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Comment by EpicEng | Hacker News Reader

Who cares why it happens? I've gone back and forth between iOS and Android over the years and it never happens to me on my Android devices. Both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses obviously, but this used to piss me off to no end on iOS.

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It's kinda strange, honestly: 2011's state-of-the-art Android phones (Galaxy S2) had 1GB RAM, and yet Apple is still stuck on that maximum, while Android has long moved on to 2GB on flagships. Kind of a shame :(

The Galaxy Note 3 has 3GB of RAM and that was released a year ago.

And yet they continue to pack more power into a smaller package. So how do you explain it? Ram is cheap and small. Yes it uses power but not all that much and certainly it would be worth it for a more powerful device.

The only logical explanation I can come to is... more RAM won't make a meaningful impact on the experience. More ram is the cure-all on a desktop but that's not apples-to-apples.

>And yet they continue to pack more power into a smaller package.

Well, not this time =p

The A8 is fabbed using a new 20nm process, so part of the phone is more power in a smaller package.

>more RAM won't make a meaningful impact on the experience

Except when it would, as in, the case we are discussing right now.

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...).

Why 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.

Isn't RAM more of a factor for power consumption when in standby?

I 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)

I'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.

> Who cares why it happens?

People who are curious about system internals. Probably some of the people who read a site like HN. Even my dad likes to understand where these limitations originate and he's not a 'computer person' (though he is an engineer in another field).

I think you missed the point. I like understanding the why as well, but it doesn't actually matter. No one is going to do a 180 and say "oh, yeah, I hadn't thought of that. I guess it doesn't bother me anymore." It's still a PITA and there's no good reason for it anymore. I get great battery life on my M8 and don't have to deal with this stupid quirk.

>>I think you missed the point. I like understanding the why as well, but it doesn't actually matter.

Of course it matters. If you understand why, you can take steps to mitigate it or work around it. In this particular case, one workaround is to close unused programs and browser tabs every now and then to clear up memory so that the active tabs don't go through a forced-refresh. This is what I do on my 4S, and I haven't had to deal with the problem the OP describes in a long time despite being a "heavy" user.

Right... or I could just use a phone which doesn't force me to micro-manage my memory usage. That's a workaround at best, not a solution. iOS has always been subpar in regards to multi-tasking.

Good luck with that.

My M8 fits that bill nicely, but thank you for your concern.

It's far worse on low-memory Android, in my opinion. iOS apps have to support being suspended and resumed (although bad apps still do it badly). This forces apps to deal with this eventuality on day 1.

Android, on the other hand, doesn't force this. All apps assume they can do whatever they want in the background, without being shut down. This means, on my low-memory Android, that opening an intense browsing session followed by Google Maps kills all of my background chat apps, making me unavailable. This is far more unacceptable in my opinion then having to wait for an app to reload.

(I would agree that iOS is too aggressive when it comes to memory management, though)

Edit: Formatting

I agree with you there, I was only thinking of flagship android devices because they are in the same class add the iPhone. I've never owned a lower end android phone, but I imagine that they don't scale downward as well as iOS would.

I'm happy for you. It's great that you can buy the device that works best for you and I can buy the device that works best for me.

No one is going to do a 180 and say "oh, yeah, I hadn't thought of that. I guess it doesn't bother me anymore."

I think you're underestimating one's capacity to accept a tradeoff. Once a person learns that RAM is constantly consuming power as it's being refreshed – and that a device with more RAM is going to have less standby time – they might appreciate the decision to try to do more with less.

Did you file something with Apple? That is a genuine gripe.

iOS is a little more strict about how applications use memory. Apps need to expect to be terminated at any time and be able to suspend their state with a few seconds' notice.

The reason is to give you better battery life and fewer issues caused by limited available memory.

That's not a reason, that's an excuse. The solution is that Apple implements a reliable pause and resume system so that its multitasking experience isn't inferior.

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