Yesterday, some results were published that showed the iPhone 4 was slower than the Google Nexus S in terms of page load speeds. The test data was gathered by looking up 45,000 web pages on each device. Today though, we hear that the tests were actually flawed due to the app used on the iPhone not utilizing new features of the Safari browser that was updated in iOS 4.3.
When testing with iOS 4.3, the company used UIWebView which unfortunately, didn’t benefit from the same speed increases as the Safari browser. What this means is that an accurate picture wasn’t gathered about the iPhone browser and thus, making it an unfair test.
A comment was left on CNET by Blaze (the company behind the tests) which basically admitted that the test was flawed and that another test could not be done until Apple allow embedded browsers to function like the regular Safari:
“This test leveraged the embedded browser which is the only available option for iPhone applications… Blaze was under the assumption that Apple would apply the same updates to their embedded browser as they would their regular browser. If this is not the case and according to Apple’s response, it’s certainly possible the embedded browser might produce different results. If Apple decides to apply their optimizations across their embedded browser as well, then we would be more than willing to create a new report with the new performance results.”
Until Apple allow UIWebView to utilize the same speed increases, we’ll never know for sure which is the quicker browser. Either way, does it really matter?
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