Remember that Android versus iOS browser speed test we posted about this morning? We updated it with information from the company that conducted the tests, Blaze Software, saying that it wasn’t entirely accurate and may misrepresent reality. Well, we’d like to be a little more clear on that issue.
Blaze Software ran a thoroughly flawed test that yielded results that offer absolutely no value whatsoever.
Oh, I’m sorry. Was I being harsh?
Why would any individual or company make claims about mobile browsers when tests are performed on proprietary or third-party software? It’s ridiculous. That’s why the “based on Chrome” thing sounded funny — the test didn’t actually use Android’s default browser, nor did it use mobile Safari.
Apple spoke with The Loop:
“Their testing is flawed because they didn’t actually test the Safari web browser on the iPhone,” Apple spokesperson, Natalie Kerris, told The Loop. “Instead they only tested their own proprietary app which uses an embedded web viewer that doesn’t take advantage of Safari’s web performance optimizations. Despite this fundamental testing flaw, they still only found an average of a second difference in loading web pages.”
Or perhaps it was the media’s fault for hyping up the story. In fact, Blaze’s own documentation said that the “measurement itself was done using the custom apps which use the platform’s embedded browser. This means WebView (based on Chrome) for Android, and UIWebView (based on Safari) for iPhone.” It’s important to note that UIWebView, which is apparently based on Safari for the iPhone, doesn’t have the same JavaScript enhancements that the actual Safari browser received in the iOS 4.3 update.
Blaze admitted that it had no idea what it was doing when running these tests, and that the tests are flawed and inaccurate.
So there you have it, folks. Hopefully you Android and iOS fanboys didn’t get too crazy. You’d probably have results just as good, if not even better, if you were to conduct the tests at home with two phones and a cheap stopwatch.
[Via: The Loop]