An interesting article written for laypeople:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/12/12886058/iphone-7-specs-competition
One quote that may be of relevance to us: "As to the iPhone’s memory,
this is more of a philosophical distinction between Apple and Google.
The former is neurotic about killing background processes and dumping
background apps from memory in iOS, whereas the latter is more liberal
with app management in Android (though Google is gradually moving toward
the Apple way of doing things). The upshot is that an iPhone can feel
super smooth and responsive with half the RAM of an Android device. RAM
consumes power, so having less of it is another factor contributing to
the iPhone’s efficiency lead."
This may be interpreted as follows: the iPhone uses native apps with
reference counting whereas the Android uses a virtual machine with
tracing garbage collection. It follows that the latter needs more memory
for the same performance, and is more jerky in behavior than the former.
Wondering to what extent this is true. If it is, that provides more
impetus for reference counting for D by the following logic: (a) it is
likely that in the future more code will run on portable,
battery-powered systems; (b) battery power does not follow a Moore
trajectory, so at this point in history demand for battery lifetime is
elastic.
Andrei
- iPhone vs Android Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d
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