Understanding High RAM Usage on iPhone 6+

[spcurtis81]

So recently I started to experience lag in some apps on my iPhone 6+ running 8.3. To then point at which games like crossy Road crash all the time and when updating a lot of apps in the app store at one go, the phone reboots.

I used to System Status by Techet to get the screenshot attached which shows me with almost no RAM spare, even with all apps closed. If I reboot my phone it fixes the situation temporarily (we're talking for only a half hour or so) before it returns to this status.

Clearly without my listing every app on my phone, it's difficult for anyone to identify, but is anyone else experiencing anything similar or does anyone know of an app that tells you specifically how much RAM each app is using?

Just for the record, I can't think of any specific app update recently because since the apple watch was released, it feels like every app I own has seen an update.

Incidentally, I do own an apple watch so there may even be a related issue to that.

If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd be really grateful.

Cheers
Ste

 

[mikeo007]

On that graph, roughly 1/3 of your RAM is actually being used. Wired RAM is reserved but not in use, and Inactive and Other memory is ready to be swapped out. Most modern operating systems try to keep RAM fully utilized whenever possible. Spare RAM is wasted RAM. And emptying RAM when it's not currently needed is also a waste of resources.

I'd look somewhere else for the problem, likely a rogue app as you're also thinking. The best way to troubleshoot this unfortunately is to remove all your apps, and then add them back one at a time, testing for the problem.

 

[spcurtis81]

Ouch. Thanks for this. Surprising that Apple have made the effort to give information about the likes of a battery usage in the settings app but have omitted RAM. I'll have a go at deleting some apps and see. Thanks again.

 

[anon(4698833)]

Ouch. Thanks for this. Surprising that Apple have made the effort to give information about the likes of a battery usage in the settings app but have omitted RAM. I'll have a go at deleting some apps and see. Thanks again.

Why is it surprising? Apple doesn't even offer actual specs regarding RAM on their iOS devices in any official capacity...we find out how much RAM these devices have when they are torn down by blogs and 3rd party companies and they show us the parts used inside. Considering that, why would you expect them to give information on deeper RAM specs or usage monitoring?

Concerning your issue you listed above...I play several resource hog type games, and none of them cause me any RAM issues...none of them reset like that. I also have Crossy Road on my iPhone, and have played it with my niece hundreds of times and it has never crashed like you described.

 

[trparky]

This is the part that simply confused the heck out of me. Why the strange terms? Wired memory? What?!

Why not just two things; used and free memory. Simple. Get's the job done.

The dumb part is that I have watched memory usage on my iPhone 6 Plus with the same app that @spcurtis81 used and it's left me even more confused. For instance... we know that Safari likes to some times make you reload tabs but it seems random, I can't seem to place my finger on one cause of the issue. I even tried to force the issue to appear. I loaded two tabs in Safari, I then went back to the home screen and proceeded to go to town launching just about every app that I had installed on my iPhone. I'd launch it, work with the app for a couple of seconds, and then onto the next app to launch and play with. Every five apps I'd check memory usage with the app that @spcurtis81 mentioned and it always seemed to be the same usage. OK, so there I was launching twenty apps. I thought for sure that Safari would have forced a tab reload by then. Right? Nope. Opened Safari and the tabs were still there. Puzzling. Why can't I reproduce what seems to be a memory exhaustion issue?

Or is it even a RAM issue? Is it a Safari bug?

 

[mikeo007]

This is the part that simply confused the heck out of me. Why the strange terms? Wired memory? What?!

Why not just two things; used and free memory. Simple. Get's the job done.

You'd need to ask the app developer why. RAM usage in ANY operating system is far more complicated than just "used" and "free". Apps like this attempt to make RAM status easier for a user to interpret, so they determine how to list and group various memory states. All of this is mostly useless in a mobile OS anyway though.

Take a look at how some other operating system utilities show RAM usage, you'll see if gets much more complicated:

Yosemite:

Windows 8:

Non-GUI Linux:

 

[Bigeric23]

I just use my iPhone. And if an app gets slow, I restart the device. . . . Never hand any issues.