ios app maximum memory budget

I think you've answered your own question: try not to go beyond the 70 Mb limit, however it really depends on many things: what iOS version you're using (not SDK), how many applications running in background, what exact memory you're using etc.

Just avoid the instant memory splashes (e.g. you're using 40 Mb of RAM, and then allocating 80 Mb's more for some short computation). In this case iOS would kill your application immediately.

You should also consider lazy loading of assets (load them only when you really need and not beforehand).


I created small utility which tries to allocate as much memory as possible to crash and it records when memory warnings and crash happened. This helps to find out what's the memory budget for any iOS device.

https://github.com/Split82/iOSMemoryBudgetTest


Results of testing with the utility Split wrote (link is in his answer):

device: (crash amount/total amount/percentage of total)

  • iPad1: 127MB/256MB/49%
  • iPad2: 275MB/512MB/53%
  • iPad3: 645MB/1024MB/62%
  • iPad4: 585MB/1024MB/57% (iOS 8.1)
  • iPad Mini 1st Generation: 297MB/512MB/58%
  • iPad Mini retina: 696MB/1024MB/68% (iOS 7.1)
  • iPad Air: 697MB/1024MB/68%
  • iPad Air 2: 1383MB/2048MB/68% (iOS 10.2.1)
  • iPad Pro 9.7": 1395MB/1971MB/71% (iOS 10.0.2 (14A456))
  • iPad Pro 10.5”: 3057/4000/76% (iOS 11 beta4)
  • iPad Pro 12.9” (2015): 3058/3999/76% (iOS 11.2.1)
  • iPad Pro 12.9” (2017): 3057/3974/77% (iOS 11 beta4)
  • iPad Pro 11.0” (2018): 2858/3769/76% (iOS 12.1)
  • iPad Pro 12.9” (2018, 1TB): 4598/5650/81% (iOS 12.1)
  • iPad 10.2: 1844/2998/62% (iOS 13.2.3)
  • iPod touch 4th gen: 130MB/256MB/51% (iOS 6.1.1)
  • iPod touch 5th gen: 286MB/512MB/56% (iOS 7.0)
  • iPhone4: 325MB/512MB/63%
  • iPhone4s: 286MB/512MB/56%
  • iPhone5: 645MB/1024MB/62%
  • iPhone5s: 646MB/1024MB/63%
  • iPhone6: 645MB/1024MB/62% (iOS 8.x)
  • iPhone6+: 645MB/1024MB/62% (iOS 8.x)
  • iPhone6s: 1396MB/2048MB/68% (iOS 9.2)
  • iPhone6s+: 1392MB/2048MB/68% (iOS 10.2.1)
  • iPhoneSE: 1395MB/2048MB/69% (iOS 9.3)
  • iPhone7: 1395/2048MB/68% (iOS 10.2)
  • iPhone7+: 2040MB/3072MB/66% (iOS 10.2.1)
  • iPhone8: 1364/1990MB/70% (iOS 12.1)
  • iPhone X: 1392/2785/50% (iOS 11.2.1)
  • iPhone XS: 2040/3754/54% (iOS 12.1)
  • iPhone XS Max: 2039/3735/55% (iOS 12.1)
  • iPhone XR: 1792/2813/63% (iOS 12.1)
  • iPhone 11: 2068/3844/54% (iOS 13.1.3)
  • iPhone 11 Pro Max: 2067/3740/55% (iOS 13.2.3)