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iPhone 5S 64 bit and storage amount. Since it is 64 bit will I need a larger storage size ie apps be larger?

I have been wonderingabout the 64 bit chip on the iPhone 5S and the resultant changing of apps going to 64 bit. I am not a developer but it seems to reason that 64 bit apps may indeed be larger in filesize than 32 bit apps or perhaps smaller. I am not certain. My previous phone is 32GB and since we are looking forward with 64 bit I am wondering if 32GB may be too small and I should go for the 64GB model. I wish Apple would design in SD micro for storage limit scenarios. Anyway, I appreciate any thoughts. Thank you!

iPhone 5, iOS 6

Posted on Sep 16, 2013 9:47 PM

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5 replies

Sep 16, 2013 10:35 PM in response to matrixxzero

The reference to 64 bit processor in the new phone has to do with the way the main computer chip deals with its processing job and nothing to do with storage size. The main computer chip now processes its data in chunks or words that are 64 bits wide as against 32 bits computer words in the previous computer chip. The reference to 32 GB or giga bytes has to do with the size of the flash memory storage. You will have enough storage to deal with any app that you might care to download unless of course you fill up the 32 GB of stargaze which is unlikely. Read this article it explains what is meant by 64 bit processing

Sep 16, 2013 10:39 PM in response to matrixxzero

Because the increase to 64 bit words being processed by the main chip as against 32 bit computer words or data chunks the processor runs faster. This has nothing to do with the size of the flash memory. You will be fine with a phone that has flash memory of 32 GB (32 giga bytes). One byte is a computer word which in the case of the new phone is 64 bits in length.

Sep 16, 2013 10:47 PM in response to Ocean20

Not to be rude but I am very familiar with the difference between 64 bit processing and 32 GB storage of data. However, you should also recall that at the keynote, it was mentioned that there would also be apps that are backwards compatible which could imply bloated sized apps. Also, the programming library being used has evidently changed as per the keynote and said library could also be full of bloatware.


My concern is that apps that previously were written for 32 bit devices and now modifed for 64 bit processing may have bloated a bit say from a 5 MB app to an 8 MB app, etc esp if there are going to be backwards compatible apps. Perhaps Tim Cook meant there would be 32 bit versions and 64 bit versions rather than dual compatible versions. And this new enhanced IOS 7 which was "Built for 64 bit architecture" may take up more internal memory than previous iOS versions such as what happened with the Galaxy S4 which used up half of it's 16 GB capacity just to run the phones operating software.


But thank you for your reply.

Sep 17, 2013 12:31 AM in response to matrixxzero

A 64 bit version of an app cannot run on a device that has a 32 bit processor in much the same way as my PC which has a 32 processor and runs a 32 bit version of Windows 7. My PC cannot run the 64 bit version of WIN 7. When I install programs I make sure that I only install programs compatible with the 32 bit processor in my PC. There is little difference if no difference in size between 32 and 64 bit program because it all has to do with how the CPU handles data presented to it on the data and other buses. Like I said it has nothing to do with memory size and all to do with speed of processing of data by the CPU. I expect what I say will hold for the processor chip in the new phone and you will not experience memory shortage issues.

iPhone 5S 64 bit and storage amount. Since it is 64 bit will I need a larger storage size ie apps be larger?

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