We’ve known for a while that the new iPhone 3GS has double the amount of RAM memory as the iPhone 3G; 256MB instead of 128MB – but now we’re also seeing more and more evidence that the actual impact of this increase is greater than just double the performance.
An article at the tap tap tap blog shows some free memory testing results between a 3GS and a 3G, where the amount of available memory ranges from four times greater to nearly ten times greater on the 3GS. In their comparisons, after a fresh start, the free memory on the 3GS is at 156MB, as compared to only 40MB on the 3G.
After some usage – opening, using, closing several apps – the gap is even more enormous – with the 3GS showing around 122MB free, and the 3G just having around 13MB – so nearly 10 times less!
My own experience with the 3GS shows me very similar results to what the tap tap tap folks are talking about – though I’ve not been doing any comparisons with my old 3G. I do know though that memory management seems far superior on the 3GS – and I’ve still never seen even the slightest lag or freeze-up sort of behavior on the new phone, after nearly three weeks now.
The tap tap tap post points out that everything feels so much zippier on the 3GS partly because some of the built-in apps are able to happily stay ‘loaded’ in the background. And of course, despite feeling grateful and appreciative of the newfound speed and memory management excellence, that begs a big question:
We Can Haz Background Apps???
Sure it’s nice that Mail and Safari are able to stay running in the background and launch quickly and all that jazz, and I’m sure it’s true that they are two of the most commonly used apps for a huge chunk of iPhone users. But with memory performance that’s this good, what I really want is an ability to run at least some background apps – some 3rd party background apps that is.
I’d like to be able to really exploit copy and paste – for example by having Evernote open and easily jump to it straight from Safari to paste in a chunk of text. I’d also like to have some of my most frequently used apps – like Things, Evernote, Notes Pro, 1Password etc – be accessible without a detour to the home screen.
I wouldn’t mind if there were restrictions placed on background apps (only X number at once or whatever it takes) usage – as long as we get some move in this direction. I know that it’s always been said that Apple doesn’t want to allow background apps because it potentially does serious damage to the overall smooth user experience, particularly for novice users – but again, with performance as good as the 3GS is showing, it seems to me there’s got to be a way to allow at least some background apps and still strike a good balance and maintain stellar performance.
What do you all think? Is the 3GS solid enough to run background apps well, without wrecking the great performance we’re seeing now?
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
"I know that it’s always been said that Apple doesn’t want to allow background apps because it potentially does serious damage to the overall smooth user experience, particularly for novice users"
By that I take it you mean battery performance. The same hit on the battery would apply to both 3G and 3GS.
But yes this all makes sense. It's the same on the desktop. If you double the RAM, you get more than double the memory for apps. Because if for example the OS is using 50% of the memory before, then after the upgrade the apps get three times as much ram to play with rather than double.
I wasn't actually meaning battery performance there; was more thinking of how well / smoothly the OS runs – lack of lag, speed etc. – but the battery hit is a good point to mention. Again, I'm hoping the 3GS could still cope well, and I would certainly trade some shutting down of push notifications for some real background apps if it came down to it.
I suppose if you tried out this program I have heard of called "Backgrounder" you could do some testing and let us know!
I'm pretty certain that's a jailbreak app, as in it requires your iPhone to be jailbroken to run it and it is not an app that would be allowed in the App Store. I'm not currently running my phone jailbroken, so that one is not for me right now.
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