5G on iPhone 14 Pro feels faster because it is faster
If you’ve somehow already managed to get hold of a new iPhone 14 Pro despite the multi-week wait times you may have felt like the 5G connection seems a little faster. If you do, you’re not wrong, because recent testing tells us the 5G in these devices is indeed faster than before.
It feels faster because it is faster
Though you’d be forgiven for imagining that there aren’t really enough services around yet that truly exploit this mobile broadband speed opportunity.
So, what’s the story? KnowYourMobile cites “real-world tests” generated by SpeedSmart that seem to show the new iPhone 14 Pro to be 38% faster over 5G networks than it’s predecessor.
That extends across both upload and download speed, and also extends to latency – that little bit of frustrating time you spend waiting for your 5G device to connect to your carrier’s servers.
The claim is that this has also reduced drastically from 52.24ms to 37.09ms. That’s long enough to feel the difference when you try to download something, as it’s that little frustrating gap before the download begins.
What’s behind the improvement?
Well, in part it’s Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X65 modem used inside the new iPhone, but it’s not only that – it was only recently revealed that Apple has built its own components to help with this process. That’s presumably a side benefit of its ongoing work to build its own in-house 5G modem, which may or may not see the light.
iFix it made the claim around Apple component’s, which it says feature custom components to support the capacity to send emergency messages using Globalstar satellites over the n53 band.
Apple confirmed the hardware, telling Reuters:
“iPhone 14 includes custom radio frequency components, and new software designed entirely by Apple, that together enable Emergency SOS via satellite on new iPhone 14 models.”
The Globalstar thing now seems even more interesting
What’s picquing my interest here is that we now know Apple’s teams have also been investing in the connectivity effort around the Globalstar connection deal, which makes me even more certain that when it comes to the long term strategic potential of that agreement we here on planet earth and outside of certain secret rooms in Cupertino really have not seen anything yet.
Those speeds in full
So, here’s the speeds from SpeedSmart.
- iPhone 14 Pro (T-Mobile): 255.91 Mbps
- iPhone 13 Pro (Download – T-Mobile): 173.81 Mbps
- iPhone 14 Pro (Upload – T-Mobile): 28.25 Mbps
- iPhone 13 Pro (Upload – T-Mobile): 22.51 Mbps
- iPhone 14 Pro (Download – Verizon): 175.56 Mbps
- iPhone 13 Pro (Download – Verizon): 126.33 Mbps
- iPhone 14 Pro (Upload – Verizon): 27.28 Mbps
- iPhone 13 Pro (Upload – Verizon): 21.64 Mbps
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