One thing I noticed on the charts in the article is that the iPhone 6 is now TWICE as fast as my two-year-old iPhone 6 on both charts. THAT kind of surprised me...
With the most powerful mobile processor on the market, they might be able to run Android. I remember installing 1.6 on my first gen iPhone. Even with the best hardware on the market and the most accurate touchscreen, it lagged like nobody’s business and my Q and P keys couldn’t be touched.
So in other words, you had the standard Android experience...
We will see since the reviews will be unembargo on Tuesday 9:00P.M. Not sure of the time zone. But one GB RAM is like limited and has been that amount for 2 years going on 3! Cost of RAM memory has fallen to nothing! It would cost Apple $3 more to double it to 2GB; but Apple is so cheap; they just don't want to do it! LOL!
One thing I noticed on the charts in the article is that the iPhone 6 is now TWICE as fast as my two-year-old iPhone 5 on both charts. THAT kind of surprised me...
Apple said it was 25 and 50% faster.
I mistyped - I meant it (the new iPhne 6) was twice as fast as my iPhone 5 (not the 5s)... SInce the 5c is essentially an iPhone 5 internally, I'm not sure what Apple may have been referring to...? Anyway, I was basing my comment off the charts in the article above.
With the most powerful mobile processor on the market, they might be able to run Android. I remember installing 1.6 on my first gen iPhone. Even with the best hardware on the market and the most accurate touchscreen, it lagged like nobody’s business and my Q and P keys couldn’t be touched.
So in other words, you had the standard Android experience...
I'm not sure what he was saying, but the Android OS is such a memory and battery hog. I like how the current turds shipping soon by Samsung can only run all out for a few minutes before being throttled back due to heat issues. The iPhone can run full boar until you're done using it. Oh wait, the Samsung turds are water proof, so maybe that's how you're suppsed to cool them down to use... but do they float? I say they're slimy sinkers...
We will see since the reviews will be unembargo on Tuesday 9:00P.M. Not sure of the time zone. But one GB RAM is like limited and has been that amount for 2 years going on 3! Cost of RAM memory has fallen to nothing! It would cost Apple $3 more to double it to 2GB; but Apple is so cheap; they just don't want to do it! LOL!
But more RAM uses more energy... Apple may keep it lean for that reason. And the RAM is not as inexpensive as the rest of the memory... different and faster animal.
It isn't unreasonable to expect better performance out of the hardware we buy from Apple year after year.
Hey Wiz, I gotta say that I really have enjoyed reading your knowledgable posts in this thead about the chips and designs for the future.
However, unless you work at Apple and with the team of very competent engineers that is specifically tasked with creating a "whole solution" for iOS devices, you can't call out anyone for being defensive. You or we don't know the constraints that the team is working around, and I must say the least being financial.
Considering that this RAMgate thread has appeared every single release for the last few years, I seriously doubt that the engineers have overlooked this wish, nor that they couldn't drop 2gbs into the design on the word "go". So it's obviously something else, or somewhere else in the design that would nead to be compromised. What "that" is, can be debated and conjectured.
Note: Safari and multiple tabs is repeatedly brought up as the biggest pain for most people. In my non-engineer knowledge, I tend to think it would benefit Apple to take a closer look there and work towards better efficiency, because honestly, I have documents and other Apps open with far larger footprints, that don't need reloading of any kind when switching, scrolling, etc.
Maybe you could share some of your knowledge how Apple could make Safari, Webkit and the Java engine better. No sarcasm here. I really do enjoy your detailed posts.
It isn't unreasonable to expect better performance out of the hardware we buy from Apple year after year.
Hey Wiz, I gotta say that I really have enjoyed reading your knowledgable posts in this thead about the chips and designs for the future....
Couldn't agree less. He's a pretentious, condescending pissant, who I would bet any amount of money doesn't know 1% as much as he'd like you to think he does.
This crap about accusing everybody but him of "not knowing how RAM is used", really pisses me off. Apparently he, the great expert, is not aware of how RAM works. Kind a a remarkable lapse of knowledge for the Great Guru!
Hey, Wiz! RAM is absolutely the only thing in your phone that you can't turn off. It has to be refreshed thousands of times a second! You can stop the CPU, the GPU and the backlight, but the second you stop refreshing that RAM you've lost everything and have to reboot the phone from scratch.
In a desktop or laptop, the more RAM the better, but with the extremly limited energy available to a phone, you need to use as little as you can possibly get away with. Kind of amazing that one of your enormous knowledge¡ wouldn't be aware of this.
Careful there: there's some people here that know Wiz, and if I'm not mistaken, he's an engineer working in medical tech(?).... and as I mentioned and AFAIK, not at Apple.
I must agree, his posts are often condescending, and I don't often agree with his "opinions" about certain Apple tech. Just so happens that this thread exposed more of his knowledge rather than his (sometimes!) inept communication skills... most evident in his last post to this thread that I replied to.
I'd still like to hear his opinion on what can/should be done better with Safari to make it "suck less" for those that are continuously ranting about it. I personally accept the little "pains", because the rest of iOS is mostly tech-ecstasy....:p
They did that with iPhone screen size. The only phones to have larger, and sometimes, higher Rez screens were the old Win Mobile phones, where they really needed it because of the supposed Windows UI. When the iPhone first came out, therefor, the screen was being described as large, and high resolution. But we see what happened. Others got same size and Rez screens, and then went larger and higher Rez. Apple finally made the screen slightly larger, but now they've been trailing. It's cost them sales, make no mistake about that, which is why they have them now. I'm just hoping they don't allow their lead in SoC's die too.
Well, Thats certainly an interesting rewriting of recent history.
But hardly based in reality, unless the only benchmark for "better" is "more" and "faster", which of course is nonsense.
Look at the CPUs Apple typically put in their cellphones. You typically see CPUs with more megahertz and with more cores in Android handsets. Bigger and more is better, right?
Nope. Apples CPUs get much more done pr. MHz, so an A6 CPU at 1.2 GHz is faster than most of the CPUs clocked at 2GHz in other phones. Phone workloads are also eminently badly suited for multicore workloads, which is why Apple sticks to a dual core design instead of the quad Krait/Exynos/etc CPUs.
They could easily have stuck a quad core CPU at over 2GHz in the iphone6, but the only advantage would have been in terms of marketing. Apple chose differently, in order to make a faster, more efficient phone with longer battery life.
The same can be said about the iphone screens. Apple could easily have stuck a HD or FullHD screen in the iphone years ago. Or made a 5 or 6 inch screen. (Heck, Dell released a 4 and 5inch phone in 2010, big screen phones are not a recent development).
So why didn't they? Because the trade offs were too big. Battery life and one handed ease of use would have to be sacrificed, and that for quickly diminishing returns. Very few people can tell the difference of a HD and FullHD screen on a cellphone, and once screen ppi get above 320, like in the iphone, it's hard to tell the difference between 350 and 400 ppi.
Competitors like Samsung, LG or Motorola doesn't have Apples advantage of controlling the whole ecosystem from OS to store to hardware. That means it's harder for them to make a good, solid product and distinguish themselves from the competition.
Instead, they're forced to play the spec-game and fake progress through throwing specs and gimmicks around. They can't make a better phone from year to year, so instead they throw a slightly bigger screen and 2.2ghz CPU in last years 2ghz phone, tweak the design a little bit and call it a day.
As for Apple losing sales because of screen size, that's very dubious. You forget the huge part of the market that prefers smallish-pocketable phones. Which is just as big, if not bigger than the market that crave huge screens.
After all, the phablet is primarily a hit in Asia, and the only company who had profits here is Samsung. (Many other companies chase that market though, since the premium phone market mostly belongs to Apple.)
Phones above 4 inches, and especially phablets are still just a small part of the market.
Nope! Not even close. I've been pointing out what Apple needs to do in order to accomplish that, and this isn't it...
But in order to use this for say, a Macbook Air, they need to quadruple the compute capability. And that would just work well for the OS and Apple's apps that were written for ARM. Third parties would still se the usual tradeoffs in speed due to the chip emulation that would be needed. Traditionally, it's considered that in order to emulate another chip family, the chip on which the emulation is being done needs to be about five times as powerful as the one being emulated. We saw that with emulation earlier, where software ran at 10-20% of the speed as on a comparable Windows machine.
But, Apple could work this out, which is why I wonder at all those extra transistors. There are things they are using some of them for, such as a dedicated camera module in the chip, etc. but still, double? It's been understood that there are just a relatively few instructions that need to be emulated that use most of the processing time. If Apple put those instructions into their ARM chips, so that the OS called them only when needed for emulation, then Apple could cut emulation speed by 80%. This could work.
But, it still requires an ARM chip to equal the power of whatever x86 chip Apple is using, and the lowest chip Apple uses for the Macbook Air is an Ultra Low Power i5. If the A8 was double the power, and using two cores, could be mated with another, then Apple could have a chip that comes at around the power of that low end i5. That could do it for rewritten apps, and if the instructions for x86 were included, this would be viable for a low end, less expensive, lighter, and longer battery life machine.
But, as you can see that's a lot of steps needed, and it doesn't look as though the power of the processor is enough, unless there's something that Apple has done that they aren't talking about. Perhaps they can raise the clock on a device with less of a battery and cooling issue. But Apple's design is wide and low clock, so it's hard to say how much they could raise it.
Some have said that third parties could always recompile their software for OS X over ARM, but as usual, that's just a pipe dream, and XCode would need to support that. Small, simple, apps can often be run through, and will work with little work afterwards. But major apps will take months to fix up, and the question is how many developers will want to make another change.
You forget the things apple has put in place to support such a move. Xcode can already compile for x86 and arm so it's not a stretch that they could make something write once compile with both arch. Also, let's not forget Swift. This may bee something they designed around when making the new language with foresight to an Arm and Intel OSX product mix. Gatekeeper and the push toward Mac AppStore distribution is another piece that would tend to support this.
I wouldn't say "note even close" as I'm sure they could design in parallel a different series chip that is based on a similar core that is more powerful and designed around OSX. This could happen relatively soon for something like the MacBook Air which is more suited for consumption rather than production. I would, however be very surprised with an entire transition to ARM like we saw with the move to Intel. I don't see Apple making an ARM powered Mac Pro any time soon.
The potential is there, but it all depends on if they can get "good enough" performance for things like the new photos app, iMovie, etc. and this performance can be achieved for less cost than with Intel, and / or provide a significant boost to efficiency resulting in significant battery life improvements.
Don't really care about the iPhone as I have no interest in buying one but I'm defiantly hoping that the new iPad Air has an additional 1GB, I would be more comfortable with 3GB though.
You forget the things apple has put in place to support such a move. Xcode can already compile for x86 and arm so it's not a stretch that they could make something write once compile with both arch. Also, let's not forget Swift.
Aahhh - the return of dual-architecture binaries !!
It's true that Xcode already deals with both. But while that is necessary, it is not sufficient.
If Apple switches to ARM then a new Rosetta will be essential. Apple can either build one or license one from the current owners of the technology -- IBM.
Nope! Not even close. I've been pointing out what Apple needs to do in order to accomplish that, and this isn't it...
But in order to use this for say, a Macbook Air, they need to quadruple the compute capability. And that would just work well for the OS and Apple's apps that were written for ARM. Third parties would still se the usual tradeoffs in speed due to the chip emulation that would be needed. Traditionally, it's considered that in order to emulate another chip family, the chip on which the emulation is being done needs to be about five times as powerful as the one being emulated. We saw that with emulation earlier, where software ran at 10-20% of the speed as on a comparable Windows machine.
But, Apple could work this out, which is why I wonder at all those extra transistors. There are things they are using some of them for, such as a dedicated camera module in the chip, etc. but still, double? It's been understood that there are just a relatively few instructions that need to be emulated that use most of the processing time. If Apple put those instructions into their ARM chips, so that the OS called them only when needed for emulation, then Apple could cut emulation speed by 80%. This could work.
But, it still requires an ARM chip to equal the power of whatever x86 chip Apple is using, and the lowest chip Apple uses for the Macbook Air is an Ultra Low Power i5. If the A8 was double the power, and using two cores, could be mated with another, then Apple could have a chip that comes at around the power of that low end i5. That could do it for rewritten apps, and if the instructions for x86 were included, this would be viable for a low end, less expensive, lighter, and longer battery life machine.
But, as you can see that's a lot of steps needed, and it doesn't look as though the power of the processor is enough, unless there's something that Apple has done that they aren't talking about. Perhaps they can raise the clock on a device with less of a battery and cooling issue. But Apple's design is wide and low clock, so it's hard to say how much they could raise it.
Some have said that third parties could always recompile their software for OS X over ARM, but as usual, that's just a pipe dream, and XCode would need to support that. Small, simple, apps can often be run through, and will work with little work afterwards. But major apps will take months to fix up, and the question is how many developers will want to make another change.
You forget the things apple has put in place to support such a move. Xcode can already compile for x86 and arm so it's not a stretch that they could make something write once compile with both arch. Also, let's not forget Swift. This may bee something they designed around when making the new language with foresight to an Arm and Intel OSX product mix. Gatekeeper and the push toward Mac AppStore distribution is another piece that would tend to support this.
I wouldn't say "note even close" as I'm sure they could design in parallel a different series chip that is based on a similar core that is more powerful and designed around OSX. This could happen relatively soon for something like the MacBook Air which is more suited for consumption rather than production. I would, however be very surprised with an entire transition to ARM like we saw with the move to Intel. I don't see Apple making an ARM powered Mac Pro any time soon.
The potential is there, but it all depends on if they can get "good enough" performance for things like the new photos app, iMovie, etc. and this performance can be achieved for less cost than with Intel, and / or provide a significant boost to efficiency resulting in significant battery life improvements.
-PopinFRESH
Dumb question???
These A8 chips (and A8X) are very inexpensive compared to Intel chips. Would anything be gained by using 2, or even 4 A8s instead of a single multicore Intel chip? Isn't that what Intel does on its Xeons?
These A8 chips (and A8X) are very inexpensive compared to Intel chips. Would anything be gained by using 2, or even 4 A8s instead of a single multicore Intel chip? Isn't that what Intel does on its Xeons?
First, Like with the A7, I don't think we will see an A8X chip unless Apple increases the resolution on the iPads. As to their expense I'm not sure what a hypothetical "desktop" series ARM chip that is more powerful would be, although I'm sure it would be cheaper it may not be a massive difference to get something at least somewhat close to similar performance.
I'm not sure what you mean by Intel doing that with the Xeons? if you mean put several processors on a single chip then no they are up to 15 cores on a single chip. If you mean having multi-cpu then yes, some (most) Xeons support MP support for dual, quad or greater multi CPU configurations.
Couldn't agree less. He's a pretentious, condescending pissant, who I would bet any amount of money doesn't know 1% as much as he'd like you to think he does.
This crap about accusing everybody but him of "not knowing how RAM is used", really pisses me off. Apparently he, the great expert, is not aware of how RAM works. Kind a a remarkable lapse of knowledge for the Great Guru!
Hey, Wiz! RAM is absolutely the only thing in your phone that you can't turn off. It has to be refreshed thousands of times a second! You can stop the CPU, the GPU and the backlight, but the second you stop refreshing that RAM you've lost everything and have to reboot the phone from scratch.
In a desktop or laptop, the more RAM the better, but with the extremly limited energy available to a phone, you need to use as little as you can possibly get away with. Kind of amazing that one of your enormous knowledge¡ wouldn't be aware of this.
IOW, get bent.
Pretty harsh don't you think, Wizard69 is a good person, his tech rightups are very informative and most of the time accurate. He is always around to offer a helpful hand in the Genius Bar section and spends time with those who ask for his assistance, I looked through your posts and don't see you helping people the way he does. If you disagree with him or anyone for that matter, then debate, please don't insult, as it's not only tacky but turns the thread into a pissing contest.
Memory is probably the least power hungry component in your phone, an additional 1GB would have not significantly taxed the system in terms of power usage, especially to the point where it wouldn't have been beneficial. Apple can get away with only offering 1GB because they restrict the amount of apps that can be utilized in background, I am firmly in the belief that Apple only offers 1GB because of this specific control. Which means they can not only maximize profits but maintain the instant computing experience we have all become so used too. Which is fine, but defiantly makes the iPhone 6 a now product and not a when, meaning when Apple starts adding more advanced multitasking features like; side by side apps or allowing more then one third party app to run in the background for longer then the current hardcoded allowed time or apps that start to replace their desktop counterparts, you will defiantly start to see the limitations of only having 1GB. Unless of course Apple's plan is to only make these features available to the iPad and these features will become reality, it's just a matter of time. One of the most frustrating things I currently have with my iPad is not being able to run at least three different music creations apps at once, at least without any help from a programs like AudioBus, which has it's one disadvantages. Wizard69 also has a legitimate complaint about the browser, it's very easy to over tax a browser with sites that contain large amounts of media content. Another problem are forums, there is nothing more frustrating then typing a large post, switch over to your email client to quickly read something only to come back to a refreshed page within the browser, lost work. Fortunately, AppleInsider and some others that cater to low memory mobile browsers, doesn't have this problem as the site saves your work with a draft feature. Regardless, I have started using Pages to write up my posts and then copy and Paste the text into the textbox to circumvent this limitation.
It's fine that you believe 1GB is completely satisfactory and 9 times out of 10 it probably is for most people, but Wizards whole point is for those who require the extra power, as we do exist and it's unfair to dismiss us. Personally, I simply just use another platform for my phone needs as I have zero emotional investment in the technology or manufacture who made it, as long as it does what I need it too do, I'm fine. Others though don't feel as I do and want to use nothing but an Apple product, for them I think Apple could have added an additional 1GB of memory, especially in the iPhone 6 Plus. It has the space for a larger battery and the display, resolution is ripe for something like side by side app viewing. Stating that Apple chose to use only 1GB of memory because of some dated techno gibberish about power efficiency that you yourself probably don't fully understand and then calling the person who doesn't see it your way, pissant is uncalled for.
Everyone has an opinion, please state yours with respect to the others in this forum. Have a nice day.
This time next year will provide us with real data about the sustainability of the large cell phone market. I really don't think it is as hot as some imply. If the 6+ becomes a huge hit we are wrong, but I don't see the majority of people wanting to carry around these huge cell phones all the time. A years worth of sales figures ought to highlight if 6+ sized phones have a long term future.
By the way I approve of Apples largeish cell phone as some people can justify the big devoce. I just don't see it as a major portion of Apples long term sales. I can also see people dumping the 6+ after realizing that it is more of a problem to carry around than it is worth. In the end I do wonder why it took Apple so long to offer up a real line up of phones and I'm frustrated that an updated iPhone 4 sized device hasn't arrived. Size isn't Apples problem it is rather the lack of effort to maintain a portfolio of high performance phones.
I'd agree with you that many people would prefer a smaller pocketable phone, however I think we may unfortunately see a skewed result that implies that more people want a massive phablet due to the feature disparity between the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. I'm one of those people who would much prefer the iPhone 6 size, or the new hardware in an iPhone 5 (or 4) sized device, but will be getting an iPhone 6 Plus because of the higher density display, OIS, and landscape functionality. Also the battery life, however this is understandably scaled with the size of the phone and if this was the only difference there would be a smaller phone in my pocket come Friday.
Pretty harsh don't you think, Wizard69 is a good person, his tech rightups are very informative and most of the time accurate. He is always around to offer a helpful hand in the Genius Bar section and spends time with those who ask for his assistance, I looked through your posts and don't see you helping people the way he does. If you disagree with him or anyone for that matter, then debate, please don't insult, as it's not only tacky but turns the thread into a pissing contest.
Memory is probably the least power hungry component in your phone, an additional 1GB would have not significantly taxed the system in terms of power usage, especially to the point where it wouldn't have been beneficial. Apple can get away with only offering 1GB because they restrict the amount of apps that can be utilized in background, I am firmly in the belief that Apple only offers 1GB because of this specific control. Which means they can not only maximize profits but maintain the instant computing experience we have all become so used too. Which is fine, but defiantly makes the iPhone 6 a now product and not a when, meaning when Apple starts adding more advanced multitasking features like; side by side apps or allowing more then one third party app to run in the background for longer then the current hardcoded allowed time or apps that start to replace their desktop counterparts, you will defiantly start to see the limitations of only having 1GB. Unless of course Apple's plan is to only make these features available to the iPad and these features will become reality, it's just a matter of time. One of the most frustrating things I currently have with my iPad is not being able to run at least three different music creations apps at once, at least without any help from a programs like AudioBus, which has it's one disadvantages. Wizard69 also has a legitimate complaint about the browser, it's very easy to over tax a browser with sites that contain large amounts of media content. Another problem are forums, there is nothing more frustrating then typing a large post, switch over to your email client to quickly read something only to come back to a refreshed page within the browser, lost work. Fortunately, AppleInsider and some others that cater to low memory mobile browsers, doesn't have this problem as the site saves your work with a draft feature. Regardless, I have started using Pages to write up my posts and then copy and Paste the text into the textbox to circumvent this limitation.
It's fine that you believe 1GB is completely satisfactory and 9 times out of 10 it probably is for most people, but Wizards whole point is for those who require the extra power, as we do exist and it's unfair to dismiss us. Personally, I simply just use another platform for my phone needs as I have zero emotional investment in the technology or manufacture who made it, as long as it does what I need it too do, I'm fine. Others though don't feel as I do and want to use nothing but an Apple product, for them I think Apple could have added an additional 1GB of memory, especially in the iPhone 6 Plus. It has the space for a larger battery and the display, resolution is ripe for something like side by side app viewing. Stating that Apple chose to use only 1GB of memory because of some dated techno gibberish about power efficiency that you yourself probably don't fully understand and then calling the person who doesn't see it your way, pissant is uncalled for.
Everyone has an opinion, please state yours with respect to the others in this forum. Have a nice day.
Relic:
Thank you for your opinion and specifics on why you feel it may be a bad idea to only have 1GB system RAM.
This is what forums are supposed to be about - the exchange of ideas and in doing so educate/point to different avenues of thought, etc.
I think that you have "hit it on the head" on a good point - that Pro users (users that require extra power) are generally NOT the target audience for mobile devices and that sucks if you are a Pro user.
But lets look at this from a different view point:
Why put more hardware into a device if 1-2% (my guesstimate for Pro uses in the overall general market for mobile devices - we can agree to disagree on the number) are the only ones that truly need it?
The company can reduce material costs, perhaps ensure a steady and large supply of a part, make the device thinner, make better decisions what emphasizes they want, etc. if they focus on what 98% need versus 2%.
Again - no argument that this sometimes makes it suck for the 2%.
But for a company looking to make a profit, meet investor expectations, etc. - does it make sense to place your emphasis
on 98% of the users - OR - 2% of the users and possibly delay shipping a device because of additional testing, procurement of parts, etc.?
Emphasizing 2% of your users to the possible detriment of the other 98% does not make good business sense.
And lets be honest here - Apple is not in the business of pleasing each and every person as that is an impossible goal.
And Apple seems to be doing something right because people keep buying and buying Apple products.
I do not recall any other mobile device manufacturer being able to sell as many devices as they can make in huge numbers (1M is not a huge number), maintain industry leading profit margins, maintain industry leading cash on hand, etc. that is focusing on Pro users ahead of “normal” consumers.
Nope! Not even close. I've been pointing out what Apple needs to do in order to accomplish that, and this isn't it. The truth is that the chip isn't a "massive" improvement in compute that the article states. Considering that the past two chips had double the performance of the one before, and the chip before that was 50% higher than the one before, with almost 100% higher in graphics (A5 for iPhone, with A5x for iPad), this jump is positively measly.
a 25% increase is hardly "measly". want proof? if your boss were to offer you a 25% salary bonus, would you call it measly? nope.
the fact is, as mobile processing matures the low-hanging fruit will be gone, and increases are going to get slimmer, just as they have w/ desktop class processors.
Comments
Apple said it was 25 and 50% faster.
So in other words, you had the standard Android experience...
We will see since the reviews will be unembargo on Tuesday 9:00P.M. Not sure of the time zone. But one GB RAM is like limited and has been that amount for 2 years going on 3! Cost of RAM memory has fallen to nothing! It would cost Apple $3 more to double it to 2GB; but Apple is so cheap; they just don't want to do it! LOL!
I mistyped - I meant it (the new iPhne 6) was twice as fast as my iPhone 5 (not the 5s)... SInce the 5c is essentially an iPhone 5 internally, I'm not sure what Apple may have been referring to...? Anyway, I was basing my comment off the charts in the article above.
I'm not sure what he was saying, but the Android OS is such a memory and battery hog. I like how the current turds shipping soon by Samsung can only run all out for a few minutes before being throttled back due to heat issues. The iPhone can run full boar until you're done using it. Oh wait, the Samsung turds are water proof, so maybe that's how you're suppsed to cool them down to use... but do they float? I say they're slimy sinkers...
But more RAM uses more energy... Apple may keep it lean for that reason. And the RAM is not as inexpensive as the rest of the memory... different and faster animal.
Hey Wiz, I gotta say that I really have enjoyed reading your knowledgable posts in this thead about the chips and designs for the future.
However, unless you work at Apple and with the team of very competent engineers that is specifically tasked with creating a "whole solution" for iOS devices, you can't call out anyone for being defensive. You or we don't know the constraints that the team is working around, and I must say the least being financial.
Considering that this RAMgate thread has appeared every single release for the last few years, I seriously doubt that the engineers have overlooked this wish, nor that they couldn't drop 2gbs into the design on the word "go". So it's obviously something else, or somewhere else in the design that would nead to be compromised. What "that" is, can be debated and conjectured.
Note: Safari and multiple tabs is repeatedly brought up as the biggest pain for most people. In my non-engineer knowledge, I tend to think it would benefit Apple to take a closer look there and work towards better efficiency, because honestly, I have documents and other Apps open with far larger footprints, that don't need reloading of any kind when switching, scrolling, etc.
Maybe you could share some of your knowledge how Apple could make Safari, Webkit and the Java engine better. No sarcasm here. I really do enjoy your detailed posts.
Couldn't agree less. He's a pretentious, condescending pissant, who I would bet any amount of money doesn't know 1% as much as he'd like you to think he does.
This crap about accusing everybody but him of "not knowing how RAM is used", really pisses me off. Apparently he, the great expert, is not aware of how RAM works. Kind a a remarkable lapse of knowledge for the Great Guru!
Hey, Wiz! RAM is absolutely the only thing in your phone that you can't turn off. It has to be refreshed thousands of times a second! You can stop the CPU, the GPU and the backlight, but the second you stop refreshing that RAM you've lost everything and have to reboot the phone from scratch.
In a desktop or laptop, the more RAM the better, but with the extremly limited energy available to a phone, you need to use as little as you can possibly get away with. Kind of amazing that one of your enormous knowledge¡ wouldn't be aware of this.
IOW, get bent.
I must agree, his posts are often condescending, and I don't often agree with his "opinions" about certain Apple tech. Just so happens that this thread exposed more of his knowledge rather than his (sometimes!) inept communication skills... most evident in his last post to this thread that I replied to.
I'd still like to hear his opinion on what can/should be done better with Safari to make it "suck less" for those that are continuously ranting about it. I personally accept the little "pains", because the rest of iOS is mostly tech-ecstasy....:p
Well, Thats certainly an interesting rewriting of recent history.
But hardly based in reality, unless the only benchmark for "better" is "more" and "faster", which of course is nonsense.
Look at the CPUs Apple typically put in their cellphones. You typically see CPUs with more megahertz and with more cores in Android handsets. Bigger and more is better, right?
Nope. Apples CPUs get much more done pr. MHz, so an A6 CPU at 1.2 GHz is faster than most of the CPUs clocked at 2GHz in other phones. Phone workloads are also eminently badly suited for multicore workloads, which is why Apple sticks to a dual core design instead of the quad Krait/Exynos/etc CPUs.
They could easily have stuck a quad core CPU at over 2GHz in the iphone6, but the only advantage would have been in terms of marketing. Apple chose differently, in order to make a faster, more efficient phone with longer battery life.
The same can be said about the iphone screens. Apple could easily have stuck a HD or FullHD screen in the iphone years ago. Or made a 5 or 6 inch screen. (Heck, Dell released a 4 and 5inch phone in 2010, big screen phones are not a recent development).
So why didn't they? Because the trade offs were too big. Battery life and one handed ease of use would have to be sacrificed, and that for quickly diminishing returns. Very few people can tell the difference of a HD and FullHD screen on a cellphone, and once screen ppi get above 320, like in the iphone, it's hard to tell the difference between 350 and 400 ppi.
Competitors like Samsung, LG or Motorola doesn't have Apples advantage of controlling the whole ecosystem from OS to store to hardware. That means it's harder for them to make a good, solid product and distinguish themselves from the competition.
Instead, they're forced to play the spec-game and fake progress through throwing specs and gimmicks around. They can't make a better phone from year to year, so instead they throw a slightly bigger screen and 2.2ghz CPU in last years 2ghz phone, tweak the design a little bit and call it a day.
As for Apple losing sales because of screen size, that's very dubious. You forget the huge part of the market that prefers smallish-pocketable phones. Which is just as big, if not bigger than the market that crave huge screens.
After all, the phablet is primarily a hit in Asia, and the only company who had profits here is Samsung. (Many other companies chase that market though, since the premium phone market mostly belongs to Apple.)
Phones above 4 inches, and especially phablets are still just a small part of the market.
You forget the things apple has put in place to support such a move. Xcode can already compile for x86 and arm so it's not a stretch that they could make something write once compile with both arch. Also, let's not forget Swift. This may bee something they designed around when making the new language with foresight to an Arm and Intel OSX product mix. Gatekeeper and the push toward Mac AppStore distribution is another piece that would tend to support this.
I wouldn't say "note even close" as I'm sure they could design in parallel a different series chip that is based on a similar core that is more powerful and designed around OSX. This could happen relatively soon for something like the MacBook Air which is more suited for consumption rather than production. I would, however be very surprised with an entire transition to ARM like we saw with the move to Intel. I don't see Apple making an ARM powered Mac Pro any time soon.
The potential is there, but it all depends on if they can get "good enough" performance for things like the new photos app, iMovie, etc. and this performance can be achieved for less cost than with Intel, and / or provide a significant boost to efficiency resulting in significant battery life improvements.
-PopinFRESH
Don't really care about the iPhone as I have no interest in buying one but I'm defiantly hoping that the new iPad Air has an additional 1GB, I would be more comfortable with 3GB though.
You forget the things apple has put in place to support such a move. Xcode can already compile for x86 and arm so it's not a stretch that they could make something write once compile with both arch. Also, let's not forget Swift.
Aahhh - the return of dual-architecture binaries !!
It's true that Xcode already deals with both. But while that is necessary, it is not sufficient.
If Apple switches to ARM then a new Rosetta will be essential. Apple can either build one or license one from the current owners of the technology -- IBM.
Dumb question???
These A8 chips (and A8X) are very inexpensive compared to Intel chips. Would anything be gained by using 2, or even 4 A8s instead of a single multicore Intel chip? Isn't that what Intel does on its Xeons?
Dumb question???
These A8 chips (and A8X) are very inexpensive compared to Intel chips. Would anything be gained by using 2, or even 4 A8s instead of a single multicore Intel chip? Isn't that what Intel does on its Xeons?
First, Like with the A7, I don't think we will see an A8X chip unless Apple increases the resolution on the iPads. As to their expense I'm not sure what a hypothetical "desktop" series ARM chip that is more powerful would be, although I'm sure it would be cheaper it may not be a massive difference to get something at least somewhat close to similar performance.
I'm not sure what you mean by Intel doing that with the Xeons? if you mean put several processors on a single chip then no they are up to 15 cores on a single chip. If you mean having multi-cpu then yes, some (most) Xeons support MP support for dual, quad or greater multi CPU configurations.
-PopinFRESH
Couldn't agree less. He's a pretentious, condescending pissant, who I would bet any amount of money doesn't know 1% as much as he'd like you to think he does.
This crap about accusing everybody but him of "not knowing how RAM is used", really pisses me off. Apparently he, the great expert, is not aware of how RAM works. Kind a a remarkable lapse of knowledge for the Great Guru!
Hey, Wiz! RAM is absolutely the only thing in your phone that you can't turn off. It has to be refreshed thousands of times a second! You can stop the CPU, the GPU and the backlight, but the second you stop refreshing that RAM you've lost everything and have to reboot the phone from scratch.
In a desktop or laptop, the more RAM the better, but with the extremly limited energy available to a phone, you need to use as little as you can possibly get away with. Kind of amazing that one of your enormous knowledge¡ wouldn't be aware of this.
IOW, get bent.
Pretty harsh don't you think, Wizard69 is a good person, his tech rightups are very informative and most of the time accurate. He is always around to offer a helpful hand in the Genius Bar section and spends time with those who ask for his assistance, I looked through your posts and don't see you helping people the way he does. If you disagree with him or anyone for that matter, then debate, please don't insult, as it's not only tacky but turns the thread into a pissing contest.
Memory is probably the least power hungry component in your phone, an additional 1GB would have not significantly taxed the system in terms of power usage, especially to the point where it wouldn't have been beneficial. Apple can get away with only offering 1GB because they restrict the amount of apps that can be utilized in background, I am firmly in the belief that Apple only offers 1GB because of this specific control. Which means they can not only maximize profits but maintain the instant computing experience we have all become so used too. Which is fine, but defiantly makes the iPhone 6 a now product and not a when, meaning when Apple starts adding more advanced multitasking features like; side by side apps or allowing more then one third party app to run in the background for longer then the current hardcoded allowed time or apps that start to replace their desktop counterparts, you will defiantly start to see the limitations of only having 1GB. Unless of course Apple's plan is to only make these features available to the iPad and these features will become reality, it's just a matter of time. One of the most frustrating things I currently have with my iPad is not being able to run at least three different music creations apps at once, at least without any help from a programs like AudioBus, which has it's one disadvantages. Wizard69 also has a legitimate complaint about the browser, it's very easy to over tax a browser with sites that contain large amounts of media content. Another problem are forums, there is nothing more frustrating then typing a large post, switch over to your email client to quickly read something only to come back to a refreshed page within the browser, lost work. Fortunately, AppleInsider and some others that cater to low memory mobile browsers, doesn't have this problem as the site saves your work with a draft feature. Regardless, I have started using Pages to write up my posts and then copy and Paste the text into the textbox to circumvent this limitation.
It's fine that you believe 1GB is completely satisfactory and 9 times out of 10 it probably is for most people, but Wizards whole point is for those who require the extra power, as we do exist and it's unfair to dismiss us. Personally, I simply just use another platform for my phone needs as I have zero emotional investment in the technology or manufacture who made it, as long as it does what I need it too do, I'm fine. Others though don't feel as I do and want to use nothing but an Apple product, for them I think Apple could have added an additional 1GB of memory, especially in the iPhone 6 Plus. It has the space for a larger battery and the display, resolution is ripe for something like side by side app viewing. Stating that Apple chose to use only 1GB of memory because of some dated techno gibberish about power efficiency that you yourself probably don't fully understand and then calling the person who doesn't see it your way, pissant is uncalled for.
Everyone has an opinion, please state yours with respect to the others in this forum. Have a nice day.
This time next year will provide us with real data about the sustainability of the large cell phone market. I really don't think it is as hot as some imply. If the 6+ becomes a huge hit we are wrong, but I don't see the majority of people wanting to carry around these huge cell phones all the time. A years worth of sales figures ought to highlight if 6+ sized phones have a long term future.
By the way I approve of Apples largeish cell phone as some people can justify the big devoce. I just don't see it as a major portion of Apples long term sales. I can also see people dumping the 6+ after realizing that it is more of a problem to carry around than it is worth. In the end I do wonder why it took Apple so long to offer up a real line up of phones and I'm frustrated that an updated iPhone 4 sized device hasn't arrived. Size isn't Apples problem it is rather the lack of effort to maintain a portfolio of high performance phones.
I'd agree with you that many people would prefer a smaller pocketable phone, however I think we may unfortunately see a skewed result that implies that more people want a massive phablet due to the feature disparity between the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. I'm one of those people who would much prefer the iPhone 6 size, or the new hardware in an iPhone 5 (or 4) sized device, but will be getting an iPhone 6 Plus because of the higher density display, OIS, and landscape functionality. Also the battery life, however this is understandably scaled with the size of the phone and if this was the only difference there would be a smaller phone in my pocket come Friday.
-PopinFRESH
Pretty harsh don't you think, Wizard69 is a good person, his tech rightups are very informative and most of the time accurate. He is always around to offer a helpful hand in the Genius Bar section and spends time with those who ask for his assistance, I looked through your posts and don't see you helping people the way he does. If you disagree with him or anyone for that matter, then debate, please don't insult, as it's not only tacky but turns the thread into a pissing contest.
Memory is probably the least power hungry component in your phone, an additional 1GB would have not significantly taxed the system in terms of power usage, especially to the point where it wouldn't have been beneficial. Apple can get away with only offering 1GB because they restrict the amount of apps that can be utilized in background, I am firmly in the belief that Apple only offers 1GB because of this specific control. Which means they can not only maximize profits but maintain the instant computing experience we have all become so used too. Which is fine, but defiantly makes the iPhone 6 a now product and not a when, meaning when Apple starts adding more advanced multitasking features like; side by side apps or allowing more then one third party app to run in the background for longer then the current hardcoded allowed time or apps that start to replace their desktop counterparts, you will defiantly start to see the limitations of only having 1GB. Unless of course Apple's plan is to only make these features available to the iPad and these features will become reality, it's just a matter of time. One of the most frustrating things I currently have with my iPad is not being able to run at least three different music creations apps at once, at least without any help from a programs like AudioBus, which has it's one disadvantages. Wizard69 also has a legitimate complaint about the browser, it's very easy to over tax a browser with sites that contain large amounts of media content. Another problem are forums, there is nothing more frustrating then typing a large post, switch over to your email client to quickly read something only to come back to a refreshed page within the browser, lost work. Fortunately, AppleInsider and some others that cater to low memory mobile browsers, doesn't have this problem as the site saves your work with a draft feature. Regardless, I have started using Pages to write up my posts and then copy and Paste the text into the textbox to circumvent this limitation.
It's fine that you believe 1GB is completely satisfactory and 9 times out of 10 it probably is for most people, but Wizards whole point is for those who require the extra power, as we do exist and it's unfair to dismiss us. Personally, I simply just use another platform for my phone needs as I have zero emotional investment in the technology or manufacture who made it, as long as it does what I need it too do, I'm fine. Others though don't feel as I do and want to use nothing but an Apple product, for them I think Apple could have added an additional 1GB of memory, especially in the iPhone 6 Plus. It has the space for a larger battery and the display, resolution is ripe for something like side by side app viewing. Stating that Apple chose to use only 1GB of memory because of some dated techno gibberish about power efficiency that you yourself probably don't fully understand and then calling the person who doesn't see it your way, pissant is uncalled for.
Everyone has an opinion, please state yours with respect to the others in this forum. Have a nice day.
Relic:
Thank you for your opinion and specifics on why you feel it may be a bad idea to only have 1GB system RAM.
This is what forums are supposed to be about - the exchange of ideas and in doing so educate/point to different avenues of thought, etc.
I think that you have "hit it on the head" on a good point - that Pro users (users that require extra power) are generally NOT the target audience for mobile devices and that sucks if you are a Pro user.
But lets look at this from a different view point:
Why put more hardware into a device if 1-2% (my guesstimate for Pro uses in the overall general market for mobile devices - we can agree to disagree on the number) are the only ones that truly need it?
The company can reduce material costs, perhaps ensure a steady and large supply of a part, make the device thinner, make better decisions what emphasizes they want, etc. if they focus on what 98% need versus 2%.
Again - no argument that this sometimes makes it suck for the 2%.
But for a company looking to make a profit, meet investor expectations, etc. - does it make sense to place your emphasis
on 98% of the users - OR - 2% of the users and possibly delay shipping a device because of additional testing, procurement of parts, etc.?
Emphasizing 2% of your users to the possible detriment of the other 98% does not make good business sense.
And lets be honest here - Apple is not in the business of pleasing each and every person as that is an impossible goal.
And Apple seems to be doing something right because people keep buying and buying Apple products.
I do not recall any other mobile device manufacturer being able to sell as many devices as they can make in huge numbers (1M is not a huge number), maintain industry leading profit margins, maintain industry leading cash on hand, etc. that is focusing on Pro users ahead of “normal” consumers.
Nope! Not even close. I've been pointing out what Apple needs to do in order to accomplish that, and this isn't it. The truth is that the chip isn't a "massive" improvement in compute that the article states. Considering that the past two chips had double the performance of the one before, and the chip before that was 50% higher than the one before, with almost 100% higher in graphics (A5 for iPhone, with A5x for iPad), this jump is positively measly.
a 25% increase is hardly "measly". want proof? if your boss were to offer you a 25% salary bonus, would you call it measly? nope.
the fact is, as mobile processing matures the low-hanging fruit will be gone, and increases are going to get slimmer, just as they have w/ desktop class processors.
Yeah. Rolled and then sat upon. Whoops!
when we reach that point, sitting on them likely wont do any damage. probably less than sitting on a 6+ in your back pocket.