Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
I purchased the ipad 4 after returning my mini (which I'm still dreading)...

Anyway, I'm going over a performance review and I've noticed something I'm not happy about; something that I thought would be exactly the same on the ipad 4 but even faster since it does clock faster than my iphone 5.

Try this:

Use your iphone 5 and load up anythign you want. I have the following loaded, Camera+, settings, infinity blade 2, real racing 2, angry birds, safari, mail, contacts, facetime, and the regular camera app.

Now you don't have to have the same list of apps, just open up a bunch and try the following:

task switch between any app. On the iphone5 , it's near instantaneous (right after you switch to the app, you can navigate around, use gestures, move the screen, tap, play the game, etc). For infinity blade 2, it's basically never more than 1.5 seconds at most for any "lag". For camera+ and stock camera app, it's instantaneous when switched to. Almost any game app, it is very fast and any other app, it's near instantaneous.

Now try it on your ipad 4. There is around 4-6 seconds of lag between switching! Sometimes even switching to the settings, there is a noticeable 2 second delay. I did not expect this because I what I was so ecstatic about on my iphone 5 was the near instant user experience such as switching apps. On the ipad 4, it's nearly identical to the ipad 3, the ipad 2/mini!

Although after some thorough testing, the ipad 4 for web surfing is indeed noticeably faster, it's not as noticeable as my iphone 5. I don't know, I think I'm going to return this ipad 4 and go back to my mini. I did not expect an ipad 3S-like ipad 4 to perform nearly the same as an ipad 3/ipad 2/mini. My iphone 5 uses an A6 with the same amount of ram and the clock on the processor is slower than the ipad 4 but yet it outperforms the ipad 4. Perhaps the retina display is indeed a real burden?

Anyone with an ipad 4 / iphone 5 concur? Or maybe I'm just not realistic?:confused:
 

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
Another finding is that if using a 3rd party browser on the iphone 5, even in sunspider, I'm getting results like under 2100ms from mercury browser. The same browser running on the ipad 4, i get a whopping 3640ms!!

The web surfing (SPEED) experience on the iphone 5 is very very good. The screen is very small to do any real good but it's still very good. On the ipad, the 3rd party browser (mercury browser) is just slow as molasses. There is just something wrong with iOS 6 on the ipad 4's A6X. There is no way it is underperforming this much!
 

LanEvo

macrumors 6502
Sep 5, 2010
434
2
NorCal
What screen size is the iPad? And what screen size is the iPhone 5? I think you will find your answer there when you answer these questions...
 

mrkjsn

macrumors 6502
Jan 10, 2010
265
0
Wirelessly posted

The A6 on the iPad has much more real estate to cover than the iPhone...retina at that.
 
M

Mr.damien

Guest
I am not sure that this have anything to do with the processor. It's mainly memory bandwidth to me. Taking longer time to load retina 10" gui pictures in memory than 4" ones.
 

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
I am not sure that this have anything to do with the processor. It's mainly memory bandwidth to me. Taking longer time to load retina 10" gui pictures in memory than 4" ones.

The ipad 4 has much more bandwidth capacity than the iphone 5 - that's already written down, see the anandtech preview/reviews. I'm thinking it has to do with the retina (and yes, maybe the way ios 6 is underutilizing that A6X).

Man, this entire ipad 4 is really a let down so far. :(
 

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
Hey, I'll take it off your hands if it's that much of a let down. I don't mind.

lol, I'm not exactly giving it away for free ;) Ill wait and see what ios 7 brings to the table. It's gotta be a software thing! Do you even notice that the maps app in 3D runs about the same stuttering speeds as the ipad 3? I see no real benefit of the A6X being used thus far!
 

edwrap

macrumors regular
Nov 7, 2012
106
231
On the iPad, are you switching via the recent apps bar or via multitouch swipe? I've found there's a 1-2 second delay on the latter (the initial image is a screenshot of the app), but an imperceptible one of the former. On the iPhone, obviously you'd have no choice in the matter, so maybe that partly explains the speed difference you're seeing.
 

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
On the iPad, are you switching via the recent apps bar or via multitouch swipe? I've found there's a 1-2 second delay on the latter (the initial image is a screenshot of the app), but an imperceptible one of the former. On the iPhone, obviously you'd have no choice in the matter, so maybe that partly explains the speed difference you're seeing.

I am not swiping obviously on the i5, but on the iPad, I do occasionally swipe. for another example, switching from safari to 1password to look up a password, it's not instant. On the iphone 5, even with double-clicking to switch apps, the "feeling" is instantaneous. There is really no reason the A6X can't do this!

I'm griping about all of this because I constantly switch between safari to enter in personal information from 1password and also from my verizon app, and other apps that require information lookup. I hated that task switching feel from my ipad 2/3 so when I got my i5, I was extremely pleased to see how fast this was! But the screen on my i5 is too small to be productive. On the ipad4, I was really hoping it would be better than my iphone 5 but it's actually just as lame as my ipad 2/3!
 

thadoggfather

macrumors P6
Oct 1, 2007
15,537
16,249
I think the difference also boils down to real world usage vs. benchmarks.

Benchmarks, iPhone 5 and iPad 4 should blow away any A5 counterparts (and A5x, of course).

But in youtube videos side by side, most things only load a fraction quicker in real world use. Then for intensive games, you see a couple seconds lead time or so.

I expect over time the differences will be more noticeable. But yeah, this is why in my opinion most people who have a 3 and like it will not be feeling too left out by not getting a 4 (myself included). Plus my relative "perfect" screen and jailbreak aren't going to be thrown back into the wild any time soon unless I decide I'm completely sold on the mini and can do without the full size. But it's nice to have both as of today.
 

edwrap

macrumors regular
Nov 7, 2012
106
231
I am not swiping obviously on the i5, but on the iPad, I do occasionally swipe. for another example, switching from safari to 1password to look up a password, it's not instant. On the iphone 5, even with double-clicking to switch apps, the "feeling" is instantaneous. There is really no reason the A6X can't do this!

I'm griping about all of this because I constantly switch between safari to enter in personal information from 1password and also from my verizon app, and other apps that require information lookup. I hated that task switching feel from my ipad 2/3 so when I got my i5, I was extremely pleased to see how fast this was! But the screen on my i5 is too small to be productive. On the ipad4, I was really hoping it would be better than my iphone 5 but it's actually just as lame as my ipad 2/3!

I don't use 1password, but I'm sitting here switching between apps via the bar and I can immediately use the apps. It feels instantaneous enough to me.

Switching via swipe has always been laggy.
 

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
Can you try an iPad4 on display somewhere? And are your experiences the same as others?

I have tried this at the bestbuy kiosk as well! And at the apple store and same exact results :(

I think the retina is a double edge sword. It's too fantastic of a screen to be ignored, but also the requirements to drive the thing is just insane to the point of diminishing returns. This is really making it easy for me to return my ipad 4 and rebuy the ipad mini.

I do love the retina but I'm not going to settle for something this large but can't be as smooth and fast at task switching between apps as my iphone 5! It really does perform the same exact way as my ipad 2, ipad 3, and the mini! So if I am really needed to task switch quickly and the ipad 4 doesn't offer me that, I think I can feel quite confident enough to warrant a re-purchase of the mini again.

And then wait for the real ipad successor, the ipad 5.
 

AppleRobert

macrumors 603
Nov 12, 2012
5,726
1,132
I'm not sure the same tests have been done in this other thread but just reading a few seem not to have any concern with the speed of the 4.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1483332/

And I quote #161:

My wife and I just got the new Ipad with the A6X...WOW...It is FAST, practically seamless in operation...Apps load instantly and gameplay is smooth...Boots up and shuts down fast....I thought our iphone 5 was fast, and it is, but this is even on another level.
 

Carlanga

macrumors 604
Nov 5, 2009
7,132
1,409
umm, interesting, but also remember that iPad apps are different and bigger in size than the iPhone counterparts, even if it's an Universal app, the scale and how much screen needs to show make a difference. Coding can also be the culprit.
 

725032

Guest
Aug 5, 2012
724
0
Wow OP, talk about finding problems.

With that negative attitude you will never be happy
 

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
Wow OP, talk about finding problems.

With that negative attitude you will never be happy

I didn't mean to be negative - I am just not sure about the ipad 4 performance at the current of state of ios 6.0

I have my iphone 5 since day 1 of release and that phone is so good, I'm completely content with the performance! But the screen is too small to be really productive for my own needs - i turned to the ipad 4 for hope but it's not quite living up to the hype. I'm not saying it's not fast when you browse the web, sites like live leak.com, tmz.com, perezhilton.com (I know I know, they are lame sites but my wife looks at those and those sites seem to bog down my ipad 2/3 at times. With the ipad 4, it's very fast and outputting a video via airplay to my ATV is very fast - much more so than my previous iPads!
 

thadoggfather

macrumors P6
Oct 1, 2007
15,537
16,249
I have my iphone 5 since day 1 of release and that phone is so good, I'm completely content with the performance!

way to be an optimist :D

I really wish I had an iPad 4 in my rotation to give this theory a whirl Maybe I will next time going to Best Buy but my prediction is: iPhone 5 has to be more fluid. Powering a screen with that many pixels, gpu aside, makes works the cpu work harder. Especially for games where it's driving that resolution at a dynamic fps and the gpu... makes sense in my head without being able to explain it perfectly. and I think we all learned well with iPad 3 the theory behind it being slower but... And honestly, RAM aside, sometimes I think 3GS was faster than 4 as well for the same reason, despite it being not A4 it was same architecture AFAIK just higher clocked more or less only drive 480x320 instead of 960x640. this whole retina revolution came back to bite them in the behind. just a bit though.

While I recognize A5x is underpowered for the 2048x1536 screen, I never really had an issue with it and it seemed about as fast as my 4S when I had that/a bit slower than iPad2 (from what I remembered on iOS5) for certain things in real world usage. I know because iPad mini is internally an iPad2. Not a hardcore gamer on either pad just casual I should note.
 
Last edited:

reputationZed

macrumors 65816
I am not swiping obviously on the i5, but on the iPad, I do occasionally swipe. for another example, switching from safari to 1password to look up a password, it's not instant. On the iphone 5, even with double-clicking to switch apps, the "feeling" is instantaneous. There is really no reason the A6X can't do this!

I'm griping about all of this because I constantly switch between safari to enter in personal information from 1password and also from my verizon app, and other apps that require information lookup. I hated that task switching feel from my ipad 2/3 so when I got my i5, I was extremely pleased to see how fast this was! But the screen on my i5 is too small to be productive. On the ipad4, I was really hoping it would be better than my iphone 5 but it's actually just as lame as my ipad 2/3!

Can't say as I've noticed the iPad 4 being any slower than the iPhone 5, and I jump between browsers and 1 Password fairly often. I haven't done any side by side testing but the iPad 4 seems just as snappy to me as the iPhone 5.
 

blackNBUK

macrumors 6502a
Feb 19, 2010
607
35
UK
To the OP, are you using the app switcher or the multitasking gestures?

On both my iPad 3 and iPad mini using the app switcher feels near enough instant and the new app is ready for use immediately, but after using a multitasking gesture the new app won't respond to touches for a second or two. It's a annoying as it makes the gestures less fluid but it doesn't feel like a performance problem to me. I think the delay is part of the gesture recognition and it is intended to allow you to switch to, say, the third app without also having to switch to the second app on the way through. I'd have thought there must be a better way of achieving this though...
 

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
I've tested this on the retail kiosk ipads at the applestore and at the bestbuy store. They all exhibit the same lag in the ipad 4 when using the multitask switch bar (the double click or four finger swipe up) - when swiping left and right, I think it depends on the memory how much is available; that process is near instant but even then sometimes it lags.

I am comparing to the only other A6 available - in the iphone 5. I am questioning the software optiimization for the A6X in the ipad 4 clearly it has a faster clocked A6 cpu, and the bandwidth of the A6X is significantly higher than all the ipad 2/mini and even the 3.

I now believe it may be iOS 6.0.1 - perhaps iOS 7.0, they will make the ipad 4 more brilliant than it already is?
 

Anti-Lucifer

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2012
776
2
Wow, ios 6.1 seems to have much improved the task switching! Instead of a few seconds to for an app to respond, it's nearly instant now with ios 6.1!

This is very much welcomed and thank you apple!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.