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Author Archives: Eric Hale

It’s finally here!

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on May 30, 2013

As the community members know, we released the MobileXPRT 2013 community preview yesterday. As I said in last week’s blog A look into the future, you are free to publish results from this community preview.

We hope you’ll submit results to be published in the MobileXPRT database. You’ll find the file containing your results in the MobileXPRT/results directory on the SD card of your device. The results directory will contain a time-stamped directory for each run, for example ALL28May2013112522. You will find a file named mobilexprt_results.xml in the appropriate time-stamped directory. To submit a result, just e-mail the mobilexprt_results.xml file from your run to benchmarkxprtsupport@principledtechnologies.com.

The benchmark includes a user manual in the UI. In addition to the benchmark itself, you can also find installation instructions and a design overview in the member’s area.

We will make the source code for the community preview available in the next few days.

Given the diversity and changing nature of Android devices, we expect that you may run into some issues. As with any of our community previews, if you encounter any issues, please let us know so we can continue to improve the benchmark as we prepare it for release.

We’re very excited about the release of the MobileXPRT 2013 community preview. If you’re not a member, join and find out what all the excitement is about!

Eric

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Posted in Android, BenchmarkXPRT development community, MobileXPRT |

The MobileXPRT 2013 community preview is available!

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on May 29, 2013

If you’re a member, you can download it here. If you’re not a member, join and see what the excitement’s about.

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Posted in Community Preview, MobileXPRT |

A look into the future

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on May 23, 2013

This week, we’ve been testing builds of the upcoming MobileXPRT benchmark. So far, things have been looking really good.

MobileXPRT is designed for testing Android-based devices, from smart phones to tablets. Like TouchXPRT, MobileXPRT uses native code to implement real-world use cases. Mobile XPRT offers two categories of tests: Performance tests and User Experience (UX) tests.

The five Performance tests are Apply Photo Effects, Create Photo Collages, Create Slideshow, Encrypt Personal Content, and Detect Faces to Organize Photos.

The five UX tests are List Scroll, Grid Scroll, Gallery Scroll, Browser Scroll, and Zoom and Pinch.

The benchmark provides a score for each individual test, as well as a rollup score for each category.

Sometime next week, we plan to release the MobileXPRT 2013 Community Preview. The CP, as its name makes clear, is not the final MobileXPRT release. It is, though, a useful tool for beginning to measure Android device performance. It is also a great way for everyone in the community to see the current state of our thinking and to provide feedback—rather than reading a design spec, you can actually run this version of the tool and see what you think!

As with TouchXPRT, we will allow publication of scores from the community preview. We will also be 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. If you have suggestions about how to do it better, we’re all ears.

As a reminder, the community previews are available only to members of the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community. If you haven’t joined yet, come join us!

Eric

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Posted in Android, BenchmarkXPRT development community, MobileXPRT |

Our baby has a new name!

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on May 16, 2013

The upcoming Android benchmark will be called MobileXPRT. Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions. We are testing development builds now and look forward to having a community preview available in the next few weeks.

In other news, the developer license used to build TouchXPRT expired this week. We have created a new version to fix this problem. If you are a TouchXPRT user, you’ll need to download the new version for any future testing. You can find the details here.

As we mentioned in the post Three names, two hosts, we set up a second WebXPRT hosting site to see if that would improve the slow downloads reported in China. To help us better understand the situation, we are going to start logging IP addresses for the host at http://54.251.252.204/webxprt/. We are doing this to see if there are regional differences in the download time. This change does not affect users of WebXPRT at http://www.principledtechnologies.com/benchmarkxprt/webxprt/. Neither host will gather personally identifying information.

Eric

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Posted in MobileXPRT, PhoneXPRT, TouchXPRT, WebXPRT |

Extreme makeover

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on April 25, 2013

Last week, we unveiled redesigned Web pages for BenchmarkXPRT. We’ve been working on this redesign for a while. We think you’ll find the pages to be a lot sleeker and more attractive. The HDXPRT page, for example, is far less cluttered and easier to navigate. There’s a new white papers page. The members’ area has a new tabbed design that will let you access the member resources for any benchmark form a single page.

We will be redesigning the blog and forums over the next few weeks. Log into the forum or send an e-mail to benchmarkxprtsupport@principledtechnologies.com and tell us what you think about the new design!

As we mentioned in the blog post What a week!, WebXPRT does not collect any personally identifying information. (The WebXPRT data collection page details all the information the benchmark collects.) The benchmark does not attempt to verify that the user agent string is correct under the assumption that the user or browser had some reason for setting it the way it is.

This has caused some people to be confused when, for example, the results for a phone running the stock Android browser say that the phone used Safari. Most modern browsers have the ability to change the user agent string and misidentify themselves, as that version of the Android browser did by default. In fact, you can usually override the browser’s default, should you want to. For example, Google Chrome version 26.0, the version I’m using right now, allows you to choose from multiple versions of IE, Firefox, Chrome, iPhone, iPad, Android, and others. You can even type in a custom string.

So, if you think WebXPRT misidentified your browser, it’s worth checking the user agent string. The instructions for doing this vary by browser, but are usually pretty straightforward. If you’re curious about why browsers offer this feature, you can search for “user agent spoofing” to find explanations of the pros and cons.

Eric

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Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, HDXPRT, Principled Technologies, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2013 results |

Three names, two hosts

Eric Hale
By Eric Hale
on April 18, 2013

As Bill mentioned a couple of weeks ago in The Name Game, we’ve been considering changing the name of PhoneXPRT. The rationale for this is that the tests in PhoneXPRT are useful for a range of devices, from phones to tablets. We asked for your opinions about the name. After getting your input and talking amongst ourselves, we are considering three possibilities:

  • Leaving the name unchanged.
  • Changing the name to MobileXPRT. While this would convey the scope of the benchmark, some people thought the name might be too general.
  • Changing the name to TouchXPRT for Android. While there is some similarity between the tests in TouchXPRT and the ones we are developing for this benchmark, the two benchmarks would not initially be comparable.

Let us know what you think. We hope to settle the name question soon.

As we mentioned in Loose Ends, some users in mainland China are reporting extremely slow download times when running WebXPRT. We have set up a trial host for WebXPRT in Singapore to see if this improves the situation. Preliminary, US-based tests have seen no significant difference in scores when running from the Singapore host.

If you are in China and want to try running WebXPRT from the new host, you will find it at http://54.251.252.204/webxprt/. Please let us know your experience.

Eric

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Posted in Android, MobileXPRT, PhoneXPRT, WebXPRT |

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