re: Apple has guts...

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God damnit. Do I have to post all of this shite again?

Java (Android) requires 2x-8x more RAM to run as efficient as Objective-C (iOS)

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You've posted this before, and all of the McTech sites have quoted this Quora entry. Now, I agree with the information provided, but do you understand what it's actually saying? Android may fill up its available memory to near-capacity before performing garbage collection tasks, which is when you'll see a performance loss during the process, and this scenario occurs either because of heavy multitasking or just a memory-intensive app -- so we're talking about variables outside of how much memory the OS itself is using, and memory optimization (or lack thereof) with any given app lies solely with its developer.

On the flip side, the efficiency of iOS is that it doesn't perform garbage collection at all, because once it's allocated all of its available memory, it simply starts suspending or killing processes, making no attempt to recycle freed up memory and therefore using no additional processes. It is precisely the reason OP's browser tabs need to be refreshed. It would happen substantially less often if iOS had more RAM. The problem is compounded with the phone's increased resolution requiring more RAM depending on the application; texture data has to be stored somewhere that's quickly accessible.

Is one method of memory management better than the other? Not really. They apply to two different usage scenarios and schools of thought, and it really just boils down to how memory intensive your apps are and how much you need to truly multitask.

Now, regarding CPU clock speeds and performance, it's true but not significant or relevant to OP's issue (but maybe, for education's sake, it's worth noting that CPU stepping behavior can be tweaked to near-obsessive detail with custom Android kernels, so--barring straight-up thermal throttling to prevent total failure--the clock sustainability factor is merely a limitation of the stock kernel to preserve power efficiency balanced with just enough performance, which prevails over raw performance in 99% of use cases in smartphones).

We're also comparing two different architectures with different goals (including differences in image processing, on-chip audio quality, DirectX, etc.). The misrepresentation of clock speeds is just as bad as people who bother to compare clock speeds at all when looking at two different architectures. But in terms of raw performance, we again have two different schools of thought. The A8 uses two very fast cores, so it's going to fare extremely well in comparing individual app performance between the A8 and the 4 and 8-core chips--with individually weaker cores--competing with it in most scenarios, because the day-to-day apps you're using are probably not written to use more than 2 cores. It's the same reason an Intel i5 is generally (but not specifically) a better choice than AMD's 8-core FX CPUs unless you're building a targeted machine for multi-threaded applications (video editing or live streaming, for example).

At the same time, having multiple cores also lends to better multi-tasking with single-threaded applications, as an OS's thread scheduler can send tasks to cores not in use. This can help with something as simple as tabbed browsing. But iOS doesn't need more cores right now and would not benefit from them at all; with Apple's 1GB of RAM, no matter how efficiently the OS itself can manage its resources, it's still an inherent multitasking limitation. So, because most apps are single-threaded, and because iOS will start killing processes before those two powerful cores reach full usage across multiple apps, two powerful cores are much more effective for iOS (Given the nature of iOS itself, you might argue it's a fairly balanced hardware combination overall).

But obviously, in reality you won't notice a bit of difference between any of the flagship CPUs in today's phones, because there's so much more at play affecting performance. Nothing under the hood means shite without a desirable user experience.

EDIT: looking forward to the rebuttal from the downvoters.