Since the day Apple first unveiled iOS 12 back in June the company has been saying that this new version of its mobile operating system be faster than any of its predecessors. Now that it’s out, we can test that promise.
We put a iPhone X running iOS 12 through benchmark tests and compared the results to this device running iOS 11. Spoiler: you’re going to like the results.
iOS 12 performance improvement
We used Primate Labs Geekbench 4, possibly the premier cross-platform benchmarking application.
When running iOS 12, our iPhone X scored a 10545 on the multi-core test, compared to iOS 11 average of 10106. That’s a 4 percent increase, which isn’t dramatic but still welcome.
The difference in the single-core test is far smaller. The iOS 12 and iOS 11 scores are 4216 and 4209 respectively. This makes it clear there’s only so much an operating system can do.
On the Compute section of Geekbench, the iPhone X running Apple latest operating system scored 15782, compared to an iOS 11 average of 15255. That’s a 3 percent increase.
On older iPhones, too
It’s not just Apple’s latest models that see speed improvements from iOS 12.
An elderly iPhone 5S running iOS 12, had a Geekbench multi-core score of 2252, compared to the 2207 score from the same model running iOS 11, according to iAppleBytes. That’s a 2 percent improvement. The single core score showed a 1.6 percent increase.
Or take an iPhone 7. It’s multi-core score improved by 1.6 percent, and its single-core score improved less than 1 percent.
While these can’t be called dramatic improvement, many people refuse to upgrade their older iPhones because they are concerned a new operating system version will cripple their device. That’s certainly not the case this time.
But if you want a real speed increase, the best option is to put in a pre-order for an iPhone X’s Max, or the iPhone XS.
