Video: Every iPhone Ever Gets Speed Tested Side-By-Side

Sure, each new iPhone is faster than the last.. on paper. But how do these speed increases actually translate into day-to-day use? It’s one of life’s oldest questions; one that scholars and scientists have spent billions trying to answer, to no avail.

Fine. Maybe not. But it is something that’s cool to see put to the test in a two minute video on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Managing to pull together each of the eight generations of iPhones released since 2007 and a bunch of extra hands to keep everything in sync, the guys over at the EverythingApplePro YouTube channel have put together a side-by-side speed test showing how quickly each model handles a basic action — from booting up, to loading a website.

Lessons learned:

Unlocking an entire row of iPhones with one long swipe looks kind of awesome.
The speed jump from the 3G/3GS to the 4 seems huge. It’s especially obvious during the browsing tests. This is likely as much due to software changes in Safari on the newer OS (with the 3GS losing support for upgrades after iOS 6.1.3, and the 3 losing support way back at 4.2.1).
iOS 7 takes a surprisingly long time to shut down.
If you’re running iOS 7 on an iPhone 4, you’re not crazy: it really does take forever to boot up.
After the 4S, the speed differences for basic day-to-day activities (like loading a page) start to get pretty slim with each next generation. Once you’re on the 5 and later, the difference is hardly noticeable. The differences are obviously going to be more visible for the more intensive things (like 3D gaming), but for general day-to-day stuff like browsing, there’s not really room to make huge strides.