For example will there ever be a mobile device app for zcash given the amount of resources it takes to create and broadcast a private transaction? I would imagine a remote server building the transaction for you would be out of the question as I should think it would require access to the private components sending the zero knowledge aspect out the window.
I'm using a 4GB core i5 lenovo running ubuntu which I (used to) consider rather high end. 48% of my memory is currently allocated so from what I just read I can't use zcash because I don't have enough RAM, is that right?
Just make sure you configure enough swap space, as mentioned in your quote. If you don't have an SSD, it could be as much as 20X slower than the time mentioned for an SSD. Maybe they could optimize the memory access to account for swap usage which could get it down to 5X slower. I think on a phone with 2GB of RAM the case would be much worse; if the swap is placed on a cheap SD card a transaction could take days to create.