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TouchXPRT CP1

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on January 30, 2014

This week we released the TouchXPRT 2014 Community Preview 1 (CP1). As with past community previews, the tests are stable and you may publish your results.

CP1 has a number of improvements over TouchXPRT 2013. We’ve updated the tests and used new and more demanding kinds of data. The Run All button is now prominent on the main screen, and the benchmark includes a results viewer.

However, as I said last week, the new UI design did not make it into CP1. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be working to give TouchXPRT an exciting new look. The results viewer will also change a lot. The current version captures the date, time, and test results, but the sandbox environment of Windows 8 applications makes getting the system information challenging. We’re working to solve that problem.  We’ll also be improving the results submission to make it more streamlined.

Rest assured that, while the appearance will change, the results will not. The test results you generate with CP1 will be good for the life of the benchmark.

Community previews are only available to community members. If you are not a member, this a great time to join.

After you’ve downloaded CP1, let us know what you think by posting to the forum or e-mailing us at BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Eric

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Posted in Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, TouchXPRT 2014, TouchXPRT development process, Windows 8 |

It’s almost here

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on January 23, 2014

Sometime next week, we plan to release a sneak preview of TouchXPRT 2014, the TouchXPRT 2014 Community Preview 1 (CP1).

CP1, as its name makes clear, is not the final TouchXPRT 2014 release. There is still a lot of work to do on the user interface and the new results viewer.  However, it includes a number of improvements over the current TouchXPRT, making it an even more useful tool for measuring Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 device performance. It is also a great way for everyone in the community to see the current state of our thinking and to provide us with feedback. You can run this version of the tool and see what you think!

As we have done with previous community previews, we’re also taking two more steps:

  • We’re not putting any publication restrictions on this preview release. Test at will, and publish your findings.
  • We’re releasing the source code to all community members. If you’re curious about not just what we’re doing but how we’re doing it, you can find out.

We believe these steps make the tool easier to evaluate and more useful to all of us.

Releasing a preview version is a lot of work, because we have to do much of the work of a software release and on less-than-final code, but we believe the value to our community justifies the effort.

Next week, when we release CP1, I’ll go over more details, the known limitations, and how you can get us your feedback—feedback we very much want.

Between now and then, we’ll be readying CP1 for your use.

Eric

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Posted in Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2014, TouchXPRT release cycle, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 |

Has it only been 2 weeks?

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on January 16, 2014

2014 has barely started, but things are already popping!

The new battery test has a name: BatteryXPRT for Android. We are busy at work on the latest member of the BenchmarkXPRT family. The comment period for BatteryXPRT for Android ended last Friday. We greatly appreciate the comments we received on the RFC. We used them to shape the RFC into a design document, which is available on the member forum now.

In other news, we’re testing  what we hope will be the TouchXPRT 2014 community preview (CP) now. Testing is going well and we will be releasing the TouchXPRT 2014 CP to the community soon. As I said in TouchXPRT 2014, we’ve revamped the tests. They are more visual and more demanding than the old tests, and they introduce new types of work. The tests look great!

Speaking of looking great, we announced a while back that we were doing a UI redesign across the XPRT benchmarks. Unfortunately, that effort was not quite in sync with the release of the TouchXPRT 2014 CP, so the CP will use the older style UI. We will update the UI for the final version, but doing so will not affect the results.

Remember that you have to belong to the community to get the community preview. If you’re still not a member, come join us.

A new member of the family and a new version of an old friend. 2014 is off to a great start.

Eric

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Posted in Android, Battery life, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT release cycle |

Happy New Year everyone!

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on January 2, 2014

We hope you had a great holiday.

Bill and Mark are preparing to go to CES this year. We’re really excited about the chance to talk with folks because there’s so much to talk about.

It’s been a great year for the XPRTs. At the start of 2013, HDXPRT 2012 was the only XPRT benchmark available to the public. Now four XPRT benchmarks are available through our Web site. Take a look at some of the milestones from this banner year:

  • We released MobileXPRT 2013, TouchXPRT 2013 and WebXPRT 2013 to the public.
  • To reflect the expanded offerings, the HDXPRT Development Community evolved into the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community.
  • We radically redesigned the Web site.
  • The greater XPRT offerings let us test more varied devices, including the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX, Barnes & Noble Nook HD+, NVIDIA Shield, XBOX ONE, and PS4.
  • We released four videos.

And 2014 is going to be an even bigger year! We are very close to releasing the TouchXPRT 2014 community preview and are in the comment period for a new battery life test—and we are only two days into the year!

If you will be at CES, this is a great time make yourself heard. E-mail benchmarkxprtsupport@principledtechnologies.com if you’d like to chat with Bill and Mark about what you’d like to see in the coming year.

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Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, CES, MobileXPRT, TouchXPRT, WebXPRT |

Winding down the year

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on December 19, 2013

We have a few things we need to touch on before the year ends.

In TouchXPRT 2014, we described some of the changes to TouchXPRT. We had hoped to have the Consumer Preview out in December, but we need to do a little more work on it. However, the TouchXPRT 2014 CP is coming after first of the year, and it’s worth the wait!

For the first time ever, we found a situation that caused WebXPRT to fail. We got a report of an iPhone 5s failing. We found that the user was using the private browsing mode. The WebXPRT Offline Notes test uses HTML5 local storage to sync and store notes locally. Safari and iOS Safari don’t support setting the HTML 5 localStorage property when using private browsing mode. Not using private browsing fixes the problem.

Remember that we are in the comment period for the new battery test. Community members should definitely check out the battery test RFC.

As we mentioned before, Bill and Mark are going to CES. If you’d like to chat, send an e-mail to benchmarkxprtsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

This is the last blog of 2013. The next post will be on January 2.

It’s been a great year. Thank you all.

Happy holidays!

Eric

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Posted in Battery life, Collaborative benchmark development, TouchXPRT, WebXPRT |

The battery life test RFC is here

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on December 12, 2013

As we’ve mentioned in recent blog posts, we’ve been investigating a battery life test.  We’ve now done enough research that we feel comfortable making a proposal for the test.  We released the RFC, or request for comments, for upcoming battery life test yesterday. Our major objective with the RFC is to get your feedback.

Given the amount of time and effort it took to develop the methodology, we had to lay a lot of code. While nothing is written in stone, things are pretty far along.

For the next four weeks, until January 8, we want to hear what you what you think about the approach, the results calculations, and anything else you think is worth discussing. Notably, we are still debating if this should be part of MobileXPRT or be its own benchmark.

Community members can download the RFC from here. If you’re not yet a member of the community, now’s a great time to join. Not only can you comment on the RFC, you’ll be able to see the community preview when it becomes available.

Since the benchmark does not have a name yet, we haven’t dedicated a forum to it yet. Please post your comments in the BenchmarkXPRT forum, or mail them to benchmarkxprtsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Let us know what you think! We probably won’t be able to get everything done, but now is the time to dream.

Eric

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Posted in Battery life, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development |

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