HTML5 performance in Apple's iOS 5 tops Windows Phone 'Mango'

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Though Microsoft has touted its forthcoming update to Windows Phone 7, codenamed "Mango," as having better HTML5 performance than Apple's iPhone, new tests run using an iPhone 4 with the iOS 5 beta outpace the Windows Phone results.



Microsoft demoed the Mango update last month boasting 500 new features, including a mobile version of Internet Explorer 9. In a preview video, Microsoft vice president Joe Belfiore ran a test between phones running Windows Phone 7, Android, BlackBerry OS and iOS and declared Windows Phone the winner.



According to the test, Microsoft's device rendered HTML5 content at 24 frames per second, compared to 2 frames per second on the iPhone 4. It should be noted, however that the test was developed by Microsoft specifically for mobile IE9 and the tested iPhone 4 was using Wi-Fi only, while other devices appeared to be using a 3G connection.



Apple may have beat Microsoft at its own test, though, as an iPhone 4 running the beta release of iOS 5 has reached 31 frames per second on the test, as noted by WinRumors. However, a screenshot demonstrating the test results still lists the iOS 4.3 version of Mobile Safari.



While it remains unclear whether Apple has added full HTML5 hardware acceleration to mobile Safari in iOS 5, the mobile web browsing experience has seen substantial performance boosts in the latest version of iOS. For example, iOS 5 adds support for the Nitro JavaScript engine to full-screen Web apps.







Windows Phone 7 and iOS 5 are both scheduled for a fall release, though Microsoft and Apple have yet to set specific release dates.



Apple unveiled iOS 5 earlier this month at the Worldwide Developers Conference. The free update is billed as having a PC-free design with wireless syncing and updates. Apple boasts 200 new user features and 1500 APIs in iOS 5.



Meanwhile, Microsoft has teamed up with Nokia, reportedly paying billions to Nokia in exchange for the company's commitment to Windows Phone 7. In February, Nokia announced plans to ditch its Symbian mobile operating system and begin making smartphones running Windows Phone. Nokia confirmed last month that the first of its devices to run Windows Phone 7 will feature the Mango update.







Research group IDC predicts the Microsoft and Nokia partnership will help boost Windows Phone market share from 3.8 percent in 2011 to 20.3 percent in 2015, while Apple's share of the worldwide smartphone market is expected to dip from 18.2 percent to 16.9 percent during the same period.

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 51
    The game's afoot! Or a foot

    I expect the title of fastest to move between the major players, but it's good to see Microsoft taking HTML5 seriously.
  • Reply 2 of 51
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post


    The game's afoot! Or a foot

    I expect the title of fastest to move between the major players, but it's good to see Microsoft taking HTML5 seriously.



    I'm waiting for the MS bashing to start, but it really shouldn't. They've made bigger strides in web code than anyone else in the past two years. Of course they had a lot of catching up to do but they have done a great job. I think they are still the only browser the HW accelerates Canvas unless that iOS 5.0 Safari build is including it in WebKit 2.0.





    edit: I got 27 fps on iPad 2 with iOS 5.0b1 and 60 fps on my MBP running Lion Preview 4. What MS says about the Speed Reading Test:
    Quote:

    Thanks for checking out this Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview demo. This demo uses animation techniques to flip 96 letters as fast as possible. The more powerful the underlying computer and the browser, the faster the images will flip. This demo uses HTML5 Canvas and HTML5 Audio. It's a fun way to demonstrate how Internet Explorer 9's overall performance, from hardware accelerated graphics, to compiled javascript, to hardware accelerated canvas, will enable a new generation of HTML5 applications. The purpose of these demos is to convey a concept and is not intended to be used as a best practice for web development. To start the test please press the (Enter) key a few seconds after the page loads. Enjoy!



    edit2: Just booted into SL from same machine and only got 3 fps for the exact same Speed Reading test. We got some super secret browser boosting. Now we'll have to wait and see if Canvas adds any real value to the web.
  • Reply 3 of 51
    hittrj01hittrj01 Posts: 753member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I'm waiting for the MS bashing to start, but it really shouldn't. They've made bigger strides in web code than anyone else in the past two years. Of course they had a lot of catching up to do but they have done a great job. I think they are still the only browser the HW accelerates Canvas unless that iOS 5.0 Safari build is including it in WebKit 2.0.



    I agree, Microsoft has been doing a great job with IE lately. The only thing that I want to see is a proper extensions platform a la Firefox or Chrome and I will have no issue switching back to it. It is faster and a lot smaller than any other browser on Windows now.
  • Reply 4 of 51
    dagamer34dagamer34 Posts: 494member
    Doesn't matter whether Windows Phone or iOS is faster, in the end, we, the users, win!
  • Reply 5 of 51
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    I still don't get HTML5. As a Flash replacement it sucks. Ajax also sucks or has limited usefulness since it destroys the back button. Video is the main interest relating to the <video> tag which is all screwed up because of infighting. What good is it?
  • Reply 6 of 51
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    I still don't get HTML5. As a Flash replacement it sucks. Ajax also sucks or has limited usefulness since it destroys the back button. Video is the main interest relating to the <video> tag which is all screwed up because of infighting. What good is it?



    Open up gmail or apple.com in Safari or Chrome. Then try it with IE6 and tell me you can't see what HTML5 and AJAX are good.
  • Reply 7 of 51
    ljocampoljocampo Posts: 657member
    I have no doubt that Microsoft can compete with iOS in the long run. And that is good for everyone. In the video, I didn't like the way WP7 Mango did the flip from portrait to landscape views. It wasn't sensed automatically. This was a video demo and in the wild will be the real test. I hope Apple will not take MS lightly, although I'm sure they won't. I still love my iPhone and think it's better in overall, but competition can only make the iPhone better.
  • Reply 8 of 51
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Open up gmail or apple.com in Safari or Chrome. Then try it with IE6 and tell me you can't see what HTML5 and AJAX are good.



    Whatever... do I have to use IE to understand anything? I don't think so.
  • Reply 9 of 51
    rtm135rtm135 Posts: 310member
    Seriously, WTS is IDC smoking? Or are they just on Ballmer's payroll? There's nothing out there to indicate that Apple won't dominate the phone space just as MS dominates the desktop space.



    "Research group IDC predicts the Microsoft and Nokia partnership will help boost Windows Phone market share from 3.8 percent in 2011 to 20.3 percent in 2015, while Apple's share of the worldwide smartphone market is expected to dip from 18.2 percent to 16.9 percent during the same period."
  • Reply 10 of 51
    irontedironted Posts: 129member
    On another note, here's why RIM is going down: Their Blackberry OS is buggy as hell.



    http://www.streetinsider.com/Analyst...R/6591395.html



    "According to BoyGeniusReport (BGR), RIM has been forcing carriers to accept its products which would normally not make it through the "Technical Acceptance" phase, as RIM looks to keep itself afloat before new product launches in 2012.



    Technical Acceptance comes after internal testing by the manufacturer of an OS software build. The manufacturer sends its internally-tested product to the carrier for further testing. The carrier may then accept or rejects it; if rejected, a revamped OS could take weeks to modify and approve. This is what may be delaying the tablet PC releases for RIM."



    Feel free to link to the article, DED(er, I mean AppleInsider)
  • Reply 11 of 51
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I'm waiting for the MS bashing to start, but it really shouldn't. They've made bigger strides in web code than anyone else in the past two years. Of course they had a lot of catching up to do but they have done a great job. I think they are still the only browser the HW accelerates Canvas unless that iOS 5.0 Safari build is including it in WebKit 2.0.





    edit: I got 27 fps on iPad 2 with iOS 5.0b1 and 60 fps on my MBP running Lion Preview 4. What MS says about the Speed Reading Test:



    edit2: Just booted into SL from same machine and only got 3 fps for the exact same Speed Reading test. We got some super secret browser boosting. Now we'll have to wait and see if Canvas adds any real value to the web.



    It's also the difference between GPU accelerated and software stack accelerated Canvas.



    Canvas is not hardware accelerated in other than OS X Lion.



    Even the latest Unstable Chrome on Linux has dropped WebGL enabled support at the present time, though I had it working just fine around two weeks prior.



    They're going to artificially raise the minimum GPU requirement on this feature and force people to upgrade to leverage it. That across all platforms. This is a nod to Nvidia and AMD to get more sales.
  • Reply 12 of 51
    gromitgromit Posts: 37member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Research group IDC predicts the Microsoft and Nokia partnership will help boost Windows Phone market share from 3.8 percent in 2011 to 20.3 percent in 2015, while Apple's share of the worldwide smartphone market is expected to dip from 18.2 percent to 16.9 percent during the same period.





    That would be rather spectacular. But it is difficult to see the basis for such optimistic numbers. If Microsoft do take a big chunk of marketshare, it will be from Android, not Apple.
  • Reply 13 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I'm waiting for the MS bashing to start, but it really shouldn't.



    That'd be like kicking a puppy. Too easy
  • Reply 14 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I'm waiting for the MS bashing to start, but it really shouldn't. They've made bigger strides in web code than anyone else in the past two years.



    read: Most Improved.
  • Reply 15 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    I still don't get HTML5. As a Flash replacement it sucks. Ajax also sucks or has limited usefulness since it destroys the back button. Video is the main interest relating to the <video> tag which is all screwed up because of infighting. What good is it?



    Html5 isn't a Flash replacement, try again. It is only part of several technologies that replace Flash brilliantly. CSS3 is one, javascript another. Ajax is just a combination of javascript/xml and really is not the that much of a forerunner at this point. Do try to do some research before dismissing anything with the wave of your hand. And while you are at it look at these html5 examples - http://tumultco.com/hype/gallery/



    As an aside, I was trying to make simple image rollovers, I was using Dreamweaver CS5, the code it spewed out was crazy, so I searched the web and found a way to do image rollovers using CSS only, super clean, super fast. No crazy Dreamweaver produced javascript, no preloads. There ARE better ways now than the antiquated way that Adobe wants to keep us stuck in.



    *ETA* here is some more reading material for you... http://mashable.com/2011/05/20/hype/
  • Reply 16 of 51
    inkswampinkswamp Posts: 337member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    I still don't get HTML5. As a Flash replacement it sucks.



    Eh?! How on earth can you make a qualitative statement about something you admit you "don't get"?
  • Reply 17 of 51
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ggbrigette View Post




    *ETA* here is some more reading material for you... http://mashable.com/2011/05/20/hype/



    Heh, I entered that Ferry Corsten contest
  • Reply 18 of 51
    firefly7475firefly7475 Posts: 1,502member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I think they are still the only browser the HW accelerates Canvas unless that iOS 5.0 Safari build is including it in WebKit 2.0



    iOS 5 has to be hardware accelerated, doesn't it? It has jumped from 2 FPS in iOS 4 to 31 FPS in iOS 5.



    I think it's hard to draw any "Mango"/iOS5 comparisons at this point because the hardware that the test was running on was totally different, but I think it looks like both mobile browsers will have accelerated HTML5.
  • Reply 19 of 51
    therbotherbo Posts: 70member
    Microsofts Test are designed to flop in other browsers, have you ever tried a real HTML5 test in IE9? You get a few FPS compared to 30FPS in Chrome and Safari. Its one of them things Microsoft do in order to get people to move IE9, make shoddy test.



    Its no surprise the iPhone gets higher, HTML5 is hacked into Trident where WebKit is built around HTML5 and HTML5 is built around Webkit.
  • Reply 20 of 51
    firefly7475firefly7475 Posts: 1,502member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Therbo View Post


    Microsofts Test are designed to flop in other browsers, have you ever tried a real HTML5 test in IE9? You get a few FPS compared to 30FPS in Chrome and Safari.



    Their tests are designed for IE in that they utilize the HTML5 Canvas 2D element that IE accelerates and not all other browsers do.



    It's not like they have custom code that only runs in IE or something. It's all pure HTML5.



    If IE isn't at or near the top in other HTML5 Canvas benchmarks you are running then you don't have hardware acceleration enabled. From memory having really old drivers or a crap GPU can cause that to happen.



    Some other independent tests that mimic Microsoft's own results are here and here.
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