Finally eating 8GB of RAM, the biggest upgrade of the iPhone 16 is only this?
In September last year, Apple released the iPhone 15 series, although the series was criticized by many netizens in terms of performance, image, etc., and it was guilty of the old problem of "squeezing toothpaste", but friends who should buy it will still buy it.
According to data from BCI, a research agency, the domestic mobile phone market will sell a total of 270 million smartphones in 2023, and Apple has become the best-selling mobile phone again. And the most powerful thing is that Apple, which has an average price of more than 7000 yuan for all models, has completed the overtaking of vivo and returned to the first place.
At first glance, it seems that Apple is indeed very good, but friends who follow the digital circle must know that Apple's sales last year paid a lot of price. In fact, the iPhone 15 series has been reduced in price many times last year, including a big dive at the thousand-yuan level. Just today, Apple's official website in China released a New Year's discount to warm up, and the iPhone 15 series will be reduced by another 500 yuan.
图片来源：MacRumors
In fact, Apple's sincerity may be much more than that, and there are rumors that Apple is finally going to attack the "golden memory". Eh, MacBook Pro fans, don't get excited, you often complain about the 8GB of gold memory, this time Apple chose to install it on the iPhone.
Jeff Pu, technical analyst at Haitong International, said that Apple's next-generation products, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus models, will come with 8GB of RAM, an increase from the 6GB of RAM of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus. Meanwhile, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus are also expected to support Wi-Fi 6E, a technology that is only supported by Pro models in the iPhone 15 series.
Jeff Pu also said that this year's iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will be equipped with an A18 processor, larger memory and stronger performance, which will help improve the iPhone's multitasking capabilities, and the 6 GHz band of Wi-Fi 6E will also bring faster wireless transmission speeds to the iPhone.
Xiao Lei also wrote an analysis of the iPhone 16 series about the screen size and appearance design before, so I won't repeat it here. Today, I mainly want to talk to you about Apple, the "golden memory" that people love and hate.
Why is Apple so stingy with memory?
Before we get into that, I think we should make it clear that the experience of skipping challenges is not in conflict with memory upgrades.
Last year, Bob Borchers, Apple's vice president of global product marketing, said in an interview that the 8GB memory in Apple's M3 MacBook Pro is close to the 16GB performance of other systems, and this matter has also been selected as Lei Technology's "Top Ten Famous Scenes in the Machine Circle in 2023", which can be found by poking "Graphic Hyperlink" or "Video Hyperlink". Although netizens directly turned on the group mocking mode to complain about Apple's golden memory, people really have something.
Source: Station B @ Lin Yi LYi
In a speed test in 2019, the iPhone 11 Pro Max with 4GB of RAM beat out the Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ with 12GB of RAM. With "4>12" in front of you, "8=16" doesn't seem completely unacceptable.
Of course, a test and a half times does not mean anything, at best, it shows that the iPhone can indeed maximize the role of memory in terms of software and hardware allocation, and can even achieve the record of leapfrogging to challenge Android phones with large memory.
With the confidence to leapfrog the challenge, Apple is naturally not in a hurry to add memory to the iPhone. From a more realistic point of view, not blindly increasing the memory capacity can save Apple costs, and can also help Apple better determine the amount of memory that the previous iPhones need to be equipped with according to the progress of competitors.
That's why, from the 128MB of the original iPhone, to the 4GB of the iPhone XS, and even the latest iPhone 15/15 Plus is only 6GB, these are all products of strict control.
Maybe it's the pressure brought by competitors' 16GB memory phones, or the surging emotions of users. Apple still made a concession on the iPhone 15 Pro/Max, politely increasing the RAM to 8GB.
A clearer distinction has been made between the basic and flagship models, which serves the same purpose as the other configuration divisions. Apple wants to stimulate consumers to choose models with better performance and higher prices. Just like the high-priced mineral water/purified water placed in Starbucks, its role is not to sell to make money, but to remind consumers that they can buy better products with just a little more money.
Seeing this, I believe everyone can also understand why Apple is so stingy with memory, especially the memory of the basic iPhone, all because of the word profit, and everything else has to give way.
iPhone 8GB,能 得 友 24GB吗?
Apple is still considering how much GB of memory is more appropriate, and friends over there have already hit the phone memory to 24GB. At the end of 2023, the Redmi K60 Ultra, OnePlus Ace2 Pro, and relame Realme GT5 will be released, officially announcing the advent of the 24GB era of smartphones.
Is it really necessary to have 24GB of RAM for mobile phones?
Memory is a configuration that many people often ignore when buying mobile phones, but in the most basic principle, the speed of mobile phone operation depends on the processor, and the CPU will pass the data obtained from the outside through the combinator internally, and finally output the result.
Source: 9to5Mac
The priority of the CPU to read the storage media is cache, memory, and hard disk/flash memory, and the read and write speed decreases step by step, and the cache cost in the processor is very high, so the most cost-effective thing is to increase the memory capacity. To put it simply, if you want to increase the running speed, you can expand the memory.
Returning to the point mentioned above, the experience of the iPhone's leapfrogging challenge is not only a stepping stone to its high sales, but also a stumbling block hindering the pace of upgrading the iPhone's memory.
It may be that according to the current system and APP, there is no need to use such a large memory capacity, but with the continuous iteration of the software system, the requirements for hardware are bound to become higher and higher, Windows has developed from a floppy disk to the size of tens of gigabytes, and the size of the software we use daily is also increasing. In the same way that old phones of yesteryear couldn't run the software on today's smartphones, it's only a matter of time before 24GB of RAM becomes standard.
At this stage, Apple's strict requirements and control over software developers make the iPhone not be opened up by its competitors' 24GB mobile phones in daily use, which can meet the requirements of most users, and smooth and pure has always been one of the main reasons why iPhone is loved by users.
However, there is always a limit to the leading technology, and there is a famous "Andy-Beale Law" in the tech circle in the 90s, Andy refers to the former Intel CEO Andy Grove, and Bill is the former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. This means that the hardware improvements brought by companies like Intel will always be consumed by software companies like Microsoft.
In today's smartphone industry, no matter how large the memory is, there will always be a day when it will be consumed, and Apple's golden memory may be able to slow down the consumption rate, but it must not be stopped.
So for a long time in the future, we may still see Apple squeeze toothpaste to upgrade the memory size, until one day the memory is really insufficient, and then Apple will also follow the old path of other competitors and pile up memory capacity.
How much toothpaste apples still have to squeeze
In business, the upgrade of apple toothpaste can indeed help it make a better profit, but at the same time, it will also sting the hearts of many fruit fans.
In the face of the longest 51-month global smartphone replacement cycle in history, other mobile phone manufacturers have chosen to roll up crazily, and the material, design, processor, image, and system have basically been rolled up. Apple seems to be calm, but judging from the successive price cuts, Apple is not so stable.
Source: X
In a short period of time, it will be difficult for the smartphone industry to emerge the next epoch-making innovation direction. But there is still a lot that can be done for Apple, such as signal, charging speed, battery capacity, overheating problems that occurred on the iPhone 15 Pro, and the iPhone 16 Ultra with under-display Face ID, etc., just a cursory thought can list so many optimization directions.
The direction of product iteration, which is almost not affected by the outside world, is certainly more in line with Apple's long-term development strategy, but I don't know if you have noticed that Apple's brand appeal is far less than before.
Even the Vision Pro, which Apple has high hopes for, seems to be struggling to take over the iPhone as the next epoch-making product. Well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts that Apple will produce 60,000 to 80,000 units of the Vision Pro when it goes on sale on February 2. Due to the relatively small number of shipments, he predicts that the product will sell out shortly after its release.
The high price of the Vision Pro is often over 10,000 yuan, which is destined to be a niche market, and ordinary consumers may find it difficult to experience this product before the subsequent iteration comes out. Whether it can become Apple's second growth curve, Xiaolei currently believes that I am not optimistic.
The iPhone business is the highest revenue share of all Apple's business lines, and is also regarded by the capital market as Apple's fundamental market.
If Apple still adheres to the current long-term development rhythm, I am afraid that other mobile phone manufacturers will not let it win comfortably. Squeezing toothpaste has a price, making money in the present, I am afraid that what is lost is the future.