Apple’s iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and $1,000 iPhone X trail the latest smartphones from Samsung Electronics Co. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google in download speeds, according to data from Ookla LLC, a company that provides the most popular online service for measuring the speed of an internet connection with its Speedtest app and website.
Faster internet data means that users can load websites and start watching movies more quickly, make crisper video calls and get higher-quality video. As smartphones start to look more like each other, handset makers are trying to tout under-the-cover hardware features. Samsung has marketed the issue against Apple with commercials highlighting the faster mobile internet speeds in its recent TV ad push.
Ookla’s data are important because they are created by users — not in a corporate lab — and encompass the range of random real-world conditions that affect performance like distance from cellular towers and network congestion. Ookla said it hosts millions of tests a day and has done 20 billion in total.
To be sure, it can be difficult for users to tell the differences between how fast pages load on a phone. But it’s easier to sense the quality of video, how long it takes to pull up a song and how long it takes to send an email. Web speeds aren’t the only important device speed metric. Apple’s main processors that control the speed of launching apps, swiping through PDFs and loading games are often recognized as some of the fastest in the industry.
“With both LTE-Advanced speeds and Apple’s custom-designed A11 Bionic, the smartest and most powerful chip ever in a smartphone, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X provide an incredibly fast wireless experience that can easily handle today’s most demanding tasks,” an Apple spokeswoman said in a statement. “With up to 27 LTE bands, more than any other smartphone in the world, these iPhones also provide the best worldwide LTE coverage.”