Xcode hack confirms 2GB RAM on iPhone 6s, 4GB on iPad Pro

Apple is traditionally mum on some details of its devices' hardware, preferring to talk about how "B is X times faster than A" than raw numbers. It's partly a smart marketing move, using more general but easily understood comparisons than cold, impersonal numbers. But it also relieves Apple from having to concede, much less reveal, how it has sometimes been skimping on some hardware, most notoriously the RAM in even the most recent iPhones. Fortunately, thanks to developer Hamza Sood, there is great news for fans.

To divine how much RAM the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, and iPad Pro really had, Sood hacked Xcode 7 GM version just a bit. The development environment's device simulator normally loads assets, like images, based on the device's screen. Sood changed that to load the assets based on how much RAM the emulated device has.

The iPad Pro was seen with 4 GB of RAM, which isn't really that surprising by now. Adobe "accidentally" revealed that detail in its press release for its new Photoshop Fix app. That is also not surprising given how the tablet is being positioned to be the workhorse version of Apple's mobile platform.

That the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus would have 2 GB of memory is more unusual but also even more welcome. The iPhone has been stuck with 1 GB of RAM for 3 three generations now starting with the iPhone 5. Meanwhile, rival smartphones in the Android world are already starting to sport 4 GB RAM.

Not that iPhone users probably have reason to be jealous other than size comparisons, which is probably why Apple never openly discloses numbers. You probably wouldn't have guessed that the iPhone 6, for example, only had 1 GB of RAM by how smoothly it ran, even with resource intensive games. Apple has been quite famous for squeezing out every last drop of performance from its hardware and this 2 GB of RAM only means that there'll be a lot more to squeeze out.

SOURCE: @Hamza Sood