The iPhone 11 Pro comes with Apple’s newest A13 Bionic chip which is almost 20% faster in benchmarks than the iPhone XS’ A12 Bionic chip. This should mean that the iPhone 11 Pro should be faster than the iPhone XS in whatever task you throw at it, but that’s not the case if one looks at a speed test conducted by YouTuber EverythingApplePro.
The iPhone 11 Pro managed to beat the iPhone XS in the first round of the speed test which involved opening a bunch of heavy apps and games and exporting a 4K video. While the phone took 3 minutes and 17 seconds, the iPhone XS took 3 minutes and 18 seconds. This difference is too small though and well within the margin of error for a speed test. The iPhone X with its A11 Bionic chip has started showing its age and took a staggering 4 minute and 23 seconds, making it over a minute slower than the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone XS.
It was in the second round which involved loading the same set of apps and games from the memory of the phone where the iPhone XS put the iPhone 11 Pro to shame. Not only did it keep a lot more apps in the RAM, but it also loaded them faster. While the iPhone XS took 2 minutes and 3 seconds to complete the second speed test round, the iPhone 11 Pro was noticeably slower and took 2 minutes and 32 seconds. That’s a massive difference and one that was clearly unexpected.
The blame for the relatively unimpressive performance of the iPhone 11 Pro can be attributed to iOS 13 itself. The release is buggier than usual and once Apple releases iOS 13.1 later this week, the phone’s performance should improve by a noticeable margin. It seems that iOS 13 has not been optimized for the iPhone 11 Pro which is why Apple is pushing forward the iOS 13.1 release.
The additional horsepower offered by the A13 chip inside the iPhone 11 Pro might not be useful now but once developers start optimizing their apps for iOS 13 and the new iPhones, this will change. Will this speed test make you change your mind and not upgrade to the iPhone 11 Pro?
