Synthetic tests spun that Android 2.2 Froyo is at least 2 times faster than iOS 4.0 when it comes to surfing the Internet, should it be the same in real tests? Of course not, Android 2.2 Froyo is fast, but in reality the difference between the browser in Froyo and the Safari in iOS 4.0 is much smaller, practically the 2 browsers are separated by a maximum of 3 seconds when it comes to loading a web page. The difference is more than negligible and by no means constant, but it gives Google a slight advantage in the battle with Apple.
Engadget did some tests between an iPhone 4 with iOS 4.0 and a Nexus One with Android 2.2 Froyo, the results being somewhat surprising.
The iPhone 4 has a slight advantage over the Nexus One in this first video, but the difference comes from the fact that the Nexus One has flash enabled and rendering pages is more difficult because the Nexus One has to load this content as well, unlike iPhone 4 displaying the classic blue cube.
Without flash, the Nexus One comes out victorious when loading each page, while the iPhone 4 struggles to keep up, although from a hardware point of view the 2 devices are almost identical. The web engine in Google Chrome outperforms the one in Safari and Apple has a new "problem" on its head, as it can no longer support the fact that Safari is the fastest browser in the world.
It was expected that Safari would be overtaken by the Android browser at some point and my opinion is that Apple will not be able to keep up with Google's optimizations, at least not until the next iOS.
