Iphone 5

IPhone 5

IPhone 5 owners who are worried that their handsets are obsolete now that the iPhone 5S has debuted, can take heart: A new test reveals that Apple's sixth-generation iPhone still tops the competition when it comes to speed.
In a test conducted by game- and app-streaming company Agawi, the responsiveness of the iPhone 5’s touchscreen was found to be around twice as fast as competing Android smartphones.

The results are based on Agawi’s in-house testing, which used cameras operating at 240 frames per second, as well as a custom piece of hardware called a Touchscope that is specifically designed to measure app response time.
The Android devices used in the study included Samsung's Galaxy S4, Nokia's Lumia 928, the HTC One and Motorola's Moto X. According to Agawi’s research, which involved testing each device a minimum of 50 times, the Galaxy S4 performed the best out of all the Android smartphones tested, while the Moto X appeared to have the slowest response time.

In terms of raw numbers, the iPhone 5 showed a minimum app response time of 55 milliseconds, compared to 85 milliseconds on the iPhone 4 and 114 milliseconds on the Galaxy S4. But what the report doesn’t completely uncover are the reasons behind the differences in touchscreen responsiveness across devices.
On its website, Agawi says, “Our best guess at Agawi is that Apple’s touchscreen hardware is better optimized or more sensitively calibrated for capturing and processing touch."

The comments accompanying the report note, however, that Google's Nexus 4 device was not included in the test. Still, it concludes, “The best written apps on iPhones will simply feel more responsive than similar apps on the current gen of Android devices.”

Regardless of the results, which are sure to stir debate within the Android community, the fact that even an iPhone 4 performed better than the most popular Android smartphone on the market offers some insight into the continued success of Apple's flagship handset.