Here’s Why iOS Devices Run Faster than Android Devices with 2x the RAM

According to Glyn Williams over on Quora, iOS devices with 1 GB RAM are able to compete with more than 2 GB RAM of Android devices because Android apps use Java and need all the extra RAM to do “garbage collection”. As detailed by CultofMac, garbage collection is basically a process that triggers the recycling of memory once an Android app is done using it.

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An iPhone 6 with 1GB of RAM runs much faster than a similarly specced Android smartphone with 2GB of RAM, all because of the fundamental difference in the way iOS and Android handle apps. Williams notes that Android’s garbage collectors work best when Android apps have at least 4 to 8 times as much memory as is actually needed in order to perform the garbage collection process.

“You need four or eight times more memory, than you are actually using to be super efficient. But when the memory becomes constrained, that performance goes way down. This is why Android devices have all that RAM. iOS does not use this style of garbage collection and does not slow down in constrained memory environments. So 1GB for iOS results in more performance than 3GB for Android.”

Well, now you know that specs don’t always tell the whole story, especially when it comes to Android devices.

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Chrome262
Chrome262
11 years ago

Java in general, can be clunky like that.

K3
K3
11 years ago

Cant remember if this is correct but Wacom put out both a Windows and Android portable tablet year before last, this gives a little more insight as to why there hadn’t been an OSX collaboration.

Hopefully that iPad 12″ might be that “one more thing” for the art community.

Crosseyedmofo
Crosseyedmofo
11 years ago

but what about the bottlenecking and system crashes /s

alphs22
alphs22
11 years ago

Can I have “Things Fandroids will never understand” for $200, Alex.

Gary
Reply to  alphs22
11 years ago

Haha

Sarge
Sarge
11 years ago

!GB is “enough” because that’s what Apple used. But you’d all be praising it if it had 2-3GB. I’m holding off another year, it’s sad that a flahship iPhone has the same RAM as the 2011 model

FragilityG4
FragilityG4
Reply to  Sarge
11 years ago

It currently is not fast enough for you?And I’m not asking about on paper, I’m asking about use.

ShaBi
ShaBi
Reply to  FragilityG4
11 years ago

He wouldn’t know. He didn’t get one because he thought it was sad.

FragilityG4
FragilityG4
Reply to  ShaBi
11 years ago

Or try one … Trolling fAndroids.

Sarge
Sarge
Reply to  FragilityG4
11 years ago

Heh, never had an Android Phone. Just an iPhone 3GS/4/5

K3
K3
Reply to  Sarge
11 years ago

How about that Mac Mini this year? ???? Check out refurbs, you too can have a 2010 Mac display for the low low price of $800.

TechGuy
TechGuy
11 years ago

Not even remotely true… Java’s garbage collection may have been that bad 15 years ago and Android may have been sluggish when it first came out, but this is certainly not true anymore.

victor321
victor321
10 years ago

Let’s hope Oracle start suing or charging people for using Java. Seriously, Java is always going to be slow because it’s a half interpreting language whereas Objective C in iOS is a compiled language. Java sucks.

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