iPhone 6S Plus Speed

[legend8887]

Does anyone else agree the new iPhones are extremely fast? I know it's Apple and most people will hate on it just because of that, but I was wondering if anyone else thought it was one of the fastest phones of the year.

[ShadowCaptain]

Does anyone else agree the new iPhones are extremely fast? I know it's Apple and most people will hate on it just because of that, but I was wondering if anyone else thought it was one of the fastest phones of the year.

 

Quite possibly, I know Linus posted about how fast it was, and every review mentions its performance

 

it is lightning quick

[The Official Czex]

The Samsung Galaxy S6 is faster by a fairly wide margin.

[KWelz]

The Samsung Galaxy S6 is faster by a fairly wide margin.

Where do you get this claim?

[The Official Czex]

Where do you get this claim?

 

Linus' water cooled phone video. It performed in a much higher margin in GeekBench than any of the other phones compared.

[Mew]

The S6 is only slightly faster when all 8 cores or 4 are being pushed to its max but gets completely slaughtered when it comes to single threaded performance (it only has the single threaded performance of a 2 year old iPhone 5s). It's essentially a dual core with the computer power of a quad core.

[Mug]

Linus' water cooled phone video. It performed in a much higher margin in GeekBench than any of the other phones compared.

Geekbech is not a realistic test for actual performance.

 

The iPhone 6s is a much faster phone and it just feels more responsive.

[The Official Czex]

Geekbech is not a realistic test for actual performance.

 

The iPhone 6s is a much faster phone and it just feels more responsive.

 

Because the GUI is made to take up time to make it appear faster when in reality it's actually much slower. 

[Mug]

Because the GUI is made to take up time to make it appear faster when in reality it's actually much slower. 

You couldn't have made less sence in that sentence if you tried.

 

Back it up, please explain, I'm interested.

[The Official Czex]

You couldn't have made less *sense* in that sentence if you tried.

 

Back it up, please explain, I'm interested.

 

Firstly: https://www.vessel.com/videos/JYiFyMqb_

 

Secondly: iOS was made to mask the slower hardware of Apple. By using animations in the UI with long run times, Apple's flagship device seems faster than it really is. The hardware doesn't have the benchmarks to support its apparent "speed" when compared to Samsung's current flagship.

[Whiskers]

The S6 is only slightly faster when all 8 cores or 4 are being pushed to its max but gets completely slaughtered when it comes to single threaded performance (it only has the single threaded performance of a 2 year old iPhone 5s). It's essentially a dual core with the computer power of a quad core.

Any octa-core mobile device can only have 4 cores active at a time. 4 cores are dedicated for use in lower power states and for processing less demanding tasks, whilst the 4 more powerful cores are utilised for more demanding tasks. This allows the device to be more dynamic and flexible in terms of both performance and battery life.

[KWelz]

 

Firstly: https://www.vessel.com/videos/JYiFyMqb_

 

Secondly: iOS was made to mask the slower hardware of Apple. By using animations in the UI with long run times, Apple's flagship device seems faster than it really is. The hardware doesn't have the benchmarks to support its apparent "speed" when compared to Samsung's current flagship.

 

 

That is one of the most nonsensical things I have heard in a long time.   

[Mew]

Any octa-core mobile device can only have 4 cores active at a time. 4 cores are dedicated for use in lower power states and for processing less demanding tasks, whilst the 4 more powerful cores are utilised for more demanding tasks. This allows the device to be more dynamic and flexible in terms of both performance and battery life.

 

In the case of the Note 4, Anandtech had to disable the 4 big cores in order to test the performance of the little cores. All 8 cores are exposed to the os and are used.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8718/the-samsung-galaxy-note-4-exynos-review/4

 

Edit: And when Anandtech tested to see if Android could actually make use of multiple cores, Exynos 7 even used 5 cores while browsing the web.

[Whiskers]

In the case of the Note 4, Anandtech had to disable the 4 big cores in order to test the performance of the little cores. All 8 cores are exposed to the os and are used.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8718/the-samsung-galaxy-note-4-exynos-review/4

 

Edit: And when Anandtech tested to see if Android could actually make use of multiple cores, Exynos 7 even used 5 cores while browsing the web.

 

 

Ah, I guess I was mistaken then.

[LAwLz]

Any octa-core mobile device can only have 4 cores active at a time. 4 cores are dedicated for use in lower power states and for processing less demanding tasks, whilst the 4 more powerful cores are utilised for more demanding tasks. This allows the device to be more dynamic and flexible in terms of both performance and battery life.

That's the old "cluster-migration" technique. Only one or two chips ever used it (like the Exynos 5410 in the Galaxy S4).

 

These days chips use what's called "global task scheduling (aka HMP for "Heterogeneous multi-processing") and that exposes all cores to the scheduler and it can mix and match any amount and type of cores, including having for example 8 active at once. Not sure if any device can actually keep more than 4 cores active for any significant period of time but for quick bursts you can sometimes see more than 4 cores activate.

 

 

 

That is one of the most nonsensical things I have heard in a long time.   

He is actually right.

iOS is full of speed tricks to make people not notice low performance. For example scrolling speed is limited so that you are less likely to scroll faster than the CPU can keep up. When you launch an app it first displays a static image to fool you into thinking the app is fully loaded and ready to use before it actually is. Animations are fairly long and drawn out to make sure it have time to load everything before you do your next command.

 

The new iPhone is just a beast in terms of performance though, and the speed tricks are mostly leftovers from the other generations when they were needed to ensure a smooth user experience. Apple has tweaked some of them to match the better hardware. For example you can now make the animations faster. They only allowed that when they thought the hardware was fast enough to handle it without causing any stutters.

That new super fast storage probably helps a ton.

[Mew]

He is actually right.

iOS is full of speed tricks to make people not notice low performance. For example scrolling speed is limited so that you are less likely to scroll faster than the CPU can keep up. When you launch an app it first displays a static image to fool you into thinking the app is fully loaded and ready to use before it actually is. Animations are fairly long and drawn out to make sure it have time to load everything before you do your next command.

 

 

I'd argue that the pretty animations are mainly for aesthetics. Every animation duration is fixed between every iPhone (as far as I can tell). iOS 7's animations were really long despite how fast the 5s was. The 6 was only a minor improvement but they sped up the animations and in turn reduced the duration. iOS 9 does the same and speeds up the animations ever so slightly. I think Apple is doing a really poor job of reducing jitters and framerate hiccups lately. The scrolling speed has been the same as far as I know. With such a big performance jump between the 6 and 6s, with your logic, the scrolling speed should be much faster. I think very few apps really show a screenshot of what the app looks like when you launch them, that only happens if they were purged from memory (like the infamous safari tab reloading thing). 

[LAwLz]

I'd argue that the pretty animations are mainly for aesthetics. Every animation duration is fixed between every iPhone (as far as I can tell). iOS 7's animations were really long despite how fast the 5s was. The 6 was only a minor improvement but they sped up the animations and in turn reduced the duration. iOS 9 does the same and speeds up the animations ever so slightly. I think Apple is doing a really poor job of reducing jitters and framerate hiccups lately. The scrolling speed has been the same as far as I know. With such a big performance jump between the 6 and 6s, with your logic, the scrolling speed should be much faster. I think very few apps really show a screenshot of what the app looks like when you launch them, that only happens if they were purged from memory (like the infamous safari tab reloading thing). 

I can't say for sure that it was the only reason, but it seems to me like the animations were long and drawn out partially for performance reasons. I can't remember which version it was but I think it was a minor update to iOS 6 or 7 that made it possible to change the animations somewhere in the settings menu, and it got a lot more responsive once you turned that on (I think MKBHD mentioned it in some video but I can't find it).

 

Why would the scrolling speed be faster now? In the beginning it was possible to outscroll the phone and you got that checkerboard. Since websites are very varying in terms of how demanding they are, it is next to impossible to accurately gauge how fast a device can load and render it. Apple seems to want to be on the conservative side so speeding it up would:

1) Be a bit jarring to old users.

2) Potentially make people outscroll the fully rendered webpage again.

 

 

No, it's standard behavior for apps to display a static image before the app is fully loaded, and it happens every time you load an app that's not already in memory. Here is the first quote from Apple's developer guidelines regarding this:

 

A launch file (or image) provides a simple placeholder image that iOS displays when your app starts up. The placeholder image gives users the impression that your app is fast and responsive because it appears instantly and is quickly replaced by the first screen of your app. Every app must supply a launch file or at least one static image.

 

As you can see in the example image for the weather app, it includes 2 buttons even though it's just a static image and clicking on those buttons won't do anything until the app is fully loaded.

[Whiskers]

-snip-

I think it's more likely that Apple have intentionally implemented such lengthy animations and 'cheats' on the basis that it ensures the user always has a smooth and consistent UI experience rather than to hide their hardware's shortcomings. With one or two exceptions, iOS device hardware is usually very competent, at least at launch time.

In other words it's clever design, and it's something I've always felt Android should have implemented. They may have improved things with Project Butter in Jelly Bean, but I don't think that it was enough personally. Most of the time Android's UI feels perfectly responsive, but it's the times when it stutters and stalls and freezes and chugs along that I get frustrated. I get the impression that the UI process on Android is given a relatively low process priority.

[LAwLz]

I think it's more likely that Apple have intentionally implemented such lengthy animations and 'cheats' on the basis that it ensures the user always has a smooth and consistent UI experience rather than to hide their hardware's shortcomings. With one or two exceptions, iOS device hardware is usually very competent, at least at launch time.

In other words it's clever design, and it's something I've always felt Android should have implemented. They may have improved things with Project Butter in Jelly Bean, but I don't think that it was enough personally. Most of the time Android's UI feels perfectly responsive, but it's the times when it stutters and stalls and freezes and chugs along that I get frustrated. I get the impression that the UI process on Android is given a relatively low process priority.

To me, "ensure smooth and consistent UI experience" and "hide hardware shortcomings" goes hand in hand because the former would happen by itself if there were no hardware limitations to hide. By the way, I am not saying that the iPhone is underpowered compared to other smartphones. It's just that smartphones in general are not really that high performing so doing some cheats and tricks to make them appear smoother can most certainly result in a better UX.

 

Project Butter does not solve the same things as the speed tricks I mentioned earlier solves. Project Butter was more about improving performance and implementing new things such as triple buffering, instead of tweaking animations and such.

 

There were articles about the UI process having a low priority in Android before but they used this Google+ post as their source and they were fundamentally wrong on a lot of technical details (for example, the threads responsible for UI and inputs are not low priority threads).

 

You will get different answers as to why Android stutters depending on who you ask. Personally, I think a lot of the stutters and slowness are from a combination of things. I am not a developer so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I think a lot of the blame is on the garbage collector. Every time the garbage collector gets fired up it will first pause all the threads when searches and orders all the memory, and then there is another pause when it marks the garbage memory for deletion.

 

But that was the old way of doing it in Android. Since Android 5.0, ART is now the default runtime and it has a reworked GC (among the other big benefits such as faster launch time of apps). In ART the first pause is eliminated by letting the program do it instead of the GC. The second pause is significantly shortened by doing a lot of the work before pausing.

 

The move from Dalvik to ART made a huge difference in responsiveness, but sadly only ~23% of Android devices run version 5 or higher. So more than 3 in 4 people with Android devices are probably still using Dalvik.