1

Hi my aim is to get an idea of the slowdown 3rd party apps face on android, relative to the stock browser, on the SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks. In this post I would like to focus on Twitter since it is available on both iPhone and android.

As everyone is aware there are restrictions on iOS which means that 3rd party apps perform significantly slower on JavaScript functionality relative to Safari (the stock browser on iPhone).

I have an iPhone 4S with iOS 6.1.3. When I run the benchmark SunSpider 1.0 JavaScript Benchmark (see lower down for how I run SunSpider inside Twitter) then I get the following :

Safari : 1833ms +/- 1.3%
Twitter : 6900.1ms +/- 0.3% (Chrome browser etc also perform around this time).

Therefore I see a slowdown of 6900.1/1833 = 3.7 times.

What sort of slowdown do people get on Android (when comparing Twitter to the stock android browser)?

Note I run sunspider inside twitter by doing a search for "sunspider h". Then the 5th result from the top is :

"The H - News
JavaScript benchmark Sunspider reaches version 1.0..."

I click the hyperlink and then in the resulting webpage scroll down to the hyperlink in the line : "The new version of Sunspider is available to use...". In this way I run sunspider from within Twitter.

Improve this question
5
  • 1
    On Android depending on the version the 'stock browser' could be a generic Browser or on newer versions it's Chrome. I think (not totally sure) that if you're comparing the generic Browser to in app speed you'll find they're the same since they both use WebViews. EDIT: Check out stackoverflow.com/questions/7373585/… apparently the Browser is different for each manufacturer as they change the code.
    – Peanut
    Commented May 12, 2013 at 10:27
  • Wow, nice to know that there is potentially no slowdown on Android. Thanks
    – artella
    Commented May 12, 2013 at 10:47
  • 1
    I've just tried opening a web link in Twitter and it opened in Chrome so not sure Twitter has in-app browsing. Just tried it in the Reddit Is Fun app (since I knew it had in-app browsing) and got a score of 1720ms and on Chrome I get 1747ms... Which seems odd. I'd have thought Chrome would be faster. I can post up the screen shots of the results if this does as an answer for you.
    – Peanut
    Commented May 12, 2013 at 11:25
  • @Peanut Hi thanks for your benchmark results. Strange that Twitter on iphone has in-app browser but doesnt on android. I am quite impressed with your results. Which phone do you use? No need for the screenshots. Thank you.
    – artella
    Commented May 12, 2013 at 17:55
  • Which seems odd. I'd have thought Chrome would be faster Why? This is wrong assumption, Chrome is usually slower.
    – Suncatcher
    Commented Jan 11, 2018 at 13:53

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

As I mentioned in the comments the Twitter app doesn't seen to have an in-app browser so I'm using the Reddit Is Fun app instead since I know it does. I think that all in-app browsing uses a WebView so it should be the same across all apps. The WebView and Chrome both use the WebKit engine but Chrome seems to use a more up-to-date one. I tried out SunSpider on a few different devices and on the S2 with the Browser.

Nexus 7

Running Android 4.2.2, Chrome 26.0.1410.58
Chrome: 1747ms (WebKit 537.31)
In-app: 1720ms (WebKit 534.30)

Nexus S

Running Android 4.1.2, Chrome 18.0.1025.166, 
Chrome: 3443.7ms (WebKit 535.19)
In-app: 4307.1ms (WebKit 534.30)

Samgsung Galaxy S2

Running Android 4.1.1 Resurrection Remix v3.8 ROM.
Browser: 1488.8ms (WebKit 534.30)
In-app: 1614.2ms (WebKit 534.30)

I ran the tests twice as I was suprised at the speed of the Galaxy S2 compared to the Nexus 7 but got roughly the same figures.

Improve this answer
0

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .