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Support for MobileXPRT 3 will likely end soon

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on October 20, 2023

In a past blog post, we discussed our plan to move several older versions of XPRT benchmarks to an XPRT archive page. Some of those legacy XPRTs still function correctly, and testers occasionally use them, but a few no longer work on the latest versions of the operating systems or browsers that we designed them to test. With the archive page, we can prevent potential confusion for new users who visit current XPRT pages, but still provide longtime users with continued access to old tests.

You can find more information about the XPRTs that we’ll be moving to the archive page here, but today, we want to let MobileXPRT users know that there’s a high likelihood that MobileXPRT 3 will be joining the list of archived XPRTs in the very near future. The Google Play Store has notified us that, due to evolving requirements for apps in newer versions of Android, we must update our MobileXPRT 3 app package to target an Android API level within one year of the latest Android release. If we don’t update the app to meet that requirement by November 1, users will no longer be able to access MobileXPRT 3 through the Google Play Store.

Though a small number of labs and reviewers still use MobileXPRT 3 to test phones and tablets around the world, we don’t feel current usage is high enough for us to justify committing resources to an update at this point. We had hoped that even if MobileXPRT 3 became inaccessible via the Google Play Store, it would still be possible to sideload the app for testing on newer Android devices. After experimenting with installation options in the lab, however, we think it’s likely that settings on devices running Android 11 and up will prevent both Google Play and sideload installations after November 1. The situation may change, but right now, we don’t expect any method to work after that date. If you try, you’ll likely encounter a message during the installation process that says, “This app was built for an older version of Android and may not work properly. Try checking for updates, or contact the developer.” If you attempt to continue the installation process after that message appears, the app will crash.

Both Android and Chrome developers know that the respective stores sometimes extend these types of deadlines. We hope that will be the case here, but we have no information that would lead us to anticipate an extension. If there is no extension, we will still make MobileXPRT 3 available for testing on older Android devices, but we will then have to move it to the XPRT archive page.

We’re grateful for everyone who has used MobileXPRT 3 in the past, and we apologize for any convenience this change may cause. If you have any questions or concerns about MobileXPRT 3 access, please let us know! 

Justin

Posted in Android, Android 11, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Google, Google Chrome, Google Play Store, Mobile devices, MobileXPRT, MobileXPRT 3, Performance testing on tablets, Phones | Tagged , , , , , , , , |

Making progress with WebXPRT 4 in iOS 17

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on October 12, 2023

In recent blog posts, we discussed an issue that we encountered when attempting to run WebXPRT 4 on iOS 17 devices. If you missed those posts, you can find more details about the nature of the problem here. In short, the issue is that the Encrypt Notes and OCR scan subtest in WebXPRT 4 gets stuck when the Tesseract.js Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine attempts to scan a shopping receipt. We’ve verified that the issue occurs on devices running iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma with Safari 17.

After a good bit of troubleshooting and research to try and identify the cause of the problem, we decided to build an updated version of WebXPRT 4 that uses a newer version of Tesseract for the OCR task. Aside from updating Tesseract in the new build, we aimed to change as little as possible. To try and maximize continuity, we’re still using the original input image for the receipt scanning task, and we decided to stick with using the WASM library instead of a WASM-SIMD library. Aside from a new version of tesseract.js, WebXPRT 4 version number updates, and updated documentation where necessary, all other aspects of WebXPRT 4 will remain the same.

We’re currently testing a candidate build of this new version on a wide array of devices. The results so far seem promising, but we want to complete our due diligence and make sure this is the best approach to solving the problem. We know that OEM labs and tech reviewers put a lot of time and effort into compiling databases of results, so we hope to provide a solution that minimizes results disruption and inconvenience for WebXPRT 4 users. Ideally, folks would be able to integrate scores from the new build without any questions or confusion about comparability.

We don’t yet have an exact release date for a new WebXPRT 4 build, but we can say that we’re shooting for the end of October. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we work towards the best possible solution. If you have any questions or concerns about an updated version of WebXPRT 4, please let us know.

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Performance benchmarking, results, WebAssembly, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , |

An update on the issue with WebXPRT 4 in iOS 17

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on September 28, 2023

Recently, we informed XPRT blog readers that after updating Apple iPhones and iPads to iOS and iPadOS 17, respectively, we began to see WebXPRT 4 failures on those devices. In the Safari and Google Chrome browsers, WebXPRT 4 test runs were freezing while running the Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan workload. We were able to replicate the issue on every iOS/iPadOS 17 device we tested, and we also confirmed that WebXPRT 4 continues to run without issues on other non-iOS platforms.

Our team has been investigating the situation, and we’ve made some progress. It’s clear that the failed test runs are getting stuck when the WASM-based Tesseract.js Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine attempts to scan a shopping receipt. During our research, we’ve discovered an issue when the current Tesseract.js engine runs on iOS 17. This issue is broader than WebXPRT 4, and the Tesseract team is aware of the problem. Future versions of iOS 17 or later versions of Tesseract.js may include fixes for the problem, but unfortunately, we don’t know whether or when a fix will be available.

We’re currently investigating possible workarounds for the problem, and hope to be able to start testing soon. Our goal is that any solution we implement will not significantly affect existing WebXPRT 4 scores on non-iOS 17 platforms.

We will continue to share any substantive progress updates with readers here in the blog. Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience this issue causes for WebXPRT 4 users, and we appreciate your patience while we work toward a solution. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us!

Justin

Posted in Apple, benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Cross-platform benchmarks, Google Chrome, iOS, Performance benchmarking, Phones, Safari, Tablets, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Investigating a possible issue with WebXPRT 4 in iOS 17

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on September 14, 2023

Yesterday, Apple revealed the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro at its annual fall event, along with a new version of the iOS mobile operating system (iOS 17). The official iOS 17 launch will take place on September 18th, but before then, users of newer iPhones can install the OS via the Apple Beta Software Program.

Today, a tech journalist informed us that during their testing of iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro with iOS 17 Beta models, WebXPRT 4 has been freezing while running the Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan workload in the Safari 17 browser. Here in the lab, we were able to immediately replicate the issue on an iPhone 12 Pro with iOS 17 Beta model.

Our initial troubleshooting confirmed that WebXPRT 3 successfully runs to completion on iOS 17 Beta, so it appears that the problem is specific to WebXPRT 4. We also confirmed that WebXPRT 4 freezes at the same place when running in the Google Chrome browser on iOS 17 Beta, so we know that the problem does not occur only in Safari.

We’re currently investigating the issue, and will publish our findings here in the blog as soon as we feel confident that we’ve identified both the root cause and a workable solution, if a solution is necessary. One reason a solution would not be necessary is that the issue is a bug on the iOS 17 Beta side that Apple will resolve before the official launch.

We apologize for any inconvenience this issue might cause for tech reviewers and iPhone users, and we appreciate your patience while we figure out what’s going on. If you have any questions about WebXPRT 4, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Justin

Posted in Apple, benchmark, browser performance, Browser-based benchmarks, Cross-platform benchmarks, Google Chrome, iOS, iPhone, Performance benchmarking, Phones, Safari, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3, WebXPRT 4 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , |

A note about CrXPRT 2

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on August 31, 2023

Recent visitors to CrXPRT.com may have seen a notice that encourages visitors to use WebXPRT 4 instead of CrXPRT 2 for performance testing on high-end Chromebooks. The notice reads as follows:

NOTE: Chromebook technology has progressed rapidly since we released CrXPRT 2, and we’ve received reports that some CrXPRT 2 workloads may not stress top-bin Chromebook processors enough to give the necessary accuracy for users to compare their performance. So, for the latest test to compare the performance of high-end Chromebooks, we recommend using WebXPRT 4.

We made this recommendation because of the evident limitations of the CrXPRT 2 performance workloads when testing newer high-end hardware. CrXPRT 2 itself is not that old (2020), but when we created the CrXPRT 2 performance workloads, we started with a core framework of CrXPRT 2015 performance workloads. In a similar way, we built the CrXPRT 2015 workloads on a foundation of WebXPRT 2015 workloads. At the time, the harness and workload structures we used to ensure WebXPRT 2015’s cross-browser capabilities provided an excellent foundation that we could adapt for our new ChromeOS benchmark. Consequently, CrXPRT 2 is a close developmental descendant of WebXPRT 2015. Some of the legacy WebXPRT 2015/CrXPRT 2 workloads do not stress current high-end processors—a limitation that prevents effective performance testing differentiation—nor do they engage the latest web technologies.

In the past, the Chromebook market skewed heavily toward low-cost devices with down-bin, inexpensive processors, making this limitation less of an issue. Now, however, more Chromebooks offer top-bin processors on par with traditional laptops and workstations. Because of the limitations of the CrXPRT 2 workloads, we now recommend WebXPRT 4 for both cross-browser and ChromeOS performance testing on the latest high-end Chromebooks. WebXPRT 4 includes updated test content, newer JavaScript tools and libraries, modern WebAssembly workloads, and additional Web Workers tasks that cover a wide range of performance requirements.

While CrXPRT 2 continues to function as a capable performance and battery life comparison test for many ChromeOS devices, WebXPRT 4 is a more appropriate tool to use with new high-end devices. If you haven’t yet used WebXPRT 4 for Chromebook comparison testing, we encourage you to give it a try!

If you have any questions or concerns about CrXPRT 2 or WebXPRT 4, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Justin

Posted in battery life, benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, browser performance, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, History of benchmarking, HTML5, JavaScript, Laptops, Performance benchmarking, WebAssembly, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2015, WebXPRT 4 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , |

A bit of house cleaning at BenchmarkXPRT.com

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on August 17, 2023

When we’ve released a new version of an XPRT benchmark app, it’s been our practice for many years to maintain a link to the previous version on the benchmark’s main page. For example, visitors can start on the WebXPRT 4 homepage at WebXPRT.com and follow links to access WebXPRT 3, WebXPRT 2015, and WebXPRT 2013. Historically, we’ve maintained these links because labs and tech reviewers usually take a while to introduce a new benchmark to their testing suite. Continued access to the older benchmarks also allows users to quickly compare new devices to old devices without retesting everything.

That being said, several of the XPRT pages currently contain links to benchmarks that we no longer actively support. Some of those benchmarks still function correctly, and testers occasionally use them, but a few no longer work on the latest versions of the operating systems or browsers that we designed them to test. While we want to continue to provide a way for longtime XPRT users to access legacy XPRTs,  we also want to avoid potential confusion for new users. We believe our best way forward is to archive older tests in a separate part of the site.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be moving several legacy XPRT benchmarks to an archive section of the site. Once the new section is ready, we’ll link to it from the Extras drop-down menu at the top of BenchmarkXPRT.com. The benchmarks will still be available in the archive, but we will not actively support them or directly link to them from the homepages of active XPRTs.

During this process, we’ll move the following benchmarks to the archive section:

  • WebXPRT 2015 and 2013
  • CrXPRT 2015
  • HDXPRT 2014
  • TouchXPRT 2014
  • MobileXPRT 2015 and 2013

If you have any questions or concerns about the archive process or access to legacy XPRTs, please let us know! 

Justin

Posted in benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, CrXPRT, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 2014, History of benchmarking, MobileXPRT, MobileXPRT 2015, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2014, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2013, WebXPRT 2015, WebXPRT 4 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , |

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