Xcode Confirms 2GB of RAM in iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, 4GB of RAM in iPad Pro

[diamond.g]

If that were true, then they would have mentioned the 2GB in the 6S and the 4GB in the iPad Pro.

What Apple does in the keynote is talk about spec improvements that directly benefit the user and that can be demonstrated. If they had put 8GB of RAM into the 6S, how would they have demonstrated it? If they had tripled the resolution of the screen, how would they have demonstrated it? Bring out a microscope and show the small pixels?

They introduce Force/3D touch and they mention it as a "big improvement", because it's something the user actually notices. They mentioned the retina display as a big improvement, because users noticed it.

I call it the "My Wife Factor". My wife will use 3D touch, so it's a feature she notices. She noticed the improved display quality in the retina display. She will not notice the 2GB vs 1GB, and she would not notice if the screen had ten times the resolution. My wife represents about 95% of the customers Apple is targeting.

And that is the major difference to other companies who sell their products largely based on specs, hoping that someone will be impressed enough to buy their phone, because now it has more RAM.

They do talk about things that my Wife doesn't care about (LTE and WiFi speeds). And they do mention specs that are not as high as their Android counterparts (camera MP). I am not even certain my wife will be able to tell the difference in speed. And sometimes they are ambiguous on some specs (console-class graphics? which generation...).

The logic is that in a well designed appliance you shouldn't really need to know what the specs are like RAM etc... They should just work. Hardly anyone know what ram an Xbox has, or their TV, why their phone?

Yeah lots of folks know the XB1 has less usable RAM for games than the PS4. What most folks don't know is how fast (clockrate) the CPU/GPU is. Video Game console specs are not an empty vacuum. Though as time has progressed all the stuff that used to be touted (polygons, fill rate, DVD vs CD, etc) has fallen by the wayside.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

I think it's going to be:
iPhone 6: 4GB
iPhone 6+/6s Line: 2GB
iPadPro: 1GB

(ducking...)

 

[PlainviewX]

Yuck, 1 GB of RAM is plenty. Hopefully they go back to 1 GB next year.

One gig is far from plenty. Having only two tabs open on my iPhone most of the time I get constant reloads of web pages.

 

[D.T.]

I keep hearing about the downsizing/shrinking issue. If iOS is shrinking things down to the 6 Plus screen size is it not also shrinking down the iPhone 6 to 750p?

What's the issue exactly?

wat?

The original iPhone at 320x480 became the retina 4/4S at 640x960, these two devices have the same points, but the 4/4S renders at 2X (which if course works out nicely). Each pixel on a 4S phone had a corresponding rendered pixel from the application. Without getting into too much technical minutiae, plus it gets a little more complex as the screen ratios were changed, screens got physically larger, etc., but the same general logic applies.

The iPhone 6+ resolution, using the same pattern, defining the points based on display size, and using a standard rendering multiplier would result in a display that's 1242x2208, however, the Plus has a physical screen that's 1080x1920 (like an HD TV or 24" monitor), so it has a second step where it down samples the rendered 1242x2208 to that physical spec. The 6S takes the 375x667 points and renders them to 750x1334 (2X), and that's it.

So when he said one-to-one for the 6/6S, that means, every pixel as defined in the application, for example, the 2X assets (like icons designed for a retina display) map directly to a physical pixel on the screen, vs the Plus where that direct correlation of pixel as defined in the layouts, assets doesn't exist due to the re-sampling.

 

[Thunderhawks]

Maybe this'll mitigate the whining for a while.

Nah, you are on MR!

 

[fourthtunz]

Does not compute. You only care whether the phone does the job, and the iPhone 6 you have is 'great', so why exactly are you spending $1000 to replace it?

Mostly because of the camera...but I may go to the plus..save me bringing my iPad to gigs.

 

[fourthtunz]

Just curious, but what am I not doing with my phone that would make me miss that extra GB of RAM? I'm all for more, better, faster, etc. It just seems like 1GB has been plenty thus far.

Multiple tabs in safari evidently...for "real work"

 

[jcmeyer5]

I used to be on the 'S' cycle, but I skipped the 5's altogether and went with the 6. This is definitely and 'S' upgrade (a good thing), but I think I am skipping it for the 7. I am not personally a fan of 3D Touch, or Force Touch, or whatever it is they are calling it this week. I'm sure it works well. I also don't know that I would ever know that I had 2GB vs. 1GB of RAM. Honestly, aside from communications (FaceTime, phone, text, email), about the only thing I do with my phone these days is streaming. My kid plays Minecraft on occasion, but that runs just fine.

Congrats to the soon-to-be proud parents of the 6S generation. Have fun with your new babies!

 

[neuropsychguy]

they'd be partially right. 2gb on a high end premium phone isn't a "good" amount, it's the bare minimum it should have. now we have enough, but that's it. it's still not a generous amount.

That's assuming all phones and phone OSes are created equal, which they are not.

 

[sulpfiction]

wwwww

Maybe this'll mitigate the whining for a while.

Around here??...Nah

 

[nrechtman]

1 gig of RAM doesn't cut it for me, go try the System Max app and see how much of that ram is getting used in your phone, you must have very little on your phone, I have a 128 gig phone still with 80 gigs of memory available for storage, I have no apps open other than the system max app and I barely have any free memory, it's in the red, as it is.

Yuck, 1 GB of RAM is plenty. Hopefully they go back to 1 GB next year.

 

[jclardy]

Great news for the iPad Pro...

Now, if it could only have better cameras it would be a complete product...

And, I almost forgot at least 256 GB Storage

The rear camera is fine...we don't need people taking 13" tablets to concerts to take photos. The front camera is sorry though...this should be the ultimate FaceTime device, but instead you get a camera that can only do 720p.

And I agree on storage, they should at least have a 256GB option. But the real problem is that iOS needs support for fast external storage. They should've used one of those hybrid Thunderbolt/USB-C ports that intel is working on. I don't think you can use the "Pro" moniker for a device if it can't handle any pro tasks, and right now the iPad Pro can barely deal with a large photo library, let alone someone trying to do video or music creation. They all just require too much data.

 

[wizard]

Great news for the iPad Pro...

Now, if it could only have better cameras it would be a complete product...

And, I almost forgot at least 256 GB Storage

Without that 256 GB it isn't much of a pro device.

 

[penajmz]

Just curious, but what am I not doing with my phone that would make me miss that extra GB of RAM? I'm all for more, better, faster, etc. It just seems like 1GB has been plenty thus far.

You will see the difference in opening apps, information stays longer after you've closed an app and go back to it as opposed to it reloading (think Safari tabs), etc. and everything will be smoother all around.

 

[kwrzesien]

The image asset is chosen based on the memoryClass key in the simdevicetype’s capabilities.plist. 0 = <1GB, 1 = 1GB, 2 = 2GB, 3 = 4GB.

— Hamza Sood (@hamzasood) September 13, 2015

Wouldn't it make sense to have 4 = 4GB, just in case they come out with a 3GB phone SOC in the future? Does this mean the A10, A11, A12, etc. are stuck at 2GB until they can make the jump to 4GB (which has to squeeze onto the POP packaging of the phone SOC)?

 

[wizard]

Well, they think users have nothing to with specs like ram and shouldn't worry about such things.

Which might make sense if they didn't advertise all the other specs of the device. They in fact focus a lot of time on the A series processors that frankly have less importance to the average user than RAM.

It might not be a big deal in the cell phones but Apples approach to RAM in the tablets is asinine. The iPad Pro should have come in 4GB and 8 GB versions. Because he'll we are talking Pro users here some of which would actually make use of that RAM.

 

[Pilgrim1099]

The logic is that in a well designed appliance you shouldn't really need to know what the specs are like RAM etc... They should just work. Hardly anyone know what ram an Xbox has, or their TV, why their phone?

Sorry but that's BS excuses for those who don't want to do the thinking a la Fahrenheit 451.

If you buy a computer, you need to know how much RAM it has. It plays a very important role in managing data and applications you're running, even the OS itself. You just don't buy a computer blindly without knowing the specs.

When you buy a car, you need to know what's in the engine, parts, horsepower and the like. You don't just buy a car just because it works. That's stupid.

Would you buy a house without knowing what's in there or if it passed inspection?

Would you buy food off the shelves that has no ingredient listing or GMO info just because the food " just works "?

Would you buy medication that has no disclaimer, warnings and no ingredients involved?

The point is Apple BUILT the iOS devices and they are responsible to list the actual specs including RAM. Hiding one part of a spec is just not right. It's their responsibility to inform, not hide.

I do give a crap about how much RAM a device has or else if it's gimped, then it's not worth buying. If it's gimped, then they are ripping you off.

You think it's not important for game consoles to have no RAM info? I do. The higher the RAM, the less of a bottleneck performance you'll get out of it.

1GB of RAM on a phone is BS especially in 2015 standards. It's about time they amped it up to 2GB but by then, the rest of the industry will go 3 GB or more. The more powerful or featured the phone gets, the more RAM it's going to require.

iPad was embarrassingly gimped from the start. Apple should have been honest in the keynote and confirm it as 4 GB of RAM for iPad pro without making Adobe redact it.

 

[wizard]

2 GB is a significant upgrade.

You must have missed the sarcassism there.

On iPhone 6 (Plus) you only get a few hundred MBs of free RAM (200-300 at best). That's enough for a couple of tabs in Safari and 1-2 apps before things start reloading. With 2 GB RAM, you have 1.3 GB of free RAM (4.5x or 450% more) which is PLENTY for dozens of tabs and apps. A huge difference.

This is perhaps the most important aspect of an increase in RAM beyond 1GB, even a 512MB increase would have had a huge impact. People really don't realize how little RAM is free in a 1GB iOS device for their chosen app.

 

[jimbobb24]

1GB

RAM discussions independent of the OS make no sense. 1Gb has served iOS very well, while that would be a disaster on OSX. Lots of Linux systems do well with smaller amounts of RAM that would be miserable on Windows. Some of the desire for RAM on iOS is thinking it needs spec parity with a different operating system- which is ridiculous. Some of it is the expansion of the os making it necessary.

 

[Daalseth]

The iPad Pro is just one more step towards iOS replacing Mac OS X.

Funny you would mention that. Based on what I'm reading my plan in a couple-three years when my Macbook Pro is finally over the hill, is to use an iPad Pro for most everything and a VPN connection to a headless Mac Server for file storage, and things that require OS-X. The Pro is exactly what I've been waiting for.

 

[wizard]

Interesting comments.

Sorry but that's BS excuses for those who don't want to do the thinking a la Fahrenheit 451.

If you buy a computer, you need to know how much RAM it has. It plays a very important role in managing data and applications you're running, even the OS itself. You just don't buy a computer blindly without knowing the specs.

You should know how much RAM it has but a lot of people don't know. In fact they have no idea what RAM is in their machine. It is sad really because it does lead to people getting ripped off. I know a guy that had a little side business servicing PC and the stories he could tell about customers without a clue would amaze you. This isn't just an issue of Joe consumer but professionals that you would think should know better.

When you buy a car, you need to know what's in the engine, parts, horsepower and the like. You don't just buy a car just because it works. That's stupid.

Yet it is done every day. In fact it has gotten to the point that if you are buying a car you have to probe for details. Contrast this with the truck market where a pickup is still sold based on what the user needs performance wise.

Would you buy a house without knowing what's in there or if it passed inspection?

Again happens everyday.

Would you buy food off the shelves that has no ingredient listing or GMO info just because the food " just works "?

Again done every day! In fact people that worry about so called GMO foods are just paranoid. Plants and animals have been genetically modifying for millennia now.

Would you buy medication that has no disclaimer, warnings and no ingredients involved?

When you get to a certain point you end up with little choice as all medications have side effects. Sometimes dwelling on those side effects can have a negative impact on the user. No body beats death, as such you need to make your own decisions about medications.

The point is Apple BUILT the iOS devices and they are responsible to list the actual specs including RAM. Hiding one part of a spec is just not right. It's their responsibility to inform, not hide.

I agree completely. It doesn't need to be advertised but should be available to people that need the info in the spec sheet.

I do give a crap about how much RAM a device has or else if it's gimped, then it's not worth buying. If it's gimped, then they are ripping you off.

The last few iPhones have been gimped in my mind which is why I'm still using an iPhone 4. I simply wouldn't consider an upgrade that didn't do something serious with respect to RAM.

You think it's not important for game consoles to have no RAM info? I do. The higher the RAM, the less of a bottleneck performance you'll get out of it.

Well no, in the case of an iPhone and gaming consoles if you go past a certain point adding more RAM isn't going to do a lot for you for a given generation of apps. The point with iPhone is that it doesn't have enough RAM to run its own apps properly. Here I'm specifically talking Safari. It is really pathetic that Apple continued to sell devices that couldn't even work right with Safari open with a couple of tabs. This is what has really pissed me off about Apple and frankly the ignorance of much of the customer base.

1GB of RAM on a phone is BS especially in 2015 standards.

Actually it was BS several generations ago. Certainly the 5 generation should have had a RAM increase and I could make a good argument that the 4S needed more RAM. The reasoning is simple, Safari doesn't run properly with so little RAM.

It's about time they amped it up to 2GB but by then, the rest of the industry will go 3 GB or more. The more powerful or featured the phone gets, the more RAM it's going to require.

The thing here is that 2GB is a massive increase in RAM for the average user as the old 1GB devices have so little RAM available to user apps in the first place.

iPad was embarrassingly gimped from the start. Apple should have been honest in the keynote and confirm it as 4 GB of RAM for iPad pro without making Adobe redact it.

As an iPad owner (an owner that uses his iPad far more than his iPhone) I have to agree. Whatever RAM issues an iPhone has are far worst on an iPad and get even more significant with the iPad Pro and the next version of iOS. It isn't much of stretch to say that 4GB is barely enough considering the target audience. Why the iPad Air didn't get an update this go around is beyond me, even a RAM update leaving the rest of the machine alone would have done wonders on that platform with iOS 9.

 

[samsveds]

Sorry but that's BS excuses for those who don't want to do the thinking a la Fahrenheit 451.

If you buy a computer, you need to know how much RAM it has. It plays a very important role in managing data and applications you're running, even the OS itself. You just don't buy a computer blindly without knowing the specs.

When you buy a car, you need to know what's in the engine, parts, horsepower and the like. You don't just buy a car just because it works. That's stupid.

Would you buy a house without knowing what's in there or if it passed inspection?

Would you buy food off the shelves that has no ingredient listing or GMO info just because the food " just works "?

Would you buy medication that has no disclaimer, warnings and no ingredients involved?

The point is Apple BUILT the iOS devices and they are responsible to list the actual specs including RAM. Hiding one part of a spec is just not right. It's their responsibility to inform, not hide.

I do give a crap about how much RAM a device has or else if it's gimped, then it's not worth buying. If it's gimped, then they are ripping you off.

You think it's not important for game consoles to have no RAM info? I do. The higher the RAM, the less of a bottleneck performance you'll get out of it.

1GB of RAM on a phone is BS especially in 2015 standards. It's about time they amped it up to 2GB but by then, the rest of the industry will go 3 GB or more. The more powerful or featured the phone gets, the more RAM it's going to require.

iPad was embarrassingly gimped from the start. Apple should have been honest in the keynote and confirm it as 4 GB of RAM for iPad pro without making Adobe redact it.

One 'needs' to know the specs of computers and cars to buy one? Take a moment and think about this from other peoples perspective rather than just your own and you'll realise that's false. There's plenty of people who don't have a clue or even care about RAM and horsepower as long as it gets the work done. Yes, some just want it to work.

 

[MasterRyu2011]

Why is Apple so secretive about RAM? It makes no sense to me. Everyone finds out anyway; they may as well just list it in the specs.

Because the majority of people who buy iPhones don't care one way or another, as long as they feel smooth. It can only hurt more than help when you put the technical details online due to iPhones usually lagging behind their Android competitors when it comes to RAM. When you do comparisons online, the iPhones would not look as bad when a non-techie sees something like: OnePlusTwo 3 GB / iPhone 6S Unknown. If they officially released the number, you'd see 3 GB vs 2 GB.

Also, it falls in line with the company's emphasis on marketing words rather than numbers. (Retina HD vs 1080p, iSight camera vs 8 megapixel camera)

 

[wizard]

RAM discussions independent of the OS make no sense.

With iOS devices the operating system is assumed to be iOS. You can disregard all other operating systems and still come to the same conclusion, iOS devices have not shipped with enough RAM for some time.

1Gb has served iOS very well, while that would be a disaster on OSX.

This is the whole point of the discussion thread 1GB or RAM has been a huge issue on iOS and has really gimped the devices. This is with Apple supplied software like Safari which has notable issues due to the lack of RAM on the iOS devices. When on of the basic features of a device doesn't work properly because of a lack of RAM the device is gimped and frankly isn't served well by 1GB of RAM.

Lots of Linux systems do well with smaller amounts of RAM that would be miserable on Windows. Some of the desire for RAM on iOS is thinking it needs spec parity with a different operating system- which is ridiculous.

If that was true it would be ridiculous however that has nothing to do with the need for more RAM on iOS devices. The need for more RAM is there because basic apps like Safari don't run properly. The loss of data and the constant unjustified reloading of tabs is just problematic and can be greatly reduced by adding more RAM.

Some of it is the expansion of the os making it necessary.

Sure More features in an IOS release can impact RAM usage, that however has nothing to do with the lack of RAM issues that create so many problems for Safari. In fact the latest iOS releases seem to handle memory far better than in the past. That still hasn't fixed the problems Safari has due to low memory.

 

[apolloa]

Well it's kind of welcome to the 21st century Apple with 2gb RAM in the iPhone. Shame about the flawed 16gb storage.

Anyway, interesting product this iPad Pro, 4gb RAM is interesting, wonder how many cores it has?