I guess for those who are doing 3D modeling or cancer research or nuclear physics on their phone will be thrilled that the iPhone X Max is much faster than the Note 9.
For everyone else, both phones are realistically very fast and no one is going to complain about speed on either one.
Power and efficiency equal longevity. It's extremely important if you plan on keeping a device for a while. The hardware should reasonably be able to keep up with future software demands.
Furthermore, the lack of power can limit what apps will be able to do, thus limiting what app will become available, and which platform a developer would rather work on.
The A12 being so fast and efficient does matter a lot. People trying to downplay it are just being shortsighted, I hope the author can test apps like Adobe Premiere Clips to really show what advantages Apple has over everyone else in real CPU tests. Opening big games like Fortnite and PUBG will also prove that.
Lastly, the fact the A12 is so fast will affect battery life a lot, if a games is locked at 30fps and uses 50% of the GPU on the Note 9 or the A11 chip that same game might only use 25% GPU on the A12 which would give you more playing time, a very nice thing to have.
What Apple is doing is future proofing their devices making sure they are relevant for 4+ years which is not the case in the Android world, the resale value of iPhones really showcase that stark difference!
I guess for those who are doing 3D modeling or cancer research or nuclear physics on their phone will be thrilled that the iPhone X Max is much faster than the Note 9.
For everyone else, both phones are realistically very fast and no one is going to complain about speed on either one.
Power and efficiency equal longevity. It's extremely important if you plan on keeping a device for a while. The hardware should reasonably be able to keep up with future software demands.
Furthermore, the lack of power can limit what apps will be able to do, thus limiting what app will become available, and which platform a developer would rather work on.
Totally agree. At some point you're going to want a new phone.
FWIW my current daily driver, a used 2016 Google Pixel with only 32GB memory doesn't appear to be incompatible with any apps so far, even the newest ones. I've not filled the onboard storage yet, even with 100+ apps installed, and nearly all the computational improvements from last years Pixel 2 like camera features, music identification and such have been ported over to the OG Pixel. Even the newest computational camera features like the fairly impressive low-light capabilities from this years Pixel 3 are also coming to it next month directly via a Google update. So far so good, it's not been left behind yet tho someday it will.
In the past few years I've moved past finding a need to grab the latest/greatest and it seems most improvements of any importance in the newest models end up making their way to the older Pixels too, even the original ones.
The A12 being so fast and efficient does matter a lot. People trying to downplay it are just being shortsighted, I hope the author can test apps like Adobe Premiere Clips to really show what advantages Apple has over everyone else in real CPU tests. Opening big games like Fortnite and PUBG will also prove that.
Lastly, the fact the A12 is so fast will affect battery life a lot, if a games is locked at 30fps and uses 50% of the GPU on the Note 9 or the A11 chip that same game might only use 25% GPU on the A12 which would give you more playing time, a very nice thing to have.
What Apple is doing is future proofing their devices making sure they are relevant for 4+ years which is not the case in the Android world, the resale value of iPhones really showcase that stark difference!
According to this, battery life on the Note 9 beats the XS Max by quite a bit
until my phone can wake me up, make me breakfast, make my bed, clean my room, and declutter my whole house, and do the lawn chores, these benchmarks are meaningless
The loosing side typically makes the 'it's the user experience that matters, not benchmarks' claim. To a certain extent, that is quite true. Personally, I'm incredibly impressed by the performance that Apple's new processors can achieve. I'm still on a 6s, so I'm pretty sure any of the current iPhones would blow my phone out of the water. For that matter, the newer Android phones probably would, too.
One point that may matter is if the system can run at a lower, more efficient speed for the majority of the routine use it would mean better battery life. To some extent that seems to be true, if you look at the relative performance between iPhone generations and battery life, it doesn't seem to make as much a difference as one might hope.
It's only important if someone beats Apple. Then it's VERY important I guess. Samsung should have a new slogan...I'm thinking: "Making the phones no one wants but some people end up with."
People who have Galaxy phones are just as happy with their phones as you are with your iPhone or I am with my iPhone. Can we stop pretending as if Apple is the only company who makes good products or products people want?
Why should we when the other side refuses to admit it? Try getting a Samsung sycophant to admit Apple products are good. Let us know what happens. The only thing you’ll ever get is a big fat “yeah but..."
Android fan sites that I've come across really aren't afraid to talk about the iPhone or admit to it's advantages over Android. A lot of dedicated Android experts are also iPhone owners and users too. I'm not aware of any AI equivalent super-fan, sometimes over-the-top forum on the Android side. Not saying there might not be one. Somewhere. But AppleInsider's forum membership is, well... unique AFAICT.
Certainly this is a forum I personally appreciate for the interesting and quite lively discussions, tips, and techniques.
Unfortunately, Apple Insider has more than its share of fanboys and sycophants who happily believe they were holding it wrong. The same goes for 'fandroids,' etc. I don't frequent Android sites, so I honestly have no idea how common such people are, but I assume they exist. It's frustrating, since there's no way to have a real discussion with such people. They also tend to indirectly feed trolls and ultimately give Apple users a bad name.
The A12 being so fast and efficient does matter a lot. People trying to downplay it are just being shortsighted, I hope the author can test apps like Adobe Premiere Clips to really show what advantages Apple has over everyone else in real CPU tests. Opening big games like Fortnite and PUBG will also prove that.
Lastly, the fact the A12 is so fast will affect battery life a lot, if a games is locked at 30fps and uses 50% of the GPU on the Note 9 or the A11 chip that same game might only use 25% GPU on the A12 which would give you more playing time, a very nice thing to have.
What Apple is doing is future proofing their devices making sure they are relevant for 4+ years which is not the case in the Android world, the resale value of iPhones really showcase that stark difference!
According to this, battery life on the Note 9 beats the XS Max by quite a bit
Yeah, no need to get into a "my dad can beat up your dad" back and forth. The iPhone absolutely has a great processor, fastest available for a smartphone. I don't think most folks do the heavy tasks that take advantage of it, but I don't know that for a fact. Seems to me it's not all that different than dad choosing a desktop computer based on whether it has the latest top-of-the-line processor and the speediest storage so that his emails, social sites, financial planner and web-browser can run as fast as possible.
At the end of the day there's not even really many bad or slow mid-range handsets anymore ($600 or less). Nearly all of the newer ones will accomplish the same tasks and do the same things expected of the most premium handsets for most buyers. For those with more professional needs of course the latest iPhones deserve a hard look even if you've always used Android ones. They're rock solid, excellent support, and hold their value pretty darn well. Nothing at all to complain about hardware or performance-wise. In fact the XR looks to be a relative bargain compared to this year's flagships all things considered.
Otherwise though I doubt most folks would even notice if one handset is .2 seconds faster at loading Candy Crush. The processor speed really won't put any limits on what they want to do with them.
It's only important if someone beats Apple. Then it's VERY important I guess. Samsung should have a new slogan...I'm thinking: "Making the phones no one wants but some people end up with."
People who have Galaxy phones are just as happy with their phones as you are with your iPhone or I am with my iPhone. Can we stop pretending as if Apple is the only company who makes good products or products people want?
So all discussion on products should stop because some people like what they got?
Do you go to car forums and tell them people love their cars so no need to discuss car brands?
Do you go to sports forums and tell them people love their teams so no need to discuss the merits of various teams?
...I suspect not. What the fuck are you talking about here then?
I guess for those who are doing 3D modeling or cancer research or nuclear physics on their phone will be thrilled that the iPhone X Max is much faster than the Note 9.
For everyone else, both phones are realistically very fast and no one is going to complain about speed on either one.
Nonsense. If you do video editing or AR rendering you can see where we hit the limits. These aren't unusual use cases.
And 9to5Mac says the Note 9 crushes the XS Max in battery life. Wonder which one users card about more. I think all these tests are silly. Let’s see someone using the device as they normally would and track how it performs and what battery life is like.
https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/12/iphone-xs-max-battery-life/
I guess for those who are doing 3D modeling or cancer research or nuclear physics on their phone will be thrilled that the iPhone X Max is much faster than the Note 9.
For everyone else, both phones are realistically very fast and no one is going to complain about speed on either one.
Just one of many people whining about Apple processors being faster and trying to claim it doesn't matter.
I don't do cancer research or nuclear physics on my iOS devices. But I do things like photo/video editing. And the iPhone will destroy any Android device on the planet doing those tasks or any others that require a fast processor.
With iOS I have a choice. With Android you don't.
Eric, have you tried using Photoshop Express on both your iPhone and and either a Galaxy S8 or 9, or a Note 8 (9 is not released yet) which are considered some of the better Android OS phones? Was there really a serious difference in practice, enough to claim the iPhone "destroyed them"? It's an honest question, no trolling intended.
Actually I have.
I routinely call out others and ask them to give me some examples of Android Apps they think are on par with iOS equivalents so I can test them on my iPhones and many Android devices (which, thankfully, are bought by my employer so we can do testing on them). The reason I call on others to do this is because I’ll be accused of cherry-picking if I show some examples of iOS Apps beating their Android counterparts. So I let them make the choices. Unfortunately, nobody ever steps up with suggestions as they know what the results would be.
You picked a bad example with Photoshop Express (which is nothing more than fancy Instagram). Not only does it run better on iOS, but the iOS version comes with many features the Android version doesn’t.
And this is another point that was already mentioned. Having processing power means that additional features can be brought to an App. The first example of this was Algoriddim and their Djay App. When the 5S came out they leveraged existing 64bit code from their Mac version and brought several high-end real-time features to the iPhone version. It was almost two years before any Android device could run these features simply because they didn’t have the power.
Back to your Photoshop Express question, the real issue isn’t how an Android and iOS version of the same App perform. It’s that these types of Apps simply don’t exist for Android. Where’s the equivalent to Affinity to Pixelmator?
No surprise that it has become a Apple vs. Samsung debate. But the fact nowadays is that the flagship phones have become so good that one won't be disappointed be any of the flagship phones.
No that's not a "fact", that's an "opinion". Curious that you don't know the difference between the two.
LOLing at all these low-post users coming out of the woodwork to say "But specs don't matter!" No, sweetie -- specs don't matter when you have the best user experience. When you have both the best UX and the best specs, it's noteworthy. Time to re-post Gruber:
You can’t bring this up in public without a certain segment of Android fans losing their goddamn minds over it. “I thought specs don’t matter?” they say, and point to articles I (or whoever else brings this up) wrote in the past arguing that specs aren’t the only thing that matters. Here’s the thing. I would still want to use an iPhone if Apple were using off-the-shelf Snapdragon processors and Samsung were the company producing these proprietary A-series systems-on-a-chip. It’s the same reason I remained a Mac user even during the years when Mac CPUs were hopelessly behind Intel’s in performance. For me, it’s the overall experience that matters, and that’s largely defined by the software platform.
But Samsung isn’t the company with the proprietary chips that blow away the industry commodity chips, Apple is. So iPhone users get the best in both regards: they get the iOS experience and Apple-designed hardware, and they get the vastly superior CPU and GPU. And Android users who want industry-leading performance are shit out of luck. This is unprecedented in computing history. Windows users who want the best CPUs have always had that option. Android users don’t, because the best chips, by far, are Apple’s, and they’re proprietary.
The specs aren’t what matters — the effects are what matters. But the specs are what we can measure, and the faster the chips are, the better the effects are in the user experience.
The A12 being so fast and efficient does matter a lot. People trying to downplay it are just being shortsighted, I hope the author can test apps like Adobe Premiere Clips to really show what advantages Apple has over everyone else in real CPU tests. Opening big games like Fortnite and PUBG will also prove that.
Lastly, the fact the A12 is so fast will affect battery life a lot, if a games is locked at 30fps and uses 50% of the GPU on the Note 9 or the A11 chip that same game might only use 25% GPU on the A12 which would give you more playing time, a very nice thing to have.
What Apple is doing is future proofing their devices making sure they are relevant for 4+ years which is not the case in the Android world, the resale value of iPhones really showcase that stark difference!
According to this, battery life on the Note 9 beats the XS Max by quite a bit
This test is very flawed on so many levels. First, 200 nits on the iPhone is 2/3 brightness? that seems way too high for a phone with a 725 nits at max. Also he doesn't show us the level of brightness the Note 9 is on and left it on 1080p resolution. The most blaring one is the fact Alto's adventure runs at a way bigger resolution on the iPhone, you can see the black bars on the Note 9... Second he uses a lot more Google apps that are going to be written better for android, gmail used 13% battery on the max but only 8% on the Note, you could see the resolution mattered because more text of emails fit in the window on the max. Lastly the majority of the content except youtube was different, loading web pages you get different ads on different platforms he should have used an ad blocker. Instagram had completely different content, the iPhone could have shown more videos than the Note affecting battery. I respect the author and what he is trying to do but this can be improved upon greatly by making it way more fair.
Also easy to find other videos showing the opposite:
And 9to5Mac says the Note 9 crushes the XS Max in battery life. Wonder which one users card about more. I think all these tests are silly. Let’s see someone using the device as they normally would and track how it performs and what battery life is like.
https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/12/iphone-xs-max-battery-life/
My X already has all-day battery life. More than, as it's got plenty to spare when I recharge at bed-time. Since daily charging isn't going away, having the best user experience & best hardware paired with the best speed matters more to me than having more battery but with a crummier user experience on crummier hardware.
Oh but we shouldn't be discussing this! Tylersdad said people love their phones so no need to discuss!
The A12 being so fast and efficient does matter a lot. People trying to downplay it are just being shortsighted, I hope the author can test apps like Adobe Premiere Clips to really show what advantages Apple has over everyone else in real CPU tests. Opening big games like Fortnite and PUBG will also prove that.
Lastly, the fact the A12 is so fast will affect battery life a lot, if a games is locked at 30fps and uses 50% of the GPU on the Note 9 or the A11 chip that same game might only use 25% GPU on the A12 which would give you more playing time, a very nice thing to have.
What Apple is doing is future proofing their devices making sure they are relevant for 4+ years which is not the case in the Android world, the resale value of iPhones really showcase that stark difference!
According to this, battery life on the Note 9 beats the XS Max by quite a bit
Yeah, no need to get into a "my dad can beat up your dad" back and forth. The iPhone absolutely has a great processor, fastest available for a smartphone. I don't think most folks do the heavy tasks that take advantage of it, but I don't know that for a fact. Seems to me it's not all that different than dad choosing a desktop computer based on whether it has the latest top-of-the-line processor and the speediest storage so that his emails, social sites, financial planner and web-browser can run as fast as possible.
At the end of the day there's not even really many bad or slow mid-range handsets anymore ($600 or less). Nearly all of the newer ones will accomplish the same tasks and do the same things expected of the most premium handsets for most buyers. For those with more professional needs of course the latest iPhones deserve a hard look even if you've always used Android ones. They're rock solid, excellent support, and hold their value pretty darn well. Nothing at all to complain about hardware or performance-wise. In fact the XR looks to be a relative bargain compared to this year's flagships all things considered.
Otherwise though I doubt most folks would even notice if one handset is .2 seconds faster at loading Candy Crush. The processor speed really won't put any limits on what they want to do with them.
One thing that Apple has done in software, which may or may not be noticeable, is improving the CPU ramp speed; ramp up fast, finish the task, ramp down. It should give the user a noticeably smoother UI.
Speed and responsiveness are at the top of Apple's list for the enhancements in iOS 12. Everything you do across the system on iPhone and iPad will happen faster. Apple has overhauled iOS for performance across its device lineup.
You should also notice improved animations, with everything looking and feeling smoother and more responsive.
Apple is also getting smarter about when to ramp up CPU performance. So when you're launching an app or scrolling quickly, for instance, the CPU will give you a burst of speed by ramping up immediately, then back down in order to preserve battery life.
Will apps launch any faster?
In some of its testing, Apple saw app launches up to 40% faster in day-to-day use compared to the same device running iOS 11.4. When multitasking with a lot of apps, launches were up to two times faster.
Other common tasks should be faster, too. Swiping to the Camera from the Lock screen? Up to 70% faster. Launching the Keyboard sees boosts of up to 50%. And the Share sheet, which, on every iOS device I've ever owned has taken its sweet time in launching, now appears up to two times more quickly than in iOS 11.4.
Are these improvements coming to older devices?
Indeed they are. In fact, many of these improvements are aimed at older devices. In particular, the speed improvements. The numbers mentioned above were taken from tests that Apple performed on an iPhone 6 Plus, a phone that came out in 2014.
Apple also claims that performance has been improved for devices as old as the iPhone 5s and the iPad Air.
I'm a bit cautious about synthetic tests for battery life because of that CPU ramping; it may not be very representative of real world battery life. YMMV.
I guess for those who are doing 3D modeling or cancer research or nuclear physics on their phone will be thrilled that the iPhone X Max is much faster than the Note 9.
For everyone else, both phones are realistically very fast and no one is going to complain about speed on either one.
Nonsense. If you do video editing or AR rendering you can see where we hit the limits. These aren't unusual use cases.
I must have missed the part of the article where they compared the iPhone vs Note 9 actually running the apps that edit video or render AR and not synthetic benchmarks which many times the results do not translate into real-world results.
And, you pretty much agree with what I am saying in the first place, just take out my examples and add in "video editing or AR rendering". What would you estimate the percentage of people that actually do that with their phones? Pretty small I would think.
The loosing side typically makes the 'it's the user experience that matters, not benchmarks' claim. To a certain extent, that is quite true. Personally, I'm incredibly impressed by the performance that Apple's new processors can achieve. I'm still on a 6s, so I'm pretty sure any of the current iPhones would blow my phone out of the water. For that matter, the newer Android phones probably would, too.
You might be surprised. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 as used in the just-launched Pixel 3 roughly matches the A9 used in the iPhone 6s and SE. Samsung's own top-end processors are about 18 months ahead of that, then Apple's processors are another 18 months ahead of Samsung's.
I guess for those who are doing 3D modeling or cancer research or nuclear physics on their phone will be thrilled that the iPhone X Max is much faster than the Note 9.
For everyone else, both phones are realistically very fast and no one is going to complain about speed on either one.
Just one of many people whining about Apple processors being faster and trying to claim it doesn't matter.
I don't do cancer research or nuclear physics on my iOS devices. But I do things like photo/video editing. And the iPhone will destroy any Android device on the planet doing those tasks or any others that require a fast processor.
With iOS I have a choice. With Android you don't.
You have a choice of WHAT with iOS?
If you're part of the handful of people that rely on their phone to do heavy photo/video editing, then by all means, get an iPhone X Max. If you're the rest of the world, then get whatever you want because you'll probably not notice a difference when checking email, doing Facebook, or streaming a movie.
I guess for those who are doing 3D modeling or cancer research or nuclear physics on their phone will be thrilled that the iPhone X Max is much faster than the Note 9.
For everyone else, both phones are realistically very fast and no one is going to complain about speed on either one.
When you edit high res video you will notice a big difference. Lots of people do this on their phones. Also, a 1,5 year old iPhone will be just as fast as a new Android. Sounds pretty important to me.
Lots of people? On phones? I suppose you mean occasionally. Sounds like torture.
People buy premium phones with premium SoCs in the millions.
While benchmarks are nice, the reality is that for the vast majority of users and for the vast majority of their daily phone use, they won't notice a big difference in actual speed derived from the processor.
They are far more likely to notice non-processor-core related areas such as camera, battery, charging, modem etc.
Comments
Power and efficiency equal longevity. It's extremely important if you plan on keeping a device for a while. The hardware should reasonably be able to keep up with future software demands.
Furthermore, the lack of power can limit what apps will be able to do, thus limiting what app will become available, and which platform a developer would rather work on.
Lastly, the fact the A12 is so fast will affect battery life a lot, if a games is locked at 30fps and uses 50% of the GPU on the Note 9 or the A11 chip that same game might only use 25% GPU on the A12 which would give you more playing time, a very nice thing to have.
What Apple is doing is future proofing their devices making sure they are relevant for 4+ years which is not the case in the Android world, the resale value of iPhones really showcase that stark difference!
FWIW my current daily driver, a used 2016 Google Pixel with only 32GB memory doesn't appear to be incompatible with any apps so far, even the newest ones. I've not filled the onboard storage yet, even with 100+ apps installed, and nearly all the computational improvements from last years Pixel 2 like camera features, music identification and such have been ported over to the OG Pixel. Even the newest computational camera features like the fairly impressive low-light capabilities from this years Pixel 3 are also coming to it next month directly via a Google update. So far so good, it's not been left behind yet tho someday it will.
In the past few years I've moved past finding a need to grab the latest/greatest and it seems most improvements of any importance in the newest models end up making their way to the older Pixels too, even the original ones.
https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/12/iphone-xs-max-battery-life/
At the end of the day there's not even really many bad or slow mid-range handsets anymore ($600 or less). Nearly all of the newer ones will accomplish the same tasks and do the same things expected of the most premium handsets for most buyers. For those with more professional needs of course the latest iPhones deserve a hard look even if you've always used Android ones. They're rock solid, excellent support, and hold their value pretty darn well. Nothing at all to complain about hardware or performance-wise. In fact the XR looks to be a relative bargain compared to this year's flagships all things considered.
Otherwise though I doubt most folks would even notice if one handset is .2 seconds faster at loading Candy Crush. The processor speed really won't put any limits on what they want to do with them.
Do you go to car forums and tell them people love their cars so no need to discuss car brands?
Do you go to sports forums and tell them people love their teams so no need to discuss the merits of various teams?
...I suspect not. What the fuck are you talking about here then?
Nonsense. If you do video editing or AR rendering you can see where we hit the limits. These aren't unusual use cases.
Actually I have.
I routinely call out others and ask them to give me some examples of Android Apps they think are on par with iOS equivalents so I can test them on my iPhones and many Android devices (which, thankfully, are bought by my employer so we can do testing on them). The reason I call on others to do this is because I’ll be accused of cherry-picking if I show some examples of iOS Apps beating their Android counterparts. So I let them make the choices. Unfortunately, nobody ever steps up with suggestions as they know what the results would be.
You picked a bad example with Photoshop Express (which is nothing more than fancy Instagram). Not only does it run better on iOS, but the iOS version comes with many features the Android version doesn’t.
And this is another point that was already mentioned. Having processing power means that additional features can be brought to an App. The first example of this was Algoriddim and their Djay App. When the 5S came out they leveraged existing 64bit code from their Mac version and brought several high-end real-time features to the iPhone version. It was almost two years before any Android device could run these features simply because they didn’t have the power.
Back to your Photoshop Express question, the real issue isn’t how an Android and iOS version of the same App perform. It’s that these types of Apps simply don’t exist for Android. Where’s the equivalent to Affinity to Pixelmator?
No that's not a "fact", that's an "opinion". Curious that you don't know the difference between the two.
LOLing at all these low-post users coming out of the woodwork to say "But specs don't matter!" No, sweetie -- specs don't matter when you have the best user experience. When you have both the best UX and the best specs, it's noteworthy. Time to re-post Gruber:
--------------
https://daringfireball.net/2017/09/iphone_x_event_thoughts_and_observations
You can’t bring this up in public without a certain segment of Android fans losing their goddamn minds over it. “I thought specs don’t matter?” they say, and point to articles I (or whoever else brings this up) wrote in the past arguing that specs aren’t the only thing that matters. Here’s the thing. I would still want to use an iPhone if Apple were using off-the-shelf Snapdragon processors and Samsung were the company producing these proprietary A-series systems-on-a-chip. It’s the same reason I remained a Mac user even during the years when Mac CPUs were hopelessly behind Intel’s in performance. For me, it’s the overall experience that matters, and that’s largely defined by the software platform.
But Samsung isn’t the company with the proprietary chips that blow away the industry commodity chips, Apple is. So iPhone users get the best in both regards: they get the iOS experience and Apple-designed hardware, and they get the vastly superior CPU and GPU. And Android users who want industry-leading performance are shit out of luck. This is unprecedented in computing history. Windows users who want the best CPUs have always had that option. Android users don’t, because the best chips, by far, are Apple’s, and they’re proprietary.
The specs aren’t what matters — the effects are what matters. But the specs are what we can measure, and the faster the chips are, the better the effects are in the user experience.
Also easy to find other videos showing the opposite:
Oh but we shouldn't be discussing this! Tylersdad said people love their phones so no need to discuss!
https://www.imore.com/performance-ios-12-everything-you-need-know
Is my iPhone going to feel faster?
Speed and responsiveness are at the top of Apple's list for the enhancements in iOS 12. Everything you do across the system on iPhone and iPad will happen faster. Apple has overhauled iOS for performance across its device lineup.
You should also notice improved animations, with everything looking and feeling smoother and more responsive.
Apple is also getting smarter about when to ramp up CPU performance. So when you're launching an app or scrolling quickly, for instance, the CPU will give you a burst of speed by ramping up immediately, then back down in order to preserve battery life.
Will apps launch any faster?
In some of its testing, Apple saw app launches up to 40% faster in day-to-day use compared to the same device running iOS 11.4. When multitasking with a lot of apps, launches were up to two times faster.
Other common tasks should be faster, too. Swiping to the Camera from the Lock screen? Up to 70% faster. Launching the Keyboard sees boosts of up to 50%. And the Share sheet, which, on every iOS device I've ever owned has taken its sweet time in launching, now appears up to two times more quickly than in iOS 11.4.
Are these improvements coming to older devices?
Indeed they are. In fact, many of these improvements are aimed at older devices. In particular, the speed improvements. The numbers mentioned above were taken from tests that Apple performed on an iPhone 6 Plus, a phone that came out in 2014.
Apple also claims that performance has been improved for devices as old as the iPhone 5s and the iPad Air.
I'm a bit cautious about synthetic tests for battery life because of that CPU ramping; it may not be very representative of real world battery life. YMMV.
And, you pretty much agree with what I am saying in the first place, just take out my examples and add in "video editing or AR rendering". What would you estimate the percentage of people that actually do that with their phones? Pretty small I would think.
If you're part of the handful of people that rely on their phone to do heavy photo/video editing, then by all means, get an iPhone X Max. If you're the rest of the world, then get whatever you want because you'll probably not notice a difference when checking email, doing Facebook, or streaming a movie.
People buy premium phones with premium SoCs in the millions.
While benchmarks are nice, the reality is that for the vast majority of users and for the vast majority of their daily phone use, they won't notice a big difference in actual speed derived from the processor.
They are far more likely to notice non-processor-core related areas such as camera, battery, charging, modem etc.