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Apple iPhone 7 Plus Packs 3GB RAM, Early A10 Fusion Benchmarks Look Very Strong (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes from a report via HotHardware: Apple's A10 Fusion processor, paired with the iPhone 7, is already making its mark on benchmark circuit. Although you may or may not be impressed with Apple's new handset, as usual, Cupertino's latest smartphone is looking very strong performance-wise. According to Geekbench numbers, which showcase the iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 10.0.1 (Golden Master), the 5.5-inch smartphone has 3GB of RAM onboard (the iPhone 7 reportedly contains 2GB RAM). Compared to the previous generation iPhone 6s Plus, this is an increase of 1GB. Compared to Android flagships, which come with 4GB or even 6GB of RAM, 3GB might seem paltry. However, benchmarks show time and time again that Apple's SoCs are among the fastest in the industry and simply do more with less resources. Apple says that the advances it has made with the A10 allow the processor to be twice as fast as the A8 in the iPhone 6 Plus and 40 percent faster than the A9 in the iPhone 6s Plus. The iPhone 7 Plus received a Geekbench single-core score of 3233, while its multi-core score comes in at 5363. For comparison, the beefy A9X processor in the iPad Pro -- also paired with 3GB of RAM -- puts up scores of 3009 and 4881 respectively. Likewise, these numbers far outpace those of the iPhone 6s Plus, which delivers 2407 and 4046 respectively.
They need to improve the software, not the hardware. Pushing the hardware for profit is going to undermine the brand. The existing hardware is powerful enough to run a well written mobile OS. The only half way good mobile OS appears to be Windows 10 or perhaps some version of Linux. Android and iOS are horrible. They are operating systems made to sell apps and mine people's data. On top of all that the mobile platforms are too immature to trust with personal data and they are being stuffed with personal data. You have an entertainment toy/phone being sold as a personal computer and the software is not robust enough to offer either the value or the security. If you weigh the costs and benefits, smartphones are a net loss other than to the companies who got rich selling them.For users, they really don't offer much more than a flip phone and are way easier to break and half like 1/3 the battery life. Flip phones also did not mine your personal data nearly as much. Studies show smartphones lowers productivity and with the huge costs and the horrible, malware filled app stores. I see a trend, not a solid industry with any real vision or direction. They are just scrambling to make the fast money while they can and offering very little value for our dollar. The cheap 100-200 dollar smartphones can offer decent value, but for the key uses of being a phone and texting they are probably a net loss due to the unreliable battery levels. (texting may be faster, but the phone being off for periods fo time offsets most benefits), but there is nothing a 600 dollar smartphone can do that warrants 3 times the cost of the 200 dollar one. The premium phones offer almost nothing for the money other than silly features that come and go. What they really need is better software across the board. Android and iOS could go back to the drawling board and reinvent the UI and really no be doing any worse then ever.. that's how generally undeveloped their UIs really are.. they may as well all be viewed as beta operating systems at this point. A good phone MUST be able to be controlled by one hand. That's how we've used phones for a long time. Large phones you can't hold right or interfaces that don;t adjust automatically are just not acceptable or well thought out. These companies are experimenting with customers necessary infrastructure and they are not being careful at all. They don't care about our personal data. They pile it up and sell it, that's how little they care about your security. If they cared they would not be mining your data because they would realize the liability is not worth the risk when you are still building and secure the basic mobile platform. So.. who cares how fast yet another overpriced and under conceived smartphone happens to be. What is it that we are really supposed to do with these things? They aren't better phones, they basically refuse to finish voice commands, the music apps are all horrible scams designed to sign you up for their services now. The best parts of the platforms are being all tied directly in profit motives. The three major features of a smartphone beside being a phone are supposed to be to get email, to take pictures and to play music. The scan ALL out email to sell us adds, they broke all the music apps unless you pay 10+ a month to get all the features. Whats next? Are they going to make us pay 10 bucks a month to use the camera too?