is consistently not used then it's "dead weight" for lack of better term.

 

[sgrrsh26]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Which phone...
My 3G can't cache one but the iPhone 4 can only cache 3??

 

[fjsiskilroy]

Always just enough to run perfectly well

One of the reasons Apple has never publicized the amount of RAM their computers and IOS devices is because they don't want to be caught up in the numbers game that other manufacturers unless that number makes the experience better. That is why they tout numbers like capacity (more apps, music, photos that you can carry). CPU cores (more cores is faster), etc.

While more RAM is always useful to run more programs at the same time, it doesn't really improve the experience if you are only running one program at a time. The way IOS does multitasking through services, the memory footprint of active programs is so low that most of the RAM is used by the program you are using at that moment.

What is more complaint worthy is why Siri is not in the iPad 2. You can argue (both technically and business case) that Siri cannot run in previous iPhones, iPods, because you need a Dual Core CPU and you want to separate between iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S and push people to the newer model.

But the iPad 2 is a newer model and something like Siri dictation might be a killer feature for such a device. iPad 3 may not appear until Summer of 2012, so you are not really affecting a future roll-out. The only thing I can figure is that Siri will eventually be added to the iPad 2, just like multitasking was added 3-4 months after it was added on the iPhone.

Ideally, it should be added before the Holidays to give it that extra boost and make people forget a possible iPad 3.

 

[shompa]

Isn't the memory inside the A class SoC?

It would be hard to manufacture 2 different versions of the same chip just to fiddle around with the memory.

 

[lilo777]

512 mb isnt much at all

i'm running iOS5 on my iPhone 4 and i have only 282 mb left even after reboot and all apps but mail and phone closed. when i have apps "frozen" in the background which according to apple isnt taking any ressources its even dipping below 100 mb. that's why i always close all my apps from the multitask thing which is annoying with lots of apps open.

i was hoping for 1GB so i dont have to close those damn apps all the time one by one

Your post got me curious so I checked RAM status on my SGSII. With no applications running RAM manager shows 333/837MB which I interpret as having 504 MB free RAM. After opening GMail application, RAM manager shows 384/837 MB (453MB free RAM).

One of the reasons Apple has never publicized the amount of RAM their computers and IOS devices is because they don't want to be caught up in the numbers game that other manufacturers unless that number makes the experience better. That is why they tout numbers like capacity (more apps, music, photos that you can carry). CPU cores (more cores is faster), etc.

While more RAM is always useful to run more programs at the same time, it doesn't really improve the experience if you are only running one program at a time. The way IOS does multitasking through services, the memory footprint of active programs is so low that most of the RAM is used by the program you are using at that moment.

What is more complaint worthy is why Siri is not in the iPad 2. You can argue (both technically and business case) that Siri cannot run in previous iPhones, iPods, because you need a Dual Core CPU and you want to separate between iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S and push people to the newer model.

But the iPad 2 is a newer model and something like Siri dictation might be a killer feature for such a device. iPad 3 may not appear until Summer of 2012, so you are not really affecting a future roll-out. The only thing I can figure is that Siri will eventually be added to the iPad 2, just like multitasking was added 3-4 months after it was added on the iPhone.

Ideally, it should be added before the Holidays to give it that extra boost and make people forget a possible iPad 3.

You are assuming that one application can not consume more than 300MB. That's a wrong assumption. Do you remember those well documented complaints about Safari having to reload pages when user opened multiple tabs? That's just one example.

 

[skinned66]

However, "only" 512 MB RAM does seem like the 4S's only negative. More than 512 MB RAM may not be needed now, but what about when iOS 6 comes out?

My guess is it will run as smooth as a 3G does with iOS4

 

[ucantgetridofme]

i guess apple has put all their money on the iO5 os in terms of efficiency, coupled with the A5, 512mb of ram is more than sufficient for a seamless experience....

Keep telling yourself that and it might come true ..... not!

 

[joneill55]

So Siri will run on jailbroken iPhone 4's?

Yep, my guess as well.

 

[Defender2010]

Well, color me puzzled at the Siri exclusion. Someone mentioned maybe a microphone tweak, but I'm not buying that. Not as a deal breaker.

The iPhone doesn't do true multi-tasking so it really doesn't need the extra memory because mostly everything is just suspended. Android devices keep things running (and draining your battery) so they do need more memory.

I would have though Siri would be doing heavy multitasking and require extra memory.... apparently not!

BOO.

So now I go back to my second though.... will Apple release Siri in the App store for older devices after Siri exits beta? They have done this with the iPod touch after updates gave new features not included with it's original software.

I'd pay $5 for Siri.

Though, if they did this, the beta period would seem convenient. Release Siri as a stand alone app a few months after they just sold crap loads of 4S-es

Best idea I read yet! Could be a possibility!

 

[arn]

Isn't the memory inside the A class SoC?

It would be hard to manufacture 2 different versions of the same chip just to fiddle around with the memory.

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/13535871/

 

[seamuskrat]

iOS and the nature of the hardware

Keep in mind a mobile iOS device is not a miniature Mac. We often think of it that way, but an ambedded device operates very differently and iOS operates very differently than Mac OSX.

If the real world performance is there with 128, 256, 512 or 1024 megs of RAM then the device works. More will not make it work better, unless the underlying software andhardware is designed to take advantage of it.

Many people make the mistake of equating an iOS device to a desktop PC. That age has sailed. With all solid state memory having a working cache RAM is sufficient for the way iOS operates.

Of course it looks bad in specs, but never has Apple been about the specs, and they have always sold the experience, and from the preliminary information th iPhone 4S will be plnty fast enough regardless of its RAM.

 

[Laird Knox]

Until Apple re-does their multitasking (let's be honest, it's pretty terrible) they really have no reason to add more RAM.

Why is it pretty terrible? I've never understood this mantra of the anti-Apple crowd.

The Playbook commercial gorified this when they showed a tablet running three videos and a game. What is the point of that? If I'm playing a game what is the point of videos playing in the background? Does it give the USB port something to watch? Do you really want to play a video when you can't see it nor hear the audio? If watching a video then how good of a score are you going to get on that racing game?

Help me to understand this failing of iOS. The examples I have been shown make no sense at all.

 

[marty11]

Cancelled

Actually, this was the final straw for me. I was initially underwhelmed with the upgrade, most specifically that the memory of the $199 phone was still a paltry 16 gigs. But I was content with the other hardware metrics, processor and 1 gig of RAM. Take one of those away and you don't have much.

This phone is essentially a 2 year old device with a duel core. So it comes down to speed, which the iPhone 4 is not lacking for my use. One can be had for $300 on ebay.

Simply put, I see little reason to go on a 2 year contract with ATT for a duel core processor.

 

[bigdaddyp]

Ouch!

Its cringeworthy that a phone released at this time with at such a price point would feature 0.5 gigs of ram but just think, you will have to put up with this for another year!

What an embarrassment!

With my creaky old 3gs I did the following on a long road trip. I was using Tom Tom, infinite tunes (streaming audio over the cellular network to my bluetooth headphones) and running pda net creating a wifi spot for the kids. With 256 megabytes of ram. I did this with my cellphone! And it performed perfectly until I got a call. Then it had a 5 sec brain fart before allowing me to answer. I don't think my wife's iPhone 4 (double the ram) could have done it much better.

I understand wanting to "future proof" your phone but I don't think you have to worry about the hardware specs of the iPhone 4s. If iOs5 is a ram hog and runs poorly on the 4s then shame on Apple. But I don't think Apple would sell new hardware that is gimped because it can't run the current software. And if a app is running poorly on a phone with that much ram then blame the developer for not practicing proper kung-fu on his code.

 

[Laird Knox]

Not likely.

Rumor is that it is a dedicated chip handling SIRI

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

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.

 

[hchung]

iPad 1 = A4 with 256MB RAM
iPhone 4 = A4 with 512MB RAM

so it's not locked in stone just because it's an A5.

arn

The iPhone 4 teardown shows a separate chip for mobile DDR for the A4.

The iPad 2 WiFi teardown appears to not have mobile DDR, which means it's integrate into the A5.

If they exposed the lines for the memory controller, yeah, they could add another 512. If they didn't, A5 has only one memory size. We don't know for certain.

 

[Mad-B-One]

Seems more and more that the only legit reason to keep Siri off the iPad 2 (and maybe iPhone 4, too), is maybe, possibly, it's-just-barely-possible that it is a licensing issue.

It seems very likely that Siri continues to use Nuance. While Siri-the-little-startup had a licensing deal from Nuance that allowed them to give Siri away, that doesn't mean Apple got the same deal.

That's the kind of deal you give someone when you're trying to promote what you've got to hopefully get a big fish hooked... are there any fish bigger than Apple?

The licensing deal may have cost Apple a pretty penny, especially if Apple wanted exclusivity of some kind.

So, e.g., if Apple is paying Nuance $5 per device (just a made up number), then Apple couldn't just give the software away.

But if all that is the case, then Apple could still make Siri available to the devices that can run it--they'd just have to charge for it to at least cover licensing costs.

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.

Just one edit. There is some grain of truth to it. If the iPad now can do something which increases the value significantly such as FaceTime for the iMac, they might have to charge $0.99 to keep their bookies happy. That has something to do with write-offs and is very technical but apparently it's necessary if you increase the product's value/productivity significantly after purchase with software upgrades. Same happened with Wireless n-standard for the iMacs.

 

[firewood]

Isn't the memory inside the A class SoC?

It would be hard to manufacture 2 different versions of the same chip just to fiddle around with the memory.

Plus, if it's manufactured as stacked die, the package would have to be thicker, as well as the package yield being lower.

 

[freddiculous]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I hope someone on craigslist finds a way where you can just buy an 8mp camera and an A5 chip to just put in your Current iPhone 4

 

[Tyrion]

It's quite funny how defensive people get. My iPhone 4 only has 512MB, which is clearly not enough, as evidenced by, e. g., Safari having to reload pages if you have too many tabs open. Really disappointed. I'll have to take a long look at the Nexus Prime.

 

[toddybody]

I'm usually one to whine about specs...but the iPad 2 has shown me that 512MB is plenty of RAM for a great iOS experience. If anything, the iP4S should be just as snappy, especially since its driving 960x640 vs 1024x768 (not that its a great Delta).


Cheers Friends.