Tech Blog

[#1]

 The new iPhone 3.0 software was released yesterday, and with it a promise of a more powerful performance for all, but not necessarily a faster speed - for that, you'll need the new iPhone 3GS which will be released tomorrow morning.

The new iPhone 3.0 software does address some performance issues, so I thought a comparison experiment of new and old would be in order to see how impressive the software upgrade is.

I checked out 2 free iPhone Apps, the Xtreme Labs Speedtest and Ookla Speed Test, on both my local 3G network and my home WiFi network.

Ookla Speed Test also has a web based app, so for fun I compared my iPhone WiFi speed to my MacBook WiFi speed on the home network which had me putting the foot on the gas to 8.74 Mbps down and .48 Mbps up.

That's about 5 seconds for a 5MB mp3 file, or 33 seconds for a 35MB video clip at home, the download times would be about double that via WiFi on my iPhone and 8x that on my iPhone over 3G.

Here's how the old and new software broke down over with the 3G speeds (down/up) followed by the WiFi speeds (down/up).  The approximate time to download a 5MB mp3 file is also included in brackets for the iPhone 2.21 tests.

ookla Speed Test      

iphone 2.21  1075 kbps (37s) / 185 kbps     6338 kbps (6s) / 470 kbps

iphone 3.0             1390 kbps / 124 kbps               5438 kbps / 472 kbps

xtreme speedtest    

iphone 2.21  928 kbps (43s ) / 220 kbps     4519 kbps (9s) / 334 kbps

iphone 3.0              2135 kbps / 234 kbps              3541 kbps / 367 kbps 

This wasnt a controlled test,  and the results could have been affected by many outside variables.  It was merely to show the relative difference between the services. 

It's obvious the WiFi network is much faster for the iPhone, but if you leave it on, constantly searching for open points, it can be a bit of a drain on your battery.  The iPhone will also default to a WiFi provider instead of a 3G connection, so even if it finds one that looks open, but requires you to buy time or use a connection password, it can be frustrating to constantly enter your settings and switch off WiFi.

Unless I'm going to be home for the night, or sitting in a cafe with a known WiFi signal, I just usually leave it off and access the web via 3G.  Slow, I know - but hey, I'm paying for 6 gigs a month and barely using 300MB, so I might as well try to squeeze all the juice I can from the service each month.

The speed tests are useful now that we can do tethering on the iPhone 3G with the iPhone 3.0 software.  With the upgrade, you can now use your iPhone as a virtual modem for your notebook, either connected via USB or over the air via Bluetooth, but you'll see those 3G speeds are hardly eye popping and will quickly have your mind wandering back to the mid 90s when you were churning out web pages on a 14.4 modem.

However, by running a quick speed test, you can determine how long it will take you to get things done on the fly and whether or not rolling on the 3G service is worth your time or you should pony up for the WiFi charges wherever you are.

catch the buzz ... pass it on.

Message Edited by buzzbishop on 06-18-2009 06:24 AM

Message Edited by ElizabethS on 07-25-2009 11:22 PM

Message Edited by ElizabethS on 07-28-2009 12:42 AM

Message Edited by ElizabethS on 09-10-2009 08:00 PM