iPhone 3GS Performance: 54% Faster than the 3G, 11% Faster than the Pre
You may have noticed today's review of the Palm Pre. While I strongly suggest reading it if you're at all interested, I do have some new data for your consumption. After the announcement of the iPhone 3GS I posted …
Context & Ripple Effects
The iPhone 3GS arrives after the original iPhone 3G established Apple’s smartphone baseline in a 2008 iPhone 3G review. A same-day look under the 3GS hood gives the benchmark results a hardware-performance frame rather than treating them as a software-only change.
Performance matters because Apple and Android already account for a disproportionately large share of mobile web browsing relative to their device sales, while the iPhone and iPod touch have emerged as credible gaming competitors to Nintendo and Sony.
First-order effects
- Apple gains a measured speed advantage over both the iPhone 3G and Palm Pre, making responsiveness a concrete upgrade argument for existing iPhone owners and a sharper comparison point for Palm.
- Palm’s Pre is immediately judged against a faster iPhone model in performance-sensitive tasks, raising the importance of its software experience and other differentiators.
Second-order effects
- AT&T faces added pressure from the iPhone’s usage profile: faster web-capable handsets reinforce the connection between iPhone adoption and demand on its network.
- Nintendo and Sony face a stronger handheld-gaming challenge as faster iPhone hardware improves the platform’s ability to compete for mobile game use.
Third-order effects
- Smartphone competition is shifting from handset features alone toward sustained performance in web and application workloads, where benchmark gaps can influence upgrade cycles and developer priorities.
- As mobile web use concentrates on advanced smartphone platforms, carrier capacity becomes a constraint on the experience handset makers can deliver.
The trend: Smartphone makers are turning processor performance into a primary competitive lever as web browsing and gaming make phones more compute-intensive.