Iphone 6 vs S5

[wonderfield]

When it comes to buying a high-end handset, I think it's more worthwhile to focus on software than it is on hardware at this point. Most high-end phones are within the same ballpark on the hardware internals front, but where they differ significantly is in software (and, to some extent, build quality). Rather than shopping on spec sheets, go to your local shop and play with different phones until they kick you out. Then put on a fake beard, go back in and play some more.

You can usually get away from Android skins and bloatware if you need to, but best not to bother and know what you're getting into before you take a leap.

 

[Trimlock]

Interesting, thank you. I was not aware Samsung devices were so difficult to root, nor that the interface was so lacking. When you compare hardware, they sound like dream devices against their competition. I'll need to go play with one...

I would go play with one first, it's honestly not that bad. If you are really curious just go read anands review on it.

 

[shansoft]

Pssst: Moving to 64bit, uses more memory (as the name implies 64bit addresses), utterly pointless on a 1gb device and is much less efficient.

The only reason for this is non-technical people (marketing) making technical decisions. The ONLY reason to go to 64bit is to access more than 4gb of memory.

64bit on iOS works a lot different than most people think. Don't use those PC/64bit analogy here, because it doesn't work the same way.

It double the register and now the reference count is also part of it, which speed up way more than you think. This is not just for memory extension or w/e memory crap people are thinking.

 

[CHANG3D]

It's also the new instruction set that makes these 64 bit chips more powerful and efficient.

 

[munkle]

Interesting, thank you. I was not aware Samsung devices were so difficult to root, nor that the interface was so lacking. When you compare hardware, they sound like dream devices against their competition. I'll need to go play with one...

Touchwiz isn't as bad as he makes it seem, I was just fine on my note 2, not saying it can't be better but its not as bad as people say. Also pretty much all phones are difficult to root now days so that's not just a samsung thing. My droid maxx can't be rooted or unlocked on the current 4.4.4

 

[QwertyJuan]

Touchwiz isn't as bad as he makes it seem, I was just fine on my note 2, not saying it can't be better but its not as bad as people say. Also pretty much all phones are difficult to root now days so that's not just a samsung thing. My droid maxx can't be rooted or unlocked on the current 4.4.4

It's not THAT bad no.... but honestly, can you think of something that's worse?

I bet a 2013 Moto G is 80% as fast day-to-day(not in benchmarks... day-to-day) than an S5 is. Why? Stock(almost) Android.

Matter of fact... I have a friend that owns the 2013 Moto G and another that has an S5, and I don't know if I can tell even a 20% difference.... playing with them opening Twitter, Gmail, Chrome and virtually no difference. I DO realize once the ram is full the S5 will pull ahead significantly... but your normal user? I doubt would notice hardly any difference in performance.

 

[CHANG3D]

A major reason why android users are switching back to iPhones is because TouchWiz is SO bad. TouchWiz is just as bad as the Michael Bay Transformers franchise, Incredible Spiderman 2, or the Star wars prequels... I just refuse to have to install a custom rom and deal with rom updates anymore.

 

[SRTie4k]

The one thing no one can deny about iPhones is their incredible resale value, from private party or official buyback from carriers etc.

You really can sell an iPhone for the price you paid for it 2 years later, which is simply incredible.

No you can't.

You can pay $250-300 subsidized, meaning you're paying that extra $300-350 in the price of your contract, and sell it for $150-200 after 2 years (I would know, just sold my wife's iPhone 4S after 2 years of ownership for $100 less than the subsidized price).

Or you can buy it outright for $650, save on a month to month but lose $400-450 after 2 years on resale.

 

[QwertyJuan]

No you can't.

You can pay $250-300 subsidized, meaning you're paying that extra $300-350 in the price of your contract, and sell it for $150-200 after 2 years (I would know, just sold my wife's iPhone 4S after 2 years of ownership for $100 less than the subsidized price).

Or you can buy it outright for $650, save on a month to month but lose $400-450 after 2 years on resale.

Thank you for clearing up the lies that people swallow hook, line and sinker!

 

[SirMaster]

No you can't.

You can pay $250-300 subsidized, meaning you're paying that extra $300-350 in the price of your contract, and sell it for $150-200 after 2 years (I would know, just sold my wife's iPhone 4S after 2 years of ownership for $100 less than the subsidized price).

Or you can buy it outright for $650, save on a month to month but lose $400-450 after 2 years on resale.

That's not how it works for everyone though.

I get my iPhone on the subsidized contract pricing of $199 and my monthly plan rate is $50/mo.

So over 2 years this total cost is $1400

So according to your logic I should pay $650 to get the phone off contract. This leaves $750 left for the 2 years of off-contract service plan.

So the off-contract service plan would have to be $31.25/mo in order for the total cost over 2 years to be the same $1400 as I can pay with a contract.

I do not know of a non-contract plan that gets me the same quality service as I get right now for $50/mo on contract.

 

[QwertyJuan]

That's not how it works for everyone though.

I get my iPhone on the subsidized contract pricing of $199 and my monthly plan rate is $50/mo.

So over 2 years this total cost is $1400

So according to your logic I should pay $650 to get the phone off contract. This leaves $750 left for the 2 years of off-contract service plan.

So the off-contract service plan would have to be $31.25/mo in order for the total cost over 2 years to be the same $1400 as I can pay with a contract.

I do not know of a non-contract plan that gets me the same quality service as I get right now for $50/mo on contract.

ALL phones get subsidized... explain how your magical iPhone is better than the HTC sitting in the display case beside it.

 

[Disposed]

ALL phones get subsidized... explain how your magical iPhone is better than the HTC sitting in the display case beside it.

Hey let's take shit out of context to start a stupid fanboy war.

 

[SRTie4k]

That's not how it works for everyone though.

I get my iPhone on the subsidized contract pricing of $199 and my monthly plan rate is $50/mo.

So over 2 years this total cost is $1400

So according to your logic I should pay $650 to get the phone off contract. This leaves $750 left for the 2 years of off-contract service plan.

So the off-contract service plan would have to be $31.25/mo in order for the total cost over 2 years to be the same $1400 as I can pay with a contract.

I do not know of a non-contract plan that gets me the same quality service as I get right now for $50/mo on contract.

Count yourself lucky then, because you are definitely in a very small minority.

Mind if I ask who you have service through that gives you a brand new subsidized phone with only a $50/mo 2 year contract?

 

[SirMaster]

ALL phones get subsidized... explain how your magical iPhone is better than the HTC sitting in the display case beside it.

I thought the argument was about subsidy vs paying full price?

There is nothing universally better about the iPhone compared to the HTC.

I just like iOS and the App Store app selection/quality more as well as the hardware of the iPhone more.

 

[munkle]

It's not THAT bad no.... but honestly, can you think of something that's worse?

Yes, lg's crap, while it looks fine it was terribly buggy. The best $30 I ever spent was the restocking fee returning the pos LG G2 and getting a droid maxx instead.

The knock on while a good idea only worked 50% of the time, so I ended up tapping it a bunch. The battery life was all over the place. 3 days on charge one time, 5 hours another with random LG bloat draining it.

 

[cyclone3d]

Pssst: Moving to 64bit, uses more memory (as the name implies 64bit addresses), utterly pointless on a 1gb device and is much less efficient.

The only reason for this is non-technical people (marketing) making technical decisions. The ONLY reason to go to 64bit is to access more than 4gb of memory.

Actually, no.. it isn't the only reason.

If you are doing math with numbers higher than 2^32-1, then it is a lot more efficient to use 64-bit than it is to hobble together 2x 2^32-1 values.

There is really no point in staying at 32-bit.

 

[SirMaster]

Count yourself lucky then, because you are definitely in a very small minority.

Mind if I ask who you have service through that gives you a brand new subsidized phone with only a $50/mo 2 year contract?

AT&T FamilyTalk 700 plan.

It's $60/mo for the plan which includes the first line and then $10 more per line. We have 5 lines on it which makes it $100/mo or $20/mo per person. Then each person gets to pick their own data plan if they want one. I have the old unlimited data plan for $30/mo so that makes the total $50/mo for me. My mom on the other hand sticks with a non-smartphone and has no data plan so she only pays the $20/mo and that's it.

Now what I actually do is something a little different since my mom does not have any reason to use her upgrades every 2 years.

What I do is for example buy the iPhone 4s for $199 using my upgrade and then use it for a year. After 1 year I can pretty easily sell it for $400 still bringing my total year cost to only $400.

$200(phone) + $600(50/mo*12) - $400(sell phone).

Then I use her line's upgrade to get the iPhone 5 for $199 again and repeat. I sell it after 1 year for $400 and the total yearly cost is $400. Then it's back to my upgrade and I get the iPhone 5s for $199 with my upgrade and on and on.

I have done this since the original iPhone and thus have only spent a total of $400/yr times 7 years that I have been doing it. So $2800 has allowed me to have 7 years of service with unlimited data and 7 latest smartphones with a new one every year. Pretty incredible value IMO.

Since I use my mom's upgrades I bought her the non-smart phones for her outright to save the upgrades which are worth more than that and that was about $100 each time so I've spent $3000 when you look at it that way. And she has been able to have a phone with ATT quality coverage for calling for $20/mo all this time which isn't bad IMO. She uses most the family plan minutes anyways heh but it does include rollover.

 

[munkle]

I'm pretty much in the same situation except as of this august verizon doesn't allow you to drop the data plan on basic phone line that you used for an upgrade. So I can no longer use my families upgrades. Though our plan is still cheaper than any other plan out there when you factor in phones. We all get subsidized phones. When you put the cost of the phone on any current plan any carrier offers they come out way more expensive.

 

[SRTie4k]

AT&T FamilyTalk 700 plan.

It's $60/mo for the plan which includes the first line and then $10 more per line. We have 5 lines on it which makes it $100/mo or $20/mo per person. Then each person gets to pick their own data plan if they want one. I have the old unlimited data plan for $30/mo so that makes the total $50/mo for me. My mom on the other hand sticks with a non-smartphone and has no data plan so she only pays the $20/mo and that's it.

Now what I actually do is something a little different since my mom does not have any reason to use her upgrades every 2 years.

What I do is for example buy the iPhone 4s for $199 using my upgrade and then use it for a year. After 1 year I can pretty easily sell it for $400 still bringing my total year cost to only $400.

$200(phone) + $600(50/mo*12) - $400(sell phone).

Then I use her line's upgrade to get the iPhone 5 for $199 again and repeat. I sell it after 1 year for $400 and the total yearly cost is $400. Then it's back to my upgrade and I get the iPhone 5s for $199 with my upgrade and on and on.

I have done this since the original iPhone and thus have only spent a total of $400/yr times 7 years that I have been doing it. So $2800 has allowed me to have 7 years of service with unlimited data and 7 latest smartphones with a new one every year. Pretty incredible value IMO.

Since I use my mom's upgrades I bought her the non-smart phones for her outright to save the upgrades which are worth more than that and that was about $100 each time so I've spent $3000 when you look at it that way. And she has been able to have a phone with ATT quality coverage for calling for $20/mo all this time which isn't bad IMO. She uses most the family plan minutes anyways heh but it does include rollover.

Not a bad scheme really, nice that you can work it the way you do. You have to realize, however, that your phone is being subsidized by everyone else (which, if they don't care, works out for you).

No offense, but I have a tough time believing your telling the whole truth here. As far as I'm aware, AT&T doesn't allow upgrading lines without data plans, which means you using your mother's upgrade to get a new phone would necessitate her having a data plan as well (regardless of whether she uses a dumb phone or not). If that is the case, it would bump your 5 line cost from $100 to $130, which makes up the difference of the subsidized pricing.

Of course I could be wrong, but what you're stating seems too good to be true based on the information you've given.

 

[QwertyJuan]

I thought the argument was about subsidy vs paying full price?

There is nothing universally better about the iPhone compared to the HTC.

I just like iOS and the App Store app selection/quality more as well as the hardware of the iPhone more.

I actually thought the argument was that you can buy an iPhone and run it for two years and sell it for what you paid for it? New iPhone is $199 subsidized. You sell it in two years for $200.... I'm following you there.

Where I lose you is when I purchase an HTC One for instance for $199 subsidized and run it for two years. What are THEY worth two years old? I'm inclined to bet VERY close to $200.

 

[SRTie4k]

We bought my wife's iPhone 4S 32GB on Verizon when it first came out for a subsidized price of $250. We sold it exactly 2 years later for $185 in good condition, and that was on the high end of Swappa's offerings.

My Galaxy S3 16GB was purchased subsidized at $200 just prior to her buying the iPhone, and I sold it on Swappa for $135 at the same time in good condition, which was the lower end of the spectrum.

I'll estimate I had my Galaxy S3 for 30 months while my wife had her iPhone 4S for 24 months (we sold both phones the day her contract ended, 6 months after mine).

So, depreciation was:
Subsidized Galaxy S3 16GB - $65 over 30 months
Subsidized iPhone 4S 32GB - $65 over 24 months

FWIW, I'm not an Apple fan. In fact, I despise Apple devices simply because of the stupid limitations (i.e. iTunes primarily). These are just the facts of the matter.

 

[CHANG3D]

Where I lose you is when I purchase an HTC One for instance for $199 subsidized and run it for two years. What are THEY worth two years old? I'm inclined to bet VERY close to $200.

Let's look at the facts. What are the prices for an used HTC One (M7) vs an iPhone 5S. (new phones filtered out)

A HTC One is between $170 to $400, with the $400 being the 64GB version on AT&T.

An iPhone 5S is between $289 to $650, with the $650 being the 64GB version on Verizon.

I hope the bullshit has been cleared... Whether the iPhone 5S is truly worth more than the One is for another debate. Based on resale value, iPhone's clearly resale better.

 

[munkle]

Not a bad scheme really, nice that you can work it the way you do. You have to realize, however, that your phone is being subsidized by everyone else (which, if they don't care, works out for you).

No offense, but I have a tough time believing your telling the whole truth here. As far as I'm aware, AT&T doesn't allow upgrading lines without data plans, which means you using your mother's upgrade to get a new phone would necessitate her having a data plan as well (regardless of whether she uses a dumb phone or not). If that is the case, it would bump your 5 line cost from $100 to $130, which makes up the difference of the subsidized pricing.

Of course I could be wrong, but what you're stating seems too good to be true based on the information you've given.

I don't know about att but verizon you could do this until last month. I got a few years of upgrading every year by using other peoples upgrades. Now verizon makes you keep the data plan on the line you used the upgrade. So it isn't too far fetched att lets you do it.

 

[SRTie4k]

Let's look at the facts. What are the prices for an used HTC One (M7) vs an iPhone 5S. (new phones filtered out)

A HTC One is between $170 to $400, with the $400 being the 64GB version on AT&T.

An iPhone 5S is between $289 to $650, with the $650 being the 64GB version on Verizon.

I hope the bullshit has been cleared... Whether the iPhone 5S is truly worth more than the One is for another debate. Based on resale value, iPhone's clearly resale better.

The HTC One M7 was released in March 2013 with 2012 gen spec hardware. The iPhone 5S was released late September 2013 with 2013 gen spec hardware.

That's not even remotely a valid comparison. If you want to make a valid comparison, you need to use two top tier phones with relatively the same release date, with the same specs (i.e. 32GB of storage) on the same provider.

 

[SirMaster]

Not a bad scheme really, nice that you can work it the way you do. You have to realize, however, that your phone is being subsidized by everyone else (which, if they don't care, works out for you).

No offense, but I have a tough time believing your telling the whole truth here. As far as I'm aware, AT&T doesn't allow upgrading lines without data plans, which means you using your mother's upgrade to get a new phone would necessitate her having a data plan as well (regardless of whether she uses a dumb phone or not). If that is the case, it would bump your 5 line cost from $100 to $130, which makes up the difference of the subsidized pricing.

Of course I could be wrong, but what you're stating seems too good to be true based on the information you've given.

I mean technically they are subsidizing it I guess? But it's really just us all working together to get the best deal collectively.

My mom could use her upgrade every 2 years to get a new non-smart phone, but that phone is so cheap anyways for example that it's better off that I buy her phone for her outright and then she lets me use the upgrade for my iPhone every other year.

I mean the upgrades are essentially a $450 value and we get 5 of them every 2 years. So that's $2,250 every 2 years.

Though is my mom really subsidizing it? If that were true then it means the $450 value from the upgrade would have to be subsidized by what she pays monthly over 2 years. She only pays $20/mo right now (her 1/5th share of the minutes) and she has never bought a phone since I buy them for her outright. $450 divided by 24 months works out to $18.75/mo. So if she is really subsidizing the upgrade then wouldn't there have to be an option where she isn't subsidizing it and only paying $1.25/mo instead? (20 - 18.75).

As far as the other part. ATT has always allowed me to use another line to receive upgrade discount pricing. Ithas never mattered whether or not the line being used has data or not.

I get my iPhones at the mall which also has an ATT store so it's very convenient. What I do is go to the Apple store and give them my mom's number to initiate the new phone sale. It does have you pick a data plan when you go through the sale process. Then as soon as the sale is done I do not turn on or activate the phone.

I head straight over to the ATT store and then talk to the reps there. I tell them what I just did, that I am upgrading my phone by using the upgrade that's available on another line (they call this cross-upgrading). Then they make me a new SIM card for my new iPhone and my mom's old phone which restores the numbers back to the correct phones and they reset the service plans for the lines back to how they were.

See, you are allowed to change service at any time. You can add and drop data plans all you like. All that matters at the end of the day is that if you have a smartphone, you cannot drop the data plan, its mandatory. But if you upgrade a line and add a data plan to it and then move that line into a non-smart phone you can drop the data plan at any time, even if you used the discounted upgrade on that line. And if you drop the data plan the same day you added it it never incurs any charge.

Finally a few days later I call up ATT from home and talk to them about that "line upgrade fee" (currently $40 this year) and get them to waive that. It's something the standard CS reps are allowed to do to make the customer happy if you ask about it and "complain" enough lol.

 

[SRTie4k]

I'm very surprised that works. Hey, more power to you being able to work it that way.

What I'm essentially getting at with the "subsidized" part is the fact that a company is not going to sell you a $650 retail phone for $200 if they don't think they can get their money back through the plan somehow. In your case, they're making their money back through limiting nearly everyone on your plan to talk only, no data, and a cap of 700 minutes. That's where they get their value back. It might not equal the difference in the phone from how you calculate it, but it does from their end.

It's all part of finance and marketing, moving "value" around to make it seem like you're getting a deal.

 

[Optik]

Personally, I think I am getting closer to owning another apple product, and here's why:

I own a s4, but I also have a galaxy tab s. Which is so awesome, that I am going to sell my retina macbook pro. It's perfect, the super AMOLED screen on my tab s is just nuts. I can watch all the media content I want. Its best feature is the split screen, which is the most functional and efficient feature in android by miles.

I can split screen youtube and web browsing. Office and email. youtube and office, messaging and contacts. It's just awesome as a small tablet, it has some kinks in terms of lag, but overall it is the best android hardware on the market imo. Best screen, 8 hours of screen on time, configurable connectivity, expandable storage, etc.

So the lionshare of all the extra function that I would ever need would go straight to my tab s, especially with it's removable micro SD card that I can plug into my PC.

The reason why I'd get an iphone6 is for the exact same functional reasons. My battery life would be top notch. Itunes, for all intents and purposes, is the best- bar none- phone backup tool out there. And if there is a day where I need google maps to work for 6 hours, it will do that. That's something I can't depend on my s4 or any other android on.

But I think I can hold off until I see what changes will be made for the s6 and g4.


plus i'd also like to say that I kind of dislike the ip6 design. I think LG has it right, the curved back is everythign when it comes to ergonomics. A boxy phone with straight lines like the s5 (as opposed to the s4) at that size is just too big for me, whereas the LG g3 felt much mroe comfortable and natural in my hand. I think the Iphone is too thin at its size and isnt nearly as comfortable to hold as the 5s or g3.

 

[Optik]

real multitasking is something that apple is going to have to confront soon.

Before you know it, split screen will be functionally baked into android for every single app. Imagine being able to split screen dialer & a game. Or any other app combination.

With just 1gb of ram, there is zero chance that if split screen ever becomes a feature in iphone that the ip6 will be able to handle it. zero chance that it is future proof in that regard, and i think only giving the ip6 1gb of ram is a huge tell for apple and iOS. They've lost their vision imo.

 

[Deleted member 108676]

Everyone knows I love my iphone, but I wonder why they're so insistent on sticking with 1gig? It can't be that much cheaper, and as the post above said, it truly is limiting for future proofing. I don't think its a big deal now, but for the future it is.

 

[SirMaster]

Did anyone else but me ever consider maybe they stuck with 1GB to make the older phones more viable still?

Like if they upped it to 2GB you would see developers writing new apps that use more than 1GB and then all hell would break loose on the older 512MB devices that Apple and iOS 8 still support.

Maybe next year it makes more sense to move to 2GB for iOS 9 and the iPhone 6s because they will end support for the 512MB devices at the same time too.

So IMO they are just trying to line up ending support for 1 memory size at the same time that they introduce the next one.

Maybe this is a dumb thought on my part though.

 

[Erasmus354]

Actually, no.. it isn't the only reason.

If you are doing math with numbers higher than 2^32-1, then it is a lot more efficient to use 64-bit than it is to hobble together 2x 2^32-1 values.

There is really no point in staying at 32-bit.

True, however 64-bit math is not really a typical mobile workload. Hell it isn't even a sometime mobile workload, it is an extremely seldom not seen by 99% of the user base workload.

Ultimately at this point in time there is pretty much zero technical reasons why an iPhone needs a 64-bit processor. It simply isn't gaining meaningful advantages from it.

The main reasons for a 64-bit processor are right now:

1) Future Proofing, potential to use A# chips in MacBook Airs
2) Marketing
3) iPads that might get more than 4Gb of memory soon
...
4) iPhone12 that might get more than 4Gb of memory in 2020.

 

[SirMaster]

With just 1gb of ram, there is zero chance that if split screen ever becomes a feature in iphone that the ip6 will be able to handle it.

Zero chance? To me that just screams of inefficient code then.

It wasn't *THAT* long ago that we were all running Windows XP on 1GB or heck even 512MB of memory and we were certainly multi-tasking with more than 2 desktop-class apps and games at once.

 

[CHANG3D]

The HTC One M7 was released in March 2013 with 2012 gen spec hardware. The iPhone 5S was released late September 2013 with 2013 gen spec hardware.

That's not even remotely a valid comparison. If you want to make a valid comparison, you need to use two top tier phones with relatively the same release date, with the same specs (i.e. 32GB of storage) on the same provider.

Sorry, but you're wrong. They are both 1 generation away from current gen.

 

[wonderfield]

Zero chance? To me that just screams of inefficient code then.

iOS is quite efficient, but there are levels of inefficiencies that app developers accept to enhance productivity. Apple was once fairly restrictive about that, but is now much more lax, which makes the possibility of getting true split-screen multitasking within 1GB somewhat less feasible.

A good way to say it is that the hardware is willing, but the drive for efficiency is weak.

 

[cyclone3d]

I'm pretty much in the same situation except as of this august verizon doesn't allow you to drop the data plan on basic phone line that you used for an upgrade. So I can no longer use my families upgrades. Though our plan is still cheaper than any other plan out there when you factor in phones. We all get subsidized phones. When you put the cost of the phone on any current plan any carrier offers they come out way more expensive.

The current offer that Verizon has with their Edge plan makes it cheaper than using their subsidized family plan.

As long as you get the 10GB or higher shared data, you get $25 off each line on the Edge plan. Most of the new high end phones are around $30 a month for 20 months in order to pay them off.

So you are basically paying $5 a month for 20 months which is $100 instead of the 199.99 subsidized price on a 2 year contract.

We were on the 6GB plan before, so it is costing an extra $20 per month.. but we are paying $125 less per month for the line access part of the plan.

And to top it off, each line gets an extra 1GB of data.. so we have 15GB total now for only slightly more per month than we were paying for 6GB.

 

[T4rd]

The HTC One M7 was released in March 2013 with 2012 gen spec hardware. The iPhone 5S was released late September 2013 with 2013 gen spec hardware.

That's not even remotely a valid comparison. If you want to make a valid comparison, you need to use two top tier phones with relatively the same release date, with the same specs (i.e. 32GB of storage) on the same provider.

Sorry, but you're wrong. They are both 1 generation away from current gen.

Indeed. One M7 had the Snapdragon 600, which was the fastest SoC Qualcomm had available at that time and the same chip that the GS4 and other flagships had at that time. I'm guessing he meant the 2013 Moto X, which used a custom S4 Pro SoC from 2012, but it still had the same Adreno 320 GPU that the S600 had.

 

[Erasmus354]

Indeed. One M7 had the Snapdragon 600, which was the fastest SoC Qualcomm had available at that time and the same chip that the GS4 and other flagships had at that time. I'm guessing he meant the 2013 Moto X, which used a custom S4 Pro SoC from 2012, but it still had the same Adreno 320 GPU that the S600 had.

To be fair the Snapdragon 600 is a chip from Q1 2013, the better comparison to the 5S *is* phones with the Snapdragon 800 like the LG G2 or Nexus 5 which were released in September/October, on par with the 5S release in September.

 

[dr.stevil]

Did anyone else but me ever consider maybe they stuck with 1GB to make the older phones more viable still?

Like if they upped it to 2GB you would see developers writing new apps that use more than 1GB and then all hell would break loose on the older 512MB devices that Apple and iOS 8 still support.

Maybe next year it makes more sense to move to 2GB for iOS 9 and the iPhone 6s because they will end support for the 512MB devices at the same time too.

So IMO they are just trying to line up ending support for 1 memory size at the same time that they introduce the next one.

Maybe this is a dumb thought on my part though.

That makes complete logical sense to me... although, there are several Apps that will only run on "x" device and newer. So honestly devs could just ignore older devices if they really wanted to.

I do agree though, regardless, that we'll likely see more ram in the next iteration

 

[cyclone3d]

True, however 64-bit math is not really a typical mobile workload. Hell it isn't even a sometime mobile workload, it is an extremely seldom not seen by 99% of the user base workload.

Ultimately at this point in time there is pretty much zero technical reasons why an iPhone needs a 64-bit processor. It simply isn't gaining meaningful advantages from it.

The main reasons for a 64-bit processor are right now:

1) Future Proofing, potential to use A# chips in MacBook Airs
2) Marketing
3) iPads that might get more than 4Gb of memory soon
...
4) iPhone12 that might get more than 4Gb of memory in 2020.

Having to not develop for both 32-bit and 64-bit at the same time is also a reason why it is 64-bit now.

Justifying staying 32-bit just to save a few KB of RAM is absurd.

 

[CHANG3D]

To be fair the Snapdragon 600 is a chip from Q1 2013, the better comparison to the 5S *is* phones with the Snapdragon 800 like the LG G2 or Nexus 5 which were released in September/October, on par with the 5S release in September.

Then let's compare the price of an used LG G2 on Swappa.

From the last post:

A HTC One is between $170 to $400, with the $400 being the 64GB version on AT&T.

An iPhone 5S is between $289 to $650, with the $650 being the 64GB version on Verizon.

And now...

A LG G2 is between $165 to $360, with the $360 being sold by an unknown seller on TMo listing as "Fair" conditioned but also "brand new" in description.

If you want a worse comparison, sure, we'll play.