Android 2.2 demolishes iOS4 in JavaScript benchmarks

Disclosure: Googler, huge Apple fanboy.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Bak_(computer_programmer)

This is incredibly untrue. The iPhone has dominated virtually every benchmark until very, very recently, owing to a more efficient CPU, and a vastly superior GPU (the Samsung Galaxy S is pretty much the only device that beats even the 3GS).

The iPhone is always talked up on the merits of its spec sheet, whether it's screen technology, case technology, GPU speed, browser speed, and on and on. This has always been its edge.

Current example: Resolution. They beat the competition, and they present it as a distinct experience benefit.

By and large, they neither strongly compete nor communicate numbers elsewhere. In fact they go so far as to obscure or hide numbers and instead focus exclusively on the quality and experience angles instead.

I'm not a fruit fanboy, but I do think that the way to play the numbers game is to show why they matter in ways that the layman can comprehend. On that front, if Google aren't using this advantage in the sunspiders tests to communicate on a user experience angle then they're missing the advantage of being ahead in the numbers game.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/reviews/2010/07/android-2...

This particular problem is with the handset, not the OS, but it's basically the flagship device. Ugh.

However, you raise a valid point: Mobile websites, the kinds most likely to be served to you via MobileSafari, will likely not have things like Tag clouds or 3D raytracers for the foreseeable future.

Maybe there should be a mobile edition of the JS benchmarks run?

And also, as much as speed is an issue, what about a benchmark for compliance? Safari/Webkit is still (to some sites) a red headed step child. The "it works in FF and IE" mentality applies there. My bank is an example of that. It has gotten better, but there are still plenty of web apps where webkit is unsupported.

To do this im rendering my scene to one canvas buffer, and then using that as the stencil to run a 3x3 convolution filter to produced a 'carved' look on a wood texture. I want the map editing to update the carved surface as quickly as possible, so yes javascript performance is a bottle neck.

ideally i want this to run on the iPad so its useful at the table as well as post game. The current implementation isn't fast enough on iPad so the browser kills the script.

Stuff like you are talking about isn't common at the moment, but its only going to become more viable and more prevalent. If a guy like me can knock together something like the above in a couple of days, imagine the possiblities for someone working full time on a real project.

Regardless, your statement seems to contradict itself. If you can't install 2.2 on your phone, then it isn't really "released," is it?

Right now this information is cool (and an engineering triumph, yet another data point for my love of VMs and how they are the future of all modern computing), but put this in perspective: it only affects a very small number of users with an expensive and difficult-to-obtain handset. From the perspective of the average customer, it's pretty meaningless. Gruber probably won't respond until many phones have 2.2 and suddenly it's a public issue that "iPhone is slow."

On the right of flag we could add "merge with" and take a news.yc url and if enough people submitted the same url a mod could merge all the comments into the old story.