How the speed and autonomy on iOS 13.4 have changed

Yesterday, Apple released the final version of iOS 13.4. It became the largest update since the release of iOS 13. In any case, not one update before included so many innovations, most of which were not just pass-through functions, but quite tangible changes that could affect how we We use our devices. Most of all, of course, lucky tablet users who received support for trackpads, a new cursor and advanced features for interacting with hot keys. But what about real speed and autonomy?

iOS 13.4 worsened the autonomy of some iPhones, but increased their speed

Specializing in the study of differences in different versions of iOS, I made a clear comparison of the work of six iPhone models based on iOS 13.3.1 and iOS 13.4. I chose iPhone SE, iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, iPhone 8, iPhone XR and iPhone 11 for the role of experimental - that is, in fact, the most popular smartphone models that interest the vast majority of users.

Comparison of the speed of iOS 13.3.1 and 13.4

In the practical performance test, consisting in sequentially opening installed applications and interface transitions, iOS 13.4 showed itself only on the positive side. At almost all stages of testing - from the speed of inclusion to the speed of launching software, including regular and third-party ones - the updated OS showed a small but obvious advantage over iOS 13.3.1.

Despite the fact that the growth can hardly be called really tangible, since the difference in favor of iOS 13.4 was only a fraction of a second, it is clear that Apple has worked to optimize the software part. This is best seen when you turn it on, as well as the stability with which updated devices run applications, bypassing their own indicators before installing the update.

But in synthetics, almost no changes. Running all smartphones before and after the update showed that their performance remained unchanged. But this only confirms the assertion that Apple really worked on the optimization and, while maintaining the same computing power, made the application and iOS itself run a little faster than before.

Comparison of the autonomy of iOS 13.3.1 and iOS 13.4

As for autonomy, here everything is not so stable and rosy. As the iAppleBytes experiment showed, only two smartphones, the iPhone SE and the iPhone XR, showed an increase in battery life on a single charge. If on iOS 13.3.1 they worked for 3 hours 7 minutes and 6 hours 6 minutes, respectively, then after upgrading to iOS 13.4 their performance increased to 3 hours 11 minutes and 6 hours 20 minutes. Not that this growth could be considered a record, but the improvement is clearly evident. Moreover, for other smartphones, the numbers have changed for the worse.

iPhone 6s: iOS 13.3.1 - 3 hours 19 minutes, iOS 13.4 - 3 hours 18 minutes;
iPhone 7: iOS 13.3.1 - 3 hours 45 minutes; iOS 13.4 - 4 hours 22 minutes;
iPhone 8: iOS 13.3.1 - 3 hours 32 minutes, iOS 13.4 - 3 hours 19 minutes;
iPhone 11: iOS 13.3.1 - 6 hours 59 minutes, iOS 13.4 - 6 hours 31 minutes.

It turns out that, on the one hand, Apple has improved the work of its smartphones, and, on the other hand, it has worsened it. Here you can’t even refer to the freshness of the update, since measurements of each of the two versions of iOS were carried out immediately after installation: iOS 13.3.1 - January 29, and iOS 13.4 - March 24. That is, neither one nor the other assembly had time to stand on the device more evenly and demonstrate the best performance. However, given that after the update, almost all test smartphones, which, by the way, had a zero percentage of battery wear, lost autonomy, there is hope that in the near future Apple will release iOS 13.4.1 and fix it.

Is it worth it to install iOS 13.4 now? I think it's worth it. After all, even if you forget about the innovations, which are really many here, there are still a lot of bugs that Apple fixed in this update. The company not only repaired the Mail application, which Ilon Musk complained about, but also eliminated many other, minor flaws in the system’s operation and vulnerabilities. Well, since the decrease in autonomy indicators that has occurred is not so noticeable, I think that at this stage it can be completely neglected.