I. Introduction
In recent years, the development of domestic smartphones has been rapid, with comprehensive improvements in performance, photography, build quality, and aesthetics. These devices have gradually made their mark in the high-end market, putting pressure on Apple.
Despite this, Apple still has some core and unique advantages. The smoothness of Android smartphones mainly relies on hardware enhancements, such as improving processor performance and RAM. In contrast, the smoothness of Apple’s iOS system is not primarily achieved by stacking hardware; it is much more efficient in memory usage, and the smoothness is still slightly better overall.
— So, why does Apple’s iOS system use less memory? This is the topic of this article.
II. Advantages of a Closed Ecosystem
Unlike the “open-source” Android system, iOS is a closed ecosystem, exclusively tailored and controlled by Apple for its hardware and software products. This allows Apple to deeply integrate and optimize both hardware and software without worrying about compatibility issues, enabling more efficient use of hardware resources, including RAM.
For example, in the iPhone 15, the iOS system can, during the startup phase, allocate memory space for core system processes based on hardware features such as processor performance and storage speed, leaving just the right amount of memory for subsequent app launches.
III. Unique Background Memory Management Mechanism
For the Android system, when an app is switched from the foreground to the background, it continues to run in the background and occupy memory. However, the approach of iOS is different. It uses a “pseudo-background” or “tombstone state” mechanism to handle apps, which is one of the most important advantages and principles behind iOS’s efficient memory usage.
In iOS, when an app is switched to the background, it is not fully retained in the RAM. iOS quickly pauses and freezes most of the app’s processes, keeping only essential state information. If more memory is needed, the app may be removed from memory. When the user reopens the app, it is quickly restored to its previous state.
If the user is running multiple apps, most of them stay in a “quiet standby” mode in the background. As a result, the overall memory usage of the system remains within a controllable range, ensuring fast response times without lag, even if the device has low RAM.
For example, when a user switches away from WeChat, the iOS system immediately locks the interface display state and the current text input position of the chat window, while pausing memory-intensive tasks like automatic image downloads and continuous refreshing of Moments. At this point, the memory occupied by WeChat is minimized. When the user switches back or wakes up WeChat, the system quickly “unfreezes” and restores it to normal operation.
IV. Message Push with Server Collaboration
iOS devices use Apple’s servers for message push notifications, which is another key advantage.
In the iOS system, most apps do not need to maintain active background processes to listen for new messages. Instead, messages are first sent to Apple’s servers and then pushed to the respective iOS devices. This method reduces local resource consumption, including memory usage.
V. Intelligent Garbage Collection and Resource Allocation
iOS utilizes ARC (Automatic Reference Counting) to manage object lifecycles, effectively preventing memory leaks caused by circular references. Additionally, iOS dynamically adjusts the resource allocation based on the actual usage of the app, prioritizing foreground apps and important background tasks (such as navigation or music playback) for resource access.
VI. Strict Permission Management and Optimized App Ecosystem
Apple enforces strict quality control and review measures for apps in its App Store to ensure that each app adheres to best development practices and avoids excessive resource consumption. Developers are required to follow these standards.
iOS also limits the behavior of apps, such as prohibiting access to sensitive hardware interfaces like the camera and microphone without user authorization. This helps prevent memory leaks and other issues caused by malicious or inefficient apps—an area where the Android ecosystem is much worse.
VII. Conclusion
In conclusion, the superior memory management of Apple’s iOS system is mainly due to the deep integration of hardware and software, its refined and elegant memory management strategy, memory sharing and data management optimizations, and app lifecycle management, among other factors.
By leveraging these measures, iOS effectively avoids memory waste, reduces memory usage, and improves system smoothness and stability. This efficient memory usage ensures that iOS devices can maintain excellent performance even when handling complex tasks and multitasking. This advantage is something the Android system cannot match or surpass in the short term.
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