Comment by ricw
6 hours ago
Not an apples to apples comparison#. iOS uses way less ram than android, plus has memory compression. That’s why Apple gets away with less ram and much smaller batteries with equal or better performance.
# pun intended
6 hours ago
Not an apples to apples comparison#. iOS uses way less ram than android, plus has memory compression. That’s why Apple gets away with less ram and much smaller batteries with equal or better performance.
# pun intended
Of course it's not an apple to apple comparison, the iPhone 7 from the same year was 50% more expensive and had only one third of the RAM (2 GB)
plus has memory compression.
FYI, Android has had zRAM support since KitKat, which is from (checking notes) 2013. Same year as iOS.
iOS uses way less ram than android
Common measurements I have seen is around 40%, I wouldn't say way less, but it is definitely less. Still, 3x more for a model in the same year is impressive (and more than needed to be competitive with iOS) and we should give OnePlus credit for it.
Sadly a lot of low-ish to midrange phones are going back or sticking to 6-8GB today, thanks to the RAM squeeze and the efficiency of iOS is certainly helping Apple here. Certainly nobody is going to complain about the performance of the iPhone 17, despite only having 8GB RAM.
In Android, Samsung doesn't seem to suffer as much. You can pick up an S26 here with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage for 623 Euro, which is a nice midrange price. I guess there are benefits if you can produce your own memory.
> 623 Euro, which is a nice midrange price [for a phone].
How did we get here?
Apple is already past that, with the entry-level 17e starting at 700 Euro. The midrange regular 17 starts at 950 Euro. And according to rumors those prices are likely to increase in spring if not earlier.
1 reply →
iPhone 1 launched at 649 Euros in France in 2007 money, or about 980 Euros today.
Given inflation and the increased utility of the smartphone, we're almost certainly at the lowest cost per hour of use ever for most people.
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Our central planners allocated all the RAM to AI and almost none to phones.
> iOS uses way less ram than android, plus has memory compression. That’s why Apple gets away with less ram and much smaller batteries with equal or better performance.
Yeah, by aggressively purging all my Safari tabs (and Apps) unexpectedly, during the most convenient times, like when I'm going through a tunnel on the train and my cellular connection is at its best. Still infuriatingly common on my 17 Pro with 12GB of RAM.
Regarding memory compression: isn't the use of `zswap` and `zram` commonplace on embedded Linux at this point?