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Perhaps Apple can afford to keep iiOS devices at 1 GB of RAM and thus save battery life because iOS uses automatic reference counting rather than garbage collec
by mwcampbell 12y ago
Perhaps Apple can afford to keep iiOS devices at 1 GB of RAM and thus save battery life because iOS uses automatic reference counting rather than garbage collection, so applications' memory high watermarks stay lower. I imagine that's what Drew Crawford would argue, anyway (see http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow/ http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow...).
- scott_karana 12y agoWhy would they save any notable battery life? I was under the impression that RAM had only negligible differences in consumption per-module, and capacity per-module has increased dramatically. Besides, the main source of power usage is the screen.
- mwcampbell 12y agoIsn't RAM more of a factor for power consumption when in standby?
- scott_karana 12y agoI understand that additional RAM chips onboard would cause increased power consumption, but I am confused about why a chip with the same physical footprint and more storage would cause increased standby consumption. Does a DRAM refresh for a denser chip draw substantially more power, or something? (Legitimate question, I am obviously not an expert and I'd just love to learn more about this)
- mwcampbell 12y agoI'm no expert either. Honestly, I was just guessing. I observed that Apple was sticking with 1 GB of RAM for the third iPhone model in a row, and figured there must be a good reason. But maybe they're just being cheap because they think it doesn't matter.