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[VeeP]

I love the technological improvements. I'm just saying that for what most of use ours phones for, the power would probably go to waste.

But you do make a good point about the viability of the phone for the future.

It's important to remember that phones aren't going to stay at this level. 20 years ago they were mainly for calling. 10 years ago it was for calling, texting, emails. Since then phones have become everything for a lot of us, video chatting/gaming devices/cameras/mobile personal computers.

In the past few years we've seen Samsung push VR on their phones, with iOS 11 Apple is trying to push VR, and now you have RED about to release a holographic phone. My point is, phone's are going to become more and more functional, and that extra power WILL get used one way or another, maybe it's VR or AR, maybe it's faster and better processing of the 4K video, or maybe its changing the lightning of your picture by using portrait mode (I guarantee this will get used by many people on Instagram).

 

[LyleLanley]

Why don’t other manufacturers spend on the R&D to create their chips in house? Surely Apple didn’t have their current competency right out the gate with the first iPhone? Is there a reason that manufacturers like Samsung aren’t pursuing this other than the cost? Truely clueless on this topic.

I wonder if it's worth it for most companies. The majority of people probably aren't going to notice a huge difference in a geekbench score that's twice as fast as the competitors.

 

[PaulloDEC]

It blows my mind how many casual users are going to be walking around with this kind of power in their pocket. I can't think of another area of technology with as weird of a ratio of users with high-powered devices to users who need high-powered devices.

 

[Jeffrey]

You need the power first before apps can take advantage of it.

And devs will always develop for the lowest common denominator. It takes some time to catch up.

Also most apps you use on phones aren't like 3d games.

Honestly you don't want your facebook app to max out the cpu anyhow.

Just let me run multiple apps splitscreen. Works fine on similar sized android phones. Should be an option on the bigger iphones someday.

 

[MThanded]

The advantage of Note over iPhone is it can continue with most of the the already opened apps running in the background, while iPhone close them. This is thanks to the 6 GB of RAM on Note vs 3 on iPhone.

In a practical use, you can play a game, pause and see WhatsApp, them see some pictures on Instagram, look another software and back to your game exactly where you stop without a new load in any of these apps.

You can do all of this on an iphone too. Works great on the 7.

 

[bionic77]

Also most apps you use on phones aren't like 3d games.

Honestly you don't want your facebook app to max out the cpu anyhow.

Just let me run multiple apps splitscreen. Works fine on similar sized android phones. Should be an option on the bigger iphones someday.

I always understood it that you do want Facebook to max out the CPU and then shut down as quickly as possible.

But in terms of other uses software is like dinosaurs. It always finds a way. Once enough phones take advantage of the horsepower someone will find a way to take advantage of it.

 

[reKon]

This thread is sort of embarrassing. It's embarrassing for Apple fanboys who are clearly bothered that people don't give a shit about synthetic benchmarks because some Android owners they feel their phone is fast enough and reliably does everything they need. It's also embarrassing for Android fans that try compare old iPhones to newer Android phones in speed tests/benchmarks thinking there's barely any actual performance difference. It's especially sad for those who throw in the RAM specs for their support that Android phones are objectively better.


I'm glad that Apple keeps pushing the envelope though to at least keep the other OEMs on their feet. Google may be the first to respond if they decide to start designing their own in house chip.

I would love to see some real world comparisons over similar workflows between like iPhone 8 and an entry level Core i5.

Here we go again with this.

Maybe this article will give some insight. I'm honestly shocked that no here seems to have shared this or similar articles, but fanboys gotta fan and won't apply critical thinking.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3006...he-ipad-pro-really-isnt-as-fast-a-laptop.html


And yes I'm aware that Apple's CPUs have made significant gains since then and they offer incredible performance. That still doesn't mean that one benchmark should be relied for everything...

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

In my experience iPhones stay snappy but even flagship androids start to turn into a laggy pos even with restarts and clearing cache within about a year of heavy use. If you do a factory reset it helps for a while but if you can’t have the apps on the phone you want all the time something isn’t right.

I just had a G6 and jumped to an iPhone 8+ with T-Mobile because the G6 was turning into laggy trash.

Straight up bull poppy.

 

[KHarvey16]

This thread is sort of embarrassing. It's embarrassing for Apple fanboys who are clearly bothered that people don't give a shit about synthetic benchmarks because some Android owners they feel their phone is fast enough and reliably does everything they need. It's also embarrassing for Android fans that try compare old iPhones to newer Android phones in speed tests/benchmarks thinking there's barely any actual performance difference. It's especially sad for those who throw in the RAM specs for their support that Android phones are objectively better.


I'm glad that Apple keeps pushing the envelope though to at least keep the other OEMs on their feet. Google may be the first to respond if they decide to start designing their own in house chip.



Here we go again with this.

Maybe this article will give some insight. I'm honestly shocked that no here seems to have shared this or similar articles, but fanboys gotta fan and won't apply critical thinking.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3006...he-ipad-pro-really-isnt-as-fast-a-laptop.html


And yes I'm aware that Apple's CPUs have made significant gains since then and they offer incredible performance. That still doesn't mean that one benchmark should be relied for everything...

The article in the OP details real world performance comparisons.

 

[shandy706]

Eh, still no interest in Note 8 or iPhone 8.

Goes back to playing Super Mario World with a controller on his $0.99 Note 4.😂

 

[diehard]

Maybe this article will give some insight. I'm honestly shocked that no here seems to have shared this or similar articles, but fanboys gotta fan and won't apply critical thinking.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3006...he-ipad-pro-really-isnt-as-fast-a-laptop.html

uhh according to this, the A11 should be faster...

 

[soundahfekz]

Eh, still no interest in Note 8 or iPhone 8.

Goes back to playing Super Mario World with a controller on his $0.99 Note 4.😂

I'm still ashamed my note 4 is sitting in a drawer with nothing wrong with it. Besides the speakers and Touchwiz it'll always be one of my GOAT phones

 

[3DShovel]

The advantage of Note over iPhone is it can continue with most of the the already opened apps running in the background, while iPhone close them. This is thanks to the 6 GB of RAM on Note vs 3 on iPhone.

In a practical use, you can play a game, pause and see WhatsApp, them see some pictures on Instagram, look another software and back to your game exactly where you stop without a new load in any of these apps.

It has been several years in a row now that iPhones have managed memory a bajillion times better than Samsung’s flagships despite having at times even less than half the memory.

 

[Guess Who]

uhh according to this, the A11 should be faster...

Yeah, all this article shows is that the A9X - two years ago - still fell a bit behind Intel chips in several areas. The A11 is substantially more powerful than that, particularly in CPU performance, and I would wager heavily the A11X will be markedly more powerful still.

 

[bbsting120]

Got my 8+ today (upgrading from a 6!) and... it's been sitting on the black screen with Apple logo for hours with the white progress bar almost completely filled. It shouldn't take hours for that, right? I can't shut it off or force restart it either.

 

[bananas]

Got my 8+ today (upgrading from a 6!) and... it's been sitting on the black screen with Apple logo for hours with the white progress bar almost completely filled. It shouldn't take hours for that, right? I can't shut it off or force restart it either.

The phone should've already been updated when you got it.

 

[reKon]

The article in the OP details real world performance comparisons.

Did you read my response to that poster and then article I posted? He asked about comparisons to Intel CPUs and the article I posted is much more comprehensive in terms of benckmarks they looked at.

uhh according to this, the A11 should be faster...

And? I don't argue that the A11 should be faster. I think that Apple CPU's have probably improved as a much faster rate than Intel's, but doesn't mean that Intel's CPUs have not improved at all - their performance gains just has been as significant. Due to pressure from Ryzen CPUs, I'm assuming this is going to change for their next cycle, but I haven't been following this as closely as my i4690K is still a beast and I don't care upgrade any time soon.

Not sure how you guys are missing the entire point of that article.

 

[mokeyjoe]

Impressive performance. If the iphones supported the Pencil it might tip me away from Android. I’m getting used to it on my iPad Pro, seems weird that even the plus doesn’t have it.

 

[Futureman]

It has been several years in a row now that iPhones have managed memory a bajillion times better than Samsung’s flagships despite having at times even less than half the memory.

I bet the Note 8 and 8 Plus are both amazing at doing it.

 

[lukeskymac]

The X has optical image stabilization on the 2x camera, whereas the 8+ does not.

The X has Face ID and edge to edge screen, a much better front facing camera and is smaller than the plus.

That's about it though.

That's really underselling it. It's not just an edge-to-edge screen. It's an OLED HDR screen, presumably with a full RGB subpixel arrangement, which AFAIK would be a first in the industry. The specs of the screen alone make it a sell to me, edge-to-edge and FaceID are just a bonus.

 

[Fhtagn]

That's really underselling it. It's not just an edge-to-edge screen. It's an OLED HDR screen, presumably with a full RGB subpixel arrangement, which AFAIK would be a first in the industry. The specs of the screen alone make it a sell to me, edge-to-edge and FaceID are just a bonus.

Yeah, I totally forgot to mention the difference in screen tech because I thought that was so obviously different.

I am super curious about the sub pixel arrangement, but I think we're going to have to wait until review units are in the right hands to know for sure and by then I may have already pre-ordered one (or more likely missed out due to absurd supply shortages.)

 

[lukeskymac]

Yeah, I totally forgot to mention the difference in screen tech because I thought that was so obviously different.

I am super curious about the sub pixel arrangement, but I think we're going to have to wait until review units are in the right hands to know for sure and by then I may have already pre-ordered one (or more likely missed out due to absurd supply shortages.)

Well, we do have to wait for confirmation to be sure, but considering how Schiller made a point of mentioning color accuracy as an issue for previous OLED phones that the X supposedly remedies, what else could it be, really?

 

[keuja]

Very impressive... Apple is so far ahead of Qualcomm. The faster processor and super efficient ram management is what draws me to the iPhone. However at the moment, I'm looking for a more flexible and customizable OS. I'll probably end up buying both the iPhone X and LGv30 (I want that wide angle camera!) and see which one I like best.

 

[Guess Who]

Well, we do have to wait for confirmation to be sure, but considering how Schiller made a point of mentioning color accuracy as an issue for previous OLED phones that the X supposedly remedies, what else could it be, really?

Color accuracy isn't a function of the subpixel layout - several of Samsung's latest phones have had very accurate displays (well, if you use one of the alternate profiles included rather than the default) despite not being RGB. Supposedly, according to a journalist at Apple's event, it's currently believed to be the same subpixel layout modern Samsungs use (which is a diamond-shaped not-quite-PenTile arrangement).

 

[Zee-Row]

I currently have an iPhone 7 and I couldn’t even see the difference performance wise when it came to games coming from iPhone 6.

 

[lukeskymac]

Color accuracy isn't a function of the subpixel layout - several of Samsung's latest phones have had very accurate displays (well, if you use one of the alternate profiles included rather than the default) despite not being RGB. Supposedly, according to a journalist at Apple's event, it's currently believed to be the same subpixel layout modern Samsungs use (which is a diamond-shaped not-quite-PenTile arrangement).

So what would be the difference? Top binning + better factory calibration?

I currently have an iPhone 7 and I couldn't even see the difference performance wise when it came to games coming from iPhone 6.

That's just because most mobile games are built to run well on a large number of phones, so newer models are never truly pushed. Kinda like what happens with most popular PC-only games, but more extreme because you can't force your phone to do even more work to try to push it like you can with supersampling/downsampling or "ultra" settings that are often quite inefficient.

 

[keuja]

Fo non gamers, the most obvious use of all that power will be augmented reality. But until they find the killer application for it, it's true that you wouldn't really need the extra processing power just to do some Facebook,WhatsApp, YouTubeb, etc...

 

[borghe]

Here we go again with this.

Maybe this article will give some insight. I'm honestly shocked that no here seems to have shared this or similar articles, but fanboys gotta fan and won't apply critical thinking.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3006...he-ipad-pro-really-isnt-as-fast-a-laptop.html...

I mean... chill the fuck out. I said I would love to see real world comparisons, because that stuff interests me, not because I thought Apple’s CPUs would crush. You are really worked up.

I will however take synthetic benchmarks over some Youtuber opening half a dozen random games then immediately closing them and declaring one a winner based on that. But sadly we don’t have digital foundry or anandtech custom workflows for most mobile applications yet.

 

[Guess Who]

So what would be the difference? Top binning + better factory calibration?

I don't know enough about OLED manufacturing to answer that for sure, haha. All I can say is that my experience with 2010-2012 OLED devices, personally, was very poor. PenTile on lower-PPI screens made everything very fuzzy (and you couldn't really make 300+ PPI OLEDs back in 2010 like Apple was doing with LCD on the iPhone 4), colors were often blown-out and oversaturated, and brightness (and thus sunlight visibility, which is very important in a phone) was very low relative to LCDs. It's very easy for me to understand why Apple didn't switch to OLED back then.

Since around 2014, though, all those problems seem to have been fixed. Modern OLEDs can be extremely high-PPI, super color accurate, and even brighter than any LCD Apple is shipping in an iPhone. The biggest problem Apple seems to face in moving the iPhone to OLED mostly seems to be securing enough panels to make phones with.

 

[Strakt]

Meh these speed tests never matter. iPhone and android both have different operating systems and speed tests don't matter for the average phone user because they usually just watch videos, text, take pictures, make phone calls, etc..

I have a s8+ since release coming from iphone and i have no issues at all with speed.. i'm prob going to sell it when the X comes out in october simply because it has the same minimal bezel design + iOS.

 

[blu]

Boy, isn't it funny when all-knowing posters fly in ballistic and accuse everybody of fanboyism..

And? I don't argue that the A11 should be faster. I think that Apple CPU's have probably improved as a much faster rate than Intel's, but doesn't mean that Intel's CPUs have not improved at all - their performance gains just has been as significant.

So one vendor's CPUs improve at a faster rate, but the other vendor's CPU improvements are just as significant? What are you even trying to say here? Cognitive dissonance much?

Due to pressure from Ryzen CPUs, I'm assuming this is going to change for their next cycle, but I haven't been following this as closely as my i4690K is still a beast and I don't care upgrade any time soon.

Oh I see, you had to feel-good-post about your precious. Well, maybe if you had been following Intel's developments you'd have known their recent CPU advancements are nowhere where Apple's are.

Not sure how you guys are missing the entire point of that article.

And the entire point of the OP's article is to show how Apple's latest CPU has advanced (as demonstrated clearly by the synthetic cpu tests) and show those advancements also relate to real world scenarios, though it does not necessarily make a direct link there, but that's much harder to do if you're not an app developer. How are you missing the point?

 

[HoodWinked]

started going down the rabbit hole of comparing other cpus with mobile cpus and found a transistor count chart really interesting when you put everything into perspective.

also a 1080Ti has 12 billion transistors.

 

[eot]

I mean I mostly use mine for browsing and texting so I don't need the world's fastest phone really

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

Straight up bull poppy.

You and he must be pretty good friends for you to call his own personal experience “bull poppy.”

That or you’re caping for a phone OS.

 

[Maxrunner]

The article in the OP details real world performance comparisons.

Real world performance that has any impact on daily use...

 

[gcubed]

So what would be the difference? Top binning + better factory calibration?

PR

And Samsung hides the color balanced option behind a menu, it's not default

 

[Sunster]

lol idk what i'd even do with that kind of speed.

 

[reKon]

Boy, isn't it funny when all-knowing posters fly in ballistic and accuse everybody of fanboyism..


Tell me one damn lie I said in my post. Go ahead.

So one vendor's CPUs improve at a faster rate, but the other vendor's CPU improvements are just as significant? What are you even trying to say here? Cognitive dissonance much?

I meant to say hasn't*, which is why that part came off as confusing


Oh I see, you had to feel-good-post about your precious. Well, maybe if you had been following Intel's developments you'd have known their recent CPU advancements are nowhere where Apple's are.

See above...


And the entire point of the OP's article is to show how Apple's latest CPU has advanced (as demonstrated clearly by the synthetic cpu tests) and show those advancements also relate to real world scenarios, though it does not necessarily make a direct link there, but that's much harder to do if you're not an app developer. How are you missing the point?

See my bolded replies above.

I'm not missing this point. I've already acknowledged how impressive Apple's CPU is. My post was a reply to post made to post comment on comparisons to Intel CPUs. Some of the posters that replied to what I posted clearly didn't read the article because there replies we're basically, "see, the A11 is very fast!"

 

[rambis]

I would definitely say A11 should've been faster. 16nm to 10nm yet the jump was smaller than A9 to A10. This really isnt that impressive of an iteration and I don't get the "Apple is the best in the world" comments. Sorry.

 

[BaasRed]

The A11 chip is so impressive, too bad its not in any phone I'm interested in. If they release an even more improved version of it on an iPad I'd be tempted. Doubly so if it used MacOS instead of iOS.

 

[Timbuktu]

The A11 chip is so impressive, too bad its not in any phone I'm interested in. If they release an even more improved version of it on an iPad I'd be tempted. Doubly so if it used MacOS instead of iOS.

Apple surely would be tempted to bring the chips Macs to inhouse control as well, rather than let Intel's schedule dictate when they update.

 

[Sir Abacus]

I would definitely say A11 should've been faster. 16nm to 10nm yet the jump was smaller than A9 to A10. This really isnt that impressive of an iteration and I don't get the "Apple is the best in the world" comments. Sorry.

Power usage on a CPU is linearly related to frequency and quadratically to voltage. Process nodes allow lower voltage at a given frequency. When you're already working at obscenely low voltages you don't gain much back by lowering voltage a little bit more. When you're working within a low power envelope you waste more of your power budget on switching speed as you go up frequency. You need to balance switching speed and voltage to maximize performance within a given power envelope.

The past four decades we've gotten a lot of switching performance for "free" as process node shrinks have allowed for a massive lowering of voltage and a huge decline down the steepest parts of the voltage curve. You could massively scale frequency while moderately scaling up power. Now we're at the end of the curves and we're fighting for every scrap of performance we can. Mobile is hitting the same point on the curve now.

 

[lukeskymac]

PR

And Samsung hides the color balanced option behind a menu, it's not default

So the iPhone 7 having the best screen in almost every aspect other than black depth/contrast vs OLEDs last year was just PR as well? And do you really think the people who do the measurements don't bother setting Galaxy models to their most accurate setting?

 

[Jeffrey]

Like what can you use the power for on iOS?

Like on Android I can go on the app store and dl emulators can run psp and gcn games smoothly that I can pair with my ds4. Only real 'power use' I've had with my flagship cpu.

I remember I had to jailbreak to get emulators on iOS or through some Safari loophole. Did that change?

 

[Sir Abacus]

Like what can you use the power for on iOS?

It's mostly for battery life. The faster you get something done the faster you get back to sleep. It's why the battery size keeps declining but the phone still maintains a relative level of battery life.

 

[Fhtagn]

Like what can you use the power for on iOS?

Like on Android I can go on the app store and dl emulators can run psp and gcn games smoothly that I can pair with my ds4. Only real 'power use' I've had with my flagship cpu.

I remember I had to jailbreak to get emulators on iOS or through some Safari loophole. Did that change?

Audio production; I can run four channels of instruments with multiple fx on each channel and not even crack 25% on my iPad Pro.
Video editing
Image editing - see: http://www.popphoto.com/affinity-shows-off-powerful-version-its-photo-editing-software-for-ipad-pro

there are ways to get emulators on iOS but it's a bit of a hassle, yes.

 

[jon bones]

man i cant wait for the X

 

[Jeffrey]

It's mostly for battery life. The faster you get something done the faster you get back to sleep. It's why the battery size keeps declining but the phone still maintains a relative level of battery life.

Wish they'd Crack the battery nutshell instead or maintaining the status quo. It's just not enough battery life for a full day from 8am to bed time imo,especially if you are out and about. Ppl either have a power pack in hand or are hording the outlets.

Audio production; I can run four channels of instruments with multiple fx on each channel and not even crack 25% on my iPad Pro.
Video editing
Image editing - see: http://www.popphoto.com/affinity-shows-off-powerful-version-its-photo-editing-software-for-ipad-pro

there are ways to get emulators on iOS but it's a bit of a hassle, yes.

That is nice! Do people do productivity stuff on iPhone though? With a11 benchmarking close to the a10x I'm curious what that is useful for besides photography and video processing.

People generally don't use hefty stuff on the phone because that drains battery a bunch. The tiny phones aren't great for work though even if they have the power.

Maybe Apple should try doing the desktop dock Samsung is experimenting with?

 

[Fhtagn]

That is nice! Do people do productivity stuff on iPhone though? With a11 benchmarking close to the a10x I'm curious what that is useful for besides photography and video processing.

People generally don't use hefty stuff on the phone because that drains battery a bunch. The tiny phones aren't great for work though even if they have the power.

Maybe Apple should try doing the desktop dock Samsung is experimenting with?

I use my iPad and iPhone for business productivity as well as music/photo work, and the speed is great for subtle things, like switching apps instantly and just having everything ready when I need it. I recently updated from an iPad Air to an iPad Pro 10.5 and the difference in general responsiveness was huge.

I wish the battery life on the phone was longer, and if my day to day was different it might cause me to carry a battery pack around, but I have many opportunities to charge throughout the day so I never actually run out; I sometimes I don't charge during the day until I get back in my car and then it mostly refills on my drive home. On the iPad, I get unbelievable battery life except when I'm really pushing it very hard with the music stuff and in that case I still get reasonable usage; it's not going to die on me in the middle of a set.

I think the iPad and iCloud sync fills roll a desktop dock would fill; my files are always synced between the two devices, so I can start meeting notes in my phone and go to the iPad and it's there. I have a bluetooth keyboard that I use with the iPad, it's replaced a laptop for me. When I eventually get a new Mac, it'll be an iMac this time.

 

[rambis]

Power usage on a CPU is linearly related to frequency and quadratically to voltage. Process nodes allow lower voltage at a given frequency. When you're already working at obscenely low voltages you don't gain much back by lowering voltage a little bit more. When you're working within a low power envelope you waste more of your power budget on switching speed as you go up frequency. You need to balance switching speed and voltage to maximize performance within a given power envelope.

The past four decades we've gotten a lot of switching performance for "free" as process node shrinks have allowed for a massive lowering of voltage and a huge decline down the steepest parts of the voltage curve. You could massively scale frequency while moderately scaling up power. Now we're at the end of the curves and we're fighting for every scrap of performance we can. Mobile is hitting the same point on the curve now.

Right, I was arguing this earlier. I just don't see whats so remarkable here.