Why doesn't Apple have to post all the Specs (specifically RAM)?

[justin216]

Assuming that all you say is correct, if Apple are embarrassed by spec sheet comparisons, why not just bung more RAM in anyway and have done with it? RAM is cheap and you can never have 'too much' of it, so it would be win/win. If necessary charge an extra $20 for the phone, nobody would baulk at that.

No idea, I'm not Apple. I don't give excuses in the matter - like I said, it's very little money and additional power draw. Maybe they want to hold it for differentiation for the 6S/Plus. Maybe something with the fabrication required very specific chips. Maybe they just had a lot of 1GB chips left over. It's really hard to say. All poor excuses to boot.

I just think that RAM shouldn't be the final purchase determining factor unless you are in a very specific, high-RAM utilization workflow, such as the several tabs & switching scenario I outlined. The A7 (and A8) are just dual-core CPUs at a bit over 1GHZ, but smoke the competition in most tasks. It's all about the combination of hardware with software perfectly tailored for it and close to the metal.

You can't uniformly compare numbers is my argument, I suppose. It's not like new apps will run slower or something, developers can only develop against the resources they'll have. Right now, 1GB is (likely, need teardown) the max you can get on an iPhone, so that's the most they can account for when developing apps.

 

[HenryDJP]

RAM is a good selling point and it's the only reason I won't be buying this year's model!

Well you might as well skip next years and the year after and the year after. Apple has never been ram generous.

 

[andyw715]

Its hard to explain to consumers why something such as RAM may or may not be important.
It's more difficult to explain a perceived lack of it via product spec, so why would they?

Similar to the processor speed war (esp between intel and power pc chips) in the 90's and the megapixel race of digital cameras. More doesn't mean better.

When comparing 2 devices and one has 1GB of RAM and the other has 2GB of RAM, which one is better?

Is the 1GB device lacking in RAM, or is the 2GB device inefficient so it needs more memory.

A measurable unit like battery life is a market differentiator.
Device A and B have the same physical specs and perform the same at tasks yet A can run 8 hours, and B can run 12 hours.

Just so happens the B is the one with 1GB of memory whereas A has 2GB.

Which one is better?

Soon (or maybe it has already), the term retina display will be irrelevant as well as other devices have similar pixel densities.


For the OP, I think the real reason why they don't need to or forced to advertise RAM is there is no claim as to the "most RAM available" or something like that.

In a crowded android market where it might make a difference, it becomes a differentiator there.

 

[l3uddz]

Assuming that all you say is correct, if Apple are embarrassed by spec sheet comparisons, why not just bung more RAM in anyway and have done with it? RAM is cheap and you can never have 'too much' of it, so it would be win/win. If necessary charge an extra $20 for the phone, nobody would baulk at that.

You can have too much RAM...

However 2GB would have been perfect for the iPhone with its optimized OS and aggressive memory management code.

 

[sunking101]

Its hard to explain to consumers why something such as RAM may or may not be important.
It's more difficult to explain a perceived lack of it via product spec, so why would they?

Similar to the processor speed war in the 90's and the megapixel race of digital cameras. More doesn't mean better.

When comparing 2 devices and one has 1GB of RAM and the other has 2GB of RAM, which one is better?

Is the 1GB device lacking in RAM, or is the 2GB device inefficient so it needs more memory.

A measurable unit like battery life is a market differentiator.
Device A and B have the same physical specs and perform the same at tasks yet A can run 8 hours, and B can run 12 hours.

Just so happens the B is the one with 1GB of memory whereas A has 2GB.

Which one is better?

Soon (or maybe it has already), the term retina display will be irrelevant as well as other devices have similar pixel densities.


For the OP, I think the real reason why they don't need to or forced to advertise RAM is there is no claim as to the "most RAM available" or something like that.

In a crowded android market where it might make a difference, it becomes a differentiator there.

All this is missing the point though. If you have a few browser tabs open (less if the site is resource-hungry) and also some apps running in the background, then you're going to experience reloads. This isn't always a problem unless you type on a lot of forums or fill in a lot of forms, but it is most certainly a problem for a lot of folk.

If no Apple user cares about RAM, then why would Android users care about it either? You say that it's a sales ploy but can you honestly say that it isn't desirable? I wager that certain manufacturers put more RAM into their phones because it's beneficial to the end user. Please stop defending Apple. Everything they do is 'correct' and everything they don't do is also 'correct'. I would like more RAM because I need more RAM, simple as. The current 1GB ain't cutting it and hasn't been for a couple of years, so there's no way that I'm going to tie myself into another 24 month contract for more of the same.
I'm defending MY position and not disputing other peoples' requirements. I wish I could get by with the 1GB like most others seem to be able to.

 

[96whitels]

simply because its only 1GB when all competitors have > 1GB.

Does this really matter? not really since it's optimized for 1GB of RAM, however it would benefit in greater tasks and heavy app load if it had more RAM.

Is it disappointing? Yes. Will the average iPhone user notice or care? No.

 

[sunking101]

simply because its only 1GB when all competitors have > 1GB.

Does this really matter? not really since it's optimized for 1GB of RAM, however it would benefit in greater tasks and heavy app load if it had more RAM.

Is it disappointing? Yes. Will the average iPhone user notice or care? No.

If it were indeed optimised then nobody would be complaining of reloads. We don't want more RAM because Android phones have it and we want to brag, we want it because we really do need it.

 

[OzzyOzman]

The performance difference between 1GB and 2GB, especially on a device like the iPhone will be so unnoticable.

I don't understand this line of thinking at all. Surely 2GB of Ram would help address the reloading pages on Safari when you are multitasking? Considering that many people have noticed that it happens frequently including myself adding more ram would be noticeable?

 

[samg77]

I really don't think it matters since the iphone still today has the most fluidness software of any other phone to this day. IOS is like 6 cylinder engine with tires filled with air. Android is like a 8 cylinder engine but with flat tires. All that engine power don't mean much, if you're software isn't optimize for it.

Apple can get away with 1GB of ram, because it isn't a true multi-tasking OS. Granted some apps, namely music apps and what not now will still work in the background and we can listen to music while doing other things, and such, most application are simply frozen, unless they can actually perform a needed task while in the background.

Android aka linux doesn't have flat tires, it is a true multi-tasking operating system, and has been ever since Linus released v1.0. Applications on Android are truely running in the background, and not simply "frozen". Every single App still runs, and therefore Android takes huge advantage of extra RAM, and in lot of cases needed it because a lot of users aren't in the habit of closing their apps and you can run out of memory, mainly because Android (and Apple too) don't really give us a [X] Close option, we are always minimizing our apps.

What gave you the impression Android wasn't optimized for additional memory?

 

[andyw715]

All this is missing the point though. If you have a few browser tabs open (less if the site is resource-hungry) and also some apps running in the background, then you're going to experience reloads. This isn't always a problem unless you type on a lot of forums or fill in a lot of forms, but it is most certainly a problem for a lot of folk.

If no Apple user cares about RAM, then why would Android users care about it either? You say that it's a sales ploy but can you honestly say that it isn't desirable? I wager that certain manufacturers put more RAM into their phones because it's beneficial to the end user. Please stop defending Apple. Everything they do is 'correct' and everything they don't do is also 'correct'. I would like more RAM because I need more RAM, simple as. The current 1GB ain't cutting it and hasn't been for a couple of years, so there's no way that I'm going to tie myself into another 24 month contract for more of the same.
I'm defending MY position and not disputing other peoples' requirements. I wish I could get by with the 1GB like most others seem to be able to.

So when safari reloads a tab, is RAM utilization near 99% if so then sure you need it.