this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

LLMs

Emphasis on the first L in LLM. Apple's model is specifically designed to be small to work on phones with 8 gigs of ram (the requirement to run this)

The price gouging for RAM was only ever on computers. With phones you got what got, and you couldn't pay for more.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

What do you mean couldn't pay for more? There are plenty of sub-$200 android phones with 8GB of RAM, and 12-16GB are fairly standard on flagships these days. Asus ROG Phone 6 is rather old and already came with 16GB what, three years ago?

It is definitely doable, there only needs to be willingness. Apple is definitely skimping here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The iPhone has one ram option. If you buy an iPhone 16 your only option is 8 gigs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Ah I see. I understood you meant that bigger RAM modules aren't available in the industry so apple couldn't add this even if they paid more, not that we as customers couldn't spec a phone however we'd like. That makes sense now.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

Yeah... and it kinda sucks because it's small.

If Apple shipped with 16GB/24GB like some Android phones did well before the iPhone 16, it would be far more useful. 16-24GB (aka 14B-32B class models) are the current threshold where quantized LLMs really start to feel 'smart,' and they could've continue trained a great Apache 2.0 model instead of a tiny, meager one from scratch.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I don’t know how much RAM is in my iPhone 14 Pro, but I’ve never thought ooh this is slow I need more RAM.

Perhaps, it’ll be an issue with this stupid Apple Intelligence, but I don’t care about using that on my next upgrade cycle.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

My old Razer Phone 2 (circa 2019) shipped with 8GB RAM, and that (and the 120hz display) made it feel lighting fast until I replaced it last week, and only because the microphone got gunked up with dust.

Your iPhone 14 Pro has 6GB of RAM. Its a great phone (I just got a 16 plus on a deal), but that will significantly shorten its longevity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I wonder how much more efficient the RAM can be when the manufacturer makes the software and the hardware? It has to help right, I don’t know what a 16 Pro feels like compared to this, but doubt I would notice.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Your OS uses it efficiently, but fundamentally it also limits what app developers can do. They have to make apps with 2-6GB in mind.

Not everything needs a lot of RAM, but LLMs are absolutely an edge case where "more is better, and there's no way around it," and they aren't the only one.