[corresation]

On the other hand, doubling the RAM will double what we pay for RAM, it won't help performance, and it will eat into the power budget, and it wouldn't make a good bullet point for marketing.

The power consumption angle is a complete and utter non-issue. It generally comes up as an apologetic canard to justify Apple's choice here, but in the holistic sense the power difference between 1GB and 2GB is negligible. Note that the ARMv8 processor, however, is a serious power pig.

However the limited memory should be an issue for people. I personally seriously considered a 5S to replace my GS3, largely for the fantastic camera, but the window of credible life for the 5S is simply too short -- 1GB just isn't enough, and seems especially deficient compared to such a fantastic processor.

[pslam]

The power consumption difference between 1GB and 2GB is far from negligible, both in auto-refresh (active) and self-refresh (sleep) mode.

It's a significant fraction of total power draw when asleep. You also have to account for PMU efficiency being pretty low when running at low current, so minor changes are an even larger difference. There's plenty of publicly available figures you can find to research this - find the "IDD6" self-refresh current in an lpDDR datasheet. Scale to the size of DDR you want, compare with battery rating adjusted for voltage.

[corresation]

It's a significant fraction of total power draw when asleep.

So a device with 2GB should have a significantly smaller standby time than one with 1GB, right, given that, by your claims, it's a significant fraction. Only that isn't true at all, and straight comparisons between, for instance, the GS3 international (1GB) and the GS3 Snapdragon (2GB) shows absolutely no reduction in two-week+ standby time. Of course all else isn't the same (it never is), and there are other power profile changes between them, but it certainly isn't remotely significant of a power draw.

Because in the profile of a smartphone it is absolutely negligible. Your phone is always in radio contact with the cell tower, that absolutely dwarfing all other power consumers. When you turn it actively on, the screen and the CPU absolutely dominate power consumption. There is no case where memory on smartphones is remotely a significant power consumer.

The iPhone has 1GB because that maximizes Apple profits. Every justification are like the hilariously silly claims when the iPhone was 3.5" so many had to justify why 3.5" was the ultimate size and aspect ratio. And it'll immediately shift again once Apple adds 2GB and a 5" screen to the iPhone 6.

[jryle70]

Of course Apple tries to maximize the profit. I fail to find any business that doesn't try to do the same. It's called for-profit after all.

The question is, why doesn't Apple try to earn even more money by keeping the same A6 processor as in iPhone 5? Why bother to upgrade to A7 at all? Also, including an extra GB of RAM would cost Apple much less than upgrading to a whole new processor, don't you think?

[melange]

There is no such thing as an 'ARMv8' processor that can even be a 'power pig'. And you haven't given any reason why 1GB is not enough. You are just making this stuff up.

[corresation]

We are talking about the Apple iPhone 5s. In that context, anyone not a moron knows exactly what I am talking about. Shush, you have zero interesting things to say and are just a defensive blowhard. Maybe Apple will send you a t-shirt or something.

[corresation]

I'll take every down arrow, but it is nonsense that melange isn't sitting in the sub-zero realm as well. Their garbage post was factually wrong, added absolutely nothing to the discussion, and is the classic demonstration of a buyers' defense.

[melange]

Please offer some kind of reference supporting your claim that the arm chip in the iPhone 5s is power inefficient.

[corresation]

You mean the ARMv8 processor that doesn't exist? How about the fact that the iPhone 5S includes a significantly higher capacity battery, but in any CPU usage scenario sees a sometimes significant longevity regression.

[jryle70]

So iOS 7 plays no part in power consumption? only the CPU? how about apps?

This is AnandTech's iPhone 5s battery review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/9

The 5s outperforms iPhone 5 in four out of five tests. Regression was only seen in one scenario. The thing is, I don't remember coming across any smartphone review, iPhone or otherwise, that single out the CPU as the source of power consumption change. It's always a combination of different factors.

Now it's totally possible that the new CPU is a power pig as you claimed. Unless you can provide proofs that validate it, though, I have to agree with others that you're making it up.

[melange]

If there was a reference to support your claim, you would have provided one. As I said before - you're just making this stuff up.