Exactly how much does it affect battery life? I wouldn't be at all surprised if the answer is "a lot". I'm sure engineers at Apple would love to be able to provide 2GB of RAM (after all, they're using this device too!), but the fact that they're not either means it is cost-prohibitive (unlikely) or has an unacceptable impact on battery.
I asked someone I know about this and they confirmed that a RAM upgrade would have a significant effect on battery life. Can't provide any citations of course.
They also pointed out that iOS already artificially limits the amount of RAM a single process can use, so adding RAM wouldn't even really do anything besides make it take longer for background apps to be evicted.
Samsung has managed to do it and still maintains (arguably) reasonable battery life. I like Apple products in general, but the whole overpriced/underpowered thing gets a little old.
> I like Apple products in general, but the whole overpriced/underpowered thing gets a little old.
Funny, I'd say the same thing about the people who've been repeating the "overpriced/underpowered" trope ever since it stopped being true over a decade ago.
