Thanks, interesting again and cool to know and understand.
1) so, is the 7 and 8 really that much faster than the 6s then? I think I heard 7 isn't much faster than 6s. When my 6 updated to ios 11, it crippled it and most said just get a used 6s (that's what I did) and it's amazing now!
2) I'm currently on 11.2.6 on this 6s and am a hard user for work. I may get 200 texts a day easy. Hasn't anyone with a 6s gone to 11.3 and did to slow or speed anything up for basics of mail, texting/pics, etc?
No worries!
1) on paper (benchmarks) the 7 is a fair bit faster (notably single core) and the 8 is much faster (notably multi core).
However in real world, the speed is negligible. They are all “limited by the speed limit on th highway”, that is the apps that use this power.
One needs to put the A9 into benchmarking perspective first: it still outperforms many laptops as a chip, including Apple laptops which run macOS high sierra smoothly.
A lot of people who visit these kinds of sites enjoy spec comparisons and having the latest and greatest product may compare the benchmarks but the reality is from a practical standpoint, you will not see any notable speed differences between the iPhone 6s to 7 to 8. It’s all related to the core design and core specs between these three devices.
The core tasks these devices handle are not performance hungry and the base specs on different levels (cell radio and band support, wifi with mimo, lpddr4 ram etc) are all identical. Especially for text messages or making phone calls, the A9 is way more than enough power. It’s the most future proof chip Apple has thus created. You’ll notice “premium” features on the 8 vs the 6s but from a purely practical perspective, you’re getting the same experience. The A10 and A11 from a performance perspective are very powerful chips and unless someone *wants* to upgrade, you absolutely don’t need to. Gone are the days where two generations apart - the iPhone 3GS to 4S or 4 to 5 - were major upgrades. Simply because of the advances in the chip tech, reaching a certain point. The A9 is an incredible chip and it set the foundation for the high performance cores in the A10 and A11. The really processing demanding tasks are GPU related and even then few apps push the gpu in the A9, and nothing “chokes” it.
2) iOS 11.3 really does speed up the iPhone 6s. Partly because it is a stable release and partly because it focuses on performance and the throttling issues that have been well publicized. If you are experiencing any performance issues, it’s purely related to the battery. I have 11.3 on a 6s I use for betas and developer related items and it is buttery smooth. For fun I compared opening apps and things to my mother’s iPhone 7, still running iOS 10 and they are more or less identical in performance (fluidity, opening apps, 3D Touch, etc) though iOS 11.3 is a bit faster due to the quicker animations. I highly recommend upgrading to 11.3