A bigger battery, a faster CPU, and more flash would benefit everybody too. But with every benefit comes a cost. Apple has to find the right mix of benefits and costs. There are no free lunches.
edit -- just to clarify, I'm not arguing whether adding more RAM to the iPhone 6 is the right thing to do or not. It might be, it might not be. I'm arguing that Apple is better positioned to make that decision than anyone here is.
I would also say that many companies are not able to make these types of decisions about tradeoffs as well as Apple, and instead just produce every possible permutation of features until they find one that people like -- that's the Samsung way, for example. Both approaches have advantages. I personally prefer Apple's approach, and I think they implement it well. But I can definitely understand that others might prefer the Samsung way.
I agree that Apple is in the best position for this. But that doesn't mean that their decision is the best. They have a number of considerations. But the result of their ruminations may not coincide with what many (most?) of their users would prefer.
I mention the thinner phone, rather than a much bigger battery, as an example. Their consideration, over the last few years, has been that 8 hours of LTE talk time is good enough. But when they first came to that conclusion, competing devices were getting 3.5 hours of LTE talk time. Now, competing models can get 10 or even 12 hours. Apple lost their advantage, and talking points.
Same thing with the iPad. Like most people, I like thinner, lighter devices. But there comes a point when it's thin enough, and light enough. I would think that most users would prefer longer battery life than another mm taken off the thickness, and 10 grams off the weight.
I'm just using battery life as one example where Apple's interests, and the interest of their users, don't coincide.
I hate to be the one to say this, but, Apple isn't always right. Hard to believe, I know, but true nevertheless.
You don't have to say it -- I already did. I just think that when Apple and any given individual posting to AI forums disagree about what the best decision is for apple to make (where "best" is defined in terms of what's best for a majority of users, not a specific individual or subgroup), Apple is much more likely to be correct.
Expectations of "enough RAM" expands to fill available RAM. I remember surfing the web with desktop PCs equipped with only 1GB of RAM. And my 2010-generation MacBook Air has only 2GB RAM total. What's changed? Did web browsers become memory hogs?
Why is it that any time someone notes an area in which Apple could improve its products, or suggests that Apple's choice in a trade-off situation may not have been the right one, the response is that the person expressing that opinion must be the only person in the world to think that way?
Take for an example the general topic of Apple making computers thinner with the trade-off being that they are more expensive and difficult for users to upgrade. Anyone who says they think Apple is making the wrong choice is told Apple knows better and that theirs is a fringe opinion. Same with battery life vs. thickness and screen size vs. one-handed use. How do we know the dissenters are a minority? Maybe those people are the majority, and many of those who choose to buy anyway do so in spite of the trade-offs, not because of them.
The truth is we don't know, and dismissing dissenting views with the assumption that Apple always knows better is indefensible. I've posted examples in the past of how market research has been 100% dead wrong, even when the data leaned overwhelmingly to one side, because what people SAY they will do (or THINK they will do) is not always what they wind up doing in real life.
It seems to me that the savvy fan or investor would do well to hear such criticism, since it's coming from people who are making real-life decisions about whether or not to open their wallets, not some focus group in a meeting room with nothing at stake.
I'm not sure if you're serious, or being sarcastic.
Either way, I'd like to point out the arguments we had with people when RAM was 256MB, and some people were serious when they said that Apple knew best here, and as they didn't move to more RAM, we obviously didn't need it. They were wrong then too.
Actually at the time they did know. Look at what you could do with that 256MB RAM at the time. Ever played Real Racing 1? That was a phenomenal achievement for such low RAM requirements.
But we need more now because people keep pushing the limits of a "consumption" device more and more. Hell, me personally I'm doing almost as much on my iPad as I'm doing on my MacBook Pro.
Even if there is only 1GB RAM look at what's being achieved. If you have talented programmers then the lack of system resources isn't an issue and iOS seems to have produced far more talented programmers than any other platform and I believe it really does come down to the "limited" resources on the platform.
Expectations of "enough RAM" expands to fill available RAM. I remember surfing the web with desktop PCs equipped with only 1GB of RAM. And my 2010-generation MacBook Air has only 2GB RAM total. What's changed? Did web browsers become memory hogs?
I use to dream of having 1GB of RAM. Back in 1995 when I purchased my first PC it had a whopping 4MB with a super fast 28.8kps modem.
I hope they've done something in software then, because I often seem to be bumping up against a lack of memory, especially with Safari tabs needing reloading.
I'm sure they won't even have thought about it; why would you possibly grant Apple such intelligence? No doubt, you'll have another year of throwing your hands up in horror at the reloading of your Safari tabs.
Well, at this point I'd like to see 2GB. Maybe we don't really need it for the phone, but I hope we'll see it for the iPad where battery life and heat aren't as important. I do work on my iPad that I wouldn't do on my iPhone, and it's more needed there. We are bumping the limitations for the iPad at this time.
I feel the same, but don't forget that they may have made iOS much more efficient RAM-wise, thereby negating the need for more, resulting in improved battery life.
Could be that the iOS operating system has a smaller memory footprint than Android.
Or perhaps they are using a sort of paging to fee up memory with little or no impact on performance - or maybe the chip is powerful enough to do compression.
If only they could prefect carbon nanotube batteries - and get a 10x increase in the charge density of the battery - or maybe it is micro crystal batteries - whatever the next major breakthrough in batteries.
iOS is more efficient that Android. Android uses more of a Desktop model of memory management and multitasking. In theory, it looks better, but it really does such processor cycles and battery life.
I almost never find the need to "close" an app in iOS, but it's a requirement in Android. Except for a few apps that monitor and measure in the background, apps don't use RAM or battery when they are offscreen, except to finish some task. With Android, most apps are actually open, until they are explicitly closed. While Apple has been improving multitasking, and giving developers more leaway, the model is still much more power efficient.
But, I'm disappointed to see that the new battery for the 4.7" iPhone 6 looks to be about 1800milliamphere vs about 1560 in the current devices. I was excited with the rumor it would be over 2000. I'd really like to see the iPhone end this thinness race with Samsung, and give us a bigger battery. When you think about it, the battery can't be much more than a couple of mm thick. If they kept the iPhone just one mm thicker, they could increase capacity by almost 40%.
Observing Apple since the late '80's, I've noticed that with Steve, or without Steve, Apple has a mental problem. They get a new significant feature, or performance advantage—and then they sit on it, often for years, while competitors catch up and pass them. This has been true for iPhone and iPad battery life. When they reached 8 hours with the iPhone, and came out with 10 hours for the iPad, no one could tough them. But where are we today, years later? That's right, still at 8 and 10. That big advantage has been totally lost.
Your desire for a thick iPhone is misplaced. That would spell bad news for Apple. Unlike you, I have faith in Tim Cook.
I tend to focus on his substance, not style (which can be a tad breathless).
I try to do that too. But he's read by those who are not Apple users, and his style is pointed to as being typical of an Apple Fanboy. Unfortunately, while his style might thrill some here, it detracts from the usefulness of his writing. And he does exaggerate, and minimize facts, depending whether they're about Apple, or its competitors. I would prefer more objectively written articles.
Most of those criticisms could be applied to any writer and are impossible to legitimise or refute because of their vagueness.
Why don't you write articles yourself if you're so wound up about it? Submit them to AI.
Doesn't matter how much or little RAM it has. Doesn't matter how many cores it has. Doesn't matter what clock speed it runs at. Doesn't matter how many bits it uses.
It just matter how fast and well it runs the stuff you want it to.
I'm sure the 6 is going to be a beast performance-wise. It will actually need to be to even 'break even' with the 5s since I assume it is going to be running at a much higher resolution.
You're right, of course. But it's those things that impact performance, so they are important, and wondering about them is a legitimate topic of discussion.
Wonder away; we all do it. Remember, though, that Tim Cook uses his iPad 80% of the time to run Apple; it's not as though he's in an ivory tower wondering what all the fuss is about.
Better battery life with no improvement in specs would be great for me. 1day of full scale phone usage should be the benchmark.
The elimination of battery anxiety is NECESSARY to make the phone experience great.
What use is an expensive device that you are afraid to use?
Why is the next phone going to be thinner instead of having vastly more battery life is beyond me. I HOPE that they made software and A8 optimization for making up the battery shortfall. Consumers are going to jump off the apple ship if this issue isn't improved. I just got back from India and that's exactly what heavy phone users are doing.
A thicker, larger battery version of the phone with 128gb minimum premium version would be fine. Apple needs an "executive" or "Pro" phone. As a doctor I can barely use any apps or bluetooth without worrying.
Just get a battery case or spare battery; problem solved, and no more need to write five paragraphs whining about it.
I said the same thing more succinctly at the start of the thread and got a strange response from you.
I'm not sure that what you said is quite the same thing. You also didn't respond to that post, so I never did find out what you meant. He's seems to be saying that we shouldn't be discussing this because performance is all that matters. You said that Apple knows best. Is that the same thing?
That's not how I read his statement at all. He wrote a very simple sentence, anticipating the worry trolls that always infest a subject like this, stating the simple truth: Apple obviously know what they're doing and will create what they feel is the best phone possible overall. He didn't shut down the debate, but left it open.
I couldn't care less how much RAM an iPad has as long as apps perform well and developers don't have to spend a lot of extra time or make compromises for their app(s) to work properly. Right now Safari on the iPad is not a great experience. Are there really that many negative tradeoffs to upgrading the RAM to 2GB?
I don't see how it's obvious that Apple was wrong to use 256 MB in the devices where that was used. The fact that Apple ultimately released devices with more RAM doesn't prove that Apple made the wrong choice in the devices that did have 256. The nature of the tradeoffs changes as technology improves. What doesn't make sense today in terms of any given spec -- RAM, clock speed, battery size -- might make sense in 2 years thanks to Moore's Law.
I doubt that anyone would argue that, all else equal, more RAM isn't better. The issue is that all else isn't equal. It's a matter of striking the right balance of tradeoffs between cost, performance, battery life, and size. While any individual user might benefit from a different balance than what Apple picks, Apple really is in the best position to pick the balance that is the best for them and for most users. They can make mistakes, but they are less likely to be making a mistake in their assessments than any given person who posts comments here.
Apple stayed with 256 a year too long. We were all having problems because of that. In addition, developers were complaining that they couldn't do what was needed because of it. They were right.
As I said, 1GB RAM might still be enough for the iPhone, though maybe not, what with some of the new features coming out this year, but for the iPad, 2GB is really required. I do photo editing, video editing, drawing and 3D CAD on my iPad Air, and developers tell me that a major reason why they don't support larger files is the lack of RAM. I think they know what they're talking about.
I have 32GB RAM in my Mac Pro, and I run out of RAM on some work. Another GB on my iPad would work wonders.
No, Apple didn't stay with 256 for too long.
Nonetheless, your other points are reasonable. Patience, grasshopper; I'm sure the iPad will gain more support in the fulness of time.
Apple should bump it up to 2GB. Larger screens mean that the phone is going to be more and more for browsing web sites, news sites, pulling in more data from Facebook, etc..
Not to mention that, just once, I'd like to see Apple work on future-proofing a device.
Because Android lead the way on future-proofing.
Try engaging your brain...nah, just shut up and go away.
Comments
I agree that Apple is in the best position for this. But that doesn't mean that their decision is the best. They have a number of considerations. But the result of their ruminations may not coincide with what many (most?) of their users would prefer.
I mention the thinner phone, rather than a much bigger battery, as an example. Their consideration, over the last few years, has been that 8 hours of LTE talk time is good enough. But when they first came to that conclusion, competing devices were getting 3.5 hours of LTE talk time. Now, competing models can get 10 or even 12 hours. Apple lost their advantage, and talking points.
Same thing with the iPad. Like most people, I like thinner, lighter devices. But there comes a point when it's thin enough, and light enough. I would think that most users would prefer longer battery life than another mm taken off the thickness, and 10 grams off the weight.
I'm just using battery life as one example where Apple's interests, and the interest of their users, don't coincide.
RAM is obviously another.
But, I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
I hate to be the one to say this, but, Apple isn't always right. Hard to believe, I know, but true nevertheless.
You don't have to say it -- I already did. I just think that when Apple and any given individual posting to AI forums disagree about what the best decision is for apple to make (where "best" is defined in terms of what's best for a majority of users, not a specific individual or subgroup), Apple is much more likely to be correct.
Remind me some iPhone 6 knockoff in the market.
Disprove my theory? Just buy one, take it apart and post the picture.
(Even the next iPhone use two NAND, 1GB is not enough for system. For the math, please check the size of your iPhone 5s ipsw. )
The elimination of Relieving my battery anxiety is NECESSARY to would make the my phone experience great.
'Battery anxiety'... sounds more like an issue for a therapist.
Why is it that any time someone notes an area in which Apple could improve its products, or suggests that Apple's choice in a trade-off situation may not have been the right one, the response is that the person expressing that opinion must be the only person in the world to think that way?
Take for an example the general topic of Apple making computers thinner with the trade-off being that they are more expensive and difficult for users to upgrade. Anyone who says they think Apple is making the wrong choice is told Apple knows better and that theirs is a fringe opinion. Same with battery life vs. thickness and screen size vs. one-handed use. How do we know the dissenters are a minority? Maybe those people are the majority, and many of those who choose to buy anyway do so in spite of the trade-offs, not because of them.
The truth is we don't know, and dismissing dissenting views with the assumption that Apple always knows better is indefensible. I've posted examples in the past of how market research has been 100% dead wrong, even when the data leaned overwhelmingly to one side, because what people SAY they will do (or THINK they will do) is not always what they wind up doing in real life.
It seems to me that the savvy fan or investor would do well to hear such criticism, since it's coming from people who are making real-life decisions about whether or not to open their wallets, not some focus group in a meeting room with nothing at stake.
I'm not sure if you're serious, or being sarcastic.
Either way, I'd like to point out the arguments we had with people when RAM was 256MB, and some people were serious when they said that Apple knew best here, and as they didn't move to more RAM, we obviously didn't need it. They were wrong then too.
Actually at the time they did know. Look at what you could do with that 256MB RAM at the time. Ever played Real Racing 1? That was a phenomenal achievement for such low RAM requirements.
But we need more now because people keep pushing the limits of a "consumption" device more and more. Hell, me personally I'm doing almost as much on my iPad as I'm doing on my MacBook Pro.
Even if there is only 1GB RAM look at what's being achieved. If you have talented programmers then the lack of system resources isn't an issue and iOS seems to have produced far more talented programmers than any other platform and I believe it really does come down to the "limited" resources on the platform.
I hope they've done something in software then, because I often seem to be bumping up against a lack of memory, especially with Safari tabs needing reloading.
I'm sure they won't even have thought about it; why would you possibly grant Apple such intelligence? No doubt, you'll have another year of throwing your hands up in horror at the reloading of your Safari tabs.
Well, at this point I'd like to see 2GB. Maybe we don't really need it for the phone, but I hope we'll see it for the iPad where battery life and heat aren't as important. I do work on my iPad that I wouldn't do on my iPhone, and it's more needed there. We are bumping the limitations for the iPad at this time.
I feel the same, but don't forget that they may have made iOS much more efficient RAM-wise, thereby negating the need for more, resulting in improved battery life.
ugg.
This is horrible.
How expensive is 1 extra GB of RAM? $5?
I can't stand that Saffari has to constantly refresh after I switch to anther app, especially on my iPad
Stop fretting. You sound like Constable Odo.
For the things that I am able to do with that form factor, why would would I need more?
I'd rather have the extra battery power from a sufficiently powerful chip than too little from a chip that offers bragging rights for geeks.
Add: Anyone else suffer from DED withdrawal this weekend?
I'm really tired of reading him. I always feel as though I should be editing his work to make it more adult and less fanboyish.
If you've nothing nice today, don't say anything at all. The subject matter has absolutely nothing to do with this thread.
Could be that the iOS operating system has a smaller memory footprint than Android.
Or perhaps they are using a sort of paging to fee up memory with little or no impact on performance - or maybe the chip is powerful enough to do compression.
If only they could prefect carbon nanotube batteries - and get a 10x increase in the charge density of the battery - or maybe it is micro crystal batteries - whatever the next major breakthrough in batteries.
iOS is more efficient that Android. Android uses more of a Desktop model of memory management and multitasking. In theory, it looks better, but it really does such processor cycles and battery life.
I almost never find the need to "close" an app in iOS, but it's a requirement in Android. Except for a few apps that monitor and measure in the background, apps don't use RAM or battery when they are offscreen, except to finish some task. With Android, most apps are actually open, until they are explicitly closed. While Apple has been improving multitasking, and giving developers more leaway, the model is still much more power efficient.
But, I'm disappointed to see that the new battery for the 4.7" iPhone 6 looks to be about 1800milliamphere vs about 1560 in the current devices. I was excited with the rumor it would be over 2000. I'd really like to see the iPhone end this thinness race with Samsung, and give us a bigger battery. When you think about it, the battery can't be much more than a couple of mm thick. If they kept the iPhone just one mm thicker, they could increase capacity by almost 40%.
Observing Apple since the late '80's, I've noticed that with Steve, or without Steve, Apple has a mental problem. They get a new significant feature, or performance advantage—and then they sit on it, often for years, while competitors catch up and pass them. This has been true for iPhone and iPad battery life. When they reached 8 hours with the iPhone, and came out with 10 hours for the iPad, no one could tough them. But where are we today, years later? That's right, still at 8 and 10. That big advantage has been totally lost.
Your desire for a thick iPhone is misplaced. That would spell bad news for Apple. Unlike you, I have faith in Tim Cook.
I tend to focus on his substance, not style (which can be a tad breathless).
I try to do that too. But he's read by those who are not Apple users, and his style is pointed to as being typical of an Apple Fanboy. Unfortunately, while his style might thrill some here, it detracts from the usefulness of his writing. And he does exaggerate, and minimize facts, depending whether they're about Apple, or its competitors. I would prefer more objectively written articles.
Most of those criticisms could be applied to any writer and are impossible to legitimise or refute because of their vagueness.
Why don't you write articles yourself if you're so wound up about it? Submit them to AI.
Doesn't matter how much or little RAM it has. Doesn't matter how many cores it has. Doesn't matter what clock speed it runs at. Doesn't matter how many bits it uses.
It just matter how fast and well it runs the stuff you want it to.
I'm sure the 6 is going to be a beast performance-wise. It will actually need to be to even 'break even' with the 5s since I assume it is going to be running at a much higher resolution.
You're right, of course. But it's those things that impact performance, so they are important, and wondering about them is a legitimate topic of discussion.
Wonder away; we all do it. Remember, though, that Tim Cook uses his iPad 80% of the time to run Apple; it's not as though he's in an ivory tower wondering what all the fuss is about.
Better battery life with no improvement in specs would be great for me. 1day of full scale phone usage should be the benchmark.
The elimination of battery anxiety is NECESSARY to make the phone experience great.
What use is an expensive device that you are afraid to use?
Why is the next phone going to be thinner instead of having vastly more battery life is beyond me. I HOPE that they made software and A8 optimization for making up the battery shortfall. Consumers are going to jump off the apple ship if this issue isn't improved. I just got back from India and that's exactly what heavy phone users are doing.
A thicker, larger battery version of the phone with 128gb minimum premium version would be fine. Apple needs an "executive" or "Pro" phone. As a doctor I can barely use any apps or bluetooth without worrying.
Just get a battery case or spare battery; problem solved, and no more need to write five paragraphs whining about it.
I said the same thing more succinctly at the start of the thread and got a strange response from you.
I'm not sure that what you said is quite the same thing. You also didn't respond to that post, so I never did find out what you meant. He's seems to be saying that we shouldn't be discussing this because performance is all that matters. You said that Apple knows best. Is that the same thing?
That's not how I read his statement at all. He wrote a very simple sentence, anticipating the worry trolls that always infest a subject like this, stating the simple truth: Apple obviously know what they're doing and will create what they feel is the best phone possible overall. He didn't shut down the debate, but left it open.
Give him some credit; he's not a drive-by troll.
I don't see how it's obvious that Apple was wrong to use 256 MB in the devices where that was used. The fact that Apple ultimately released devices with more RAM doesn't prove that Apple made the wrong choice in the devices that did have 256. The nature of the tradeoffs changes as technology improves. What doesn't make sense today in terms of any given spec -- RAM, clock speed, battery size -- might make sense in 2 years thanks to Moore's Law.
I doubt that anyone would argue that, all else equal, more RAM isn't better. The issue is that all else isn't equal. It's a matter of striking the right balance of tradeoffs between cost, performance, battery life, and size. While any individual user might benefit from a different balance than what Apple picks, Apple really is in the best position to pick the balance that is the best for them and for most users. They can make mistakes, but they are less likely to be making a mistake in their assessments than any given person who posts comments here.
Apple stayed with 256 a year too long. We were all having problems because of that. In addition, developers were complaining that they couldn't do what was needed because of it. They were right.
As I said, 1GB RAM might still be enough for the iPhone, though maybe not, what with some of the new features coming out this year, but for the iPad, 2GB is really required. I do photo editing, video editing, drawing and 3D CAD on my iPad Air, and developers tell me that a major reason why they don't support larger files is the lack of RAM. I think they know what they're talking about.
I have 32GB RAM in my Mac Pro, and I run out of RAM on some work. Another GB on my iPad would work wonders.
No, Apple didn't stay with 256 for too long.
Nonetheless, your other points are reasonable. Patience, grasshopper; I'm sure the iPad will gain more support in the fulness of time.
Apple should bump it up to 2GB. Larger screens mean that the phone is going to be more and more for browsing web sites, news sites, pulling in more data from Facebook, etc..
Not to mention that, just once, I'd like to see Apple work on future-proofing a device.
Because Android lead the way on future-proofing.
Try engaging your brain...nah, just shut up and go away.