[jb1991]

> It is equivalent of saying

No, they are not equivalent.

It is true that reference counting is a form of GC. However, Java's GC is not based primarily on reference counting. It is much more complex and, generally, does indeed use much more memory.

Swift's reference counting is not much different than C++ shared pointers, except that it is all baked into the language. It is generally true that iOS devices require less memory to achieve the same things as Android devices.