Ever wanted to know the speed of your data connections download and upload link? This tip may come in very handy especially now that AT&T has officially said it will begin throttling data speeds for the top 5% of data users. Read on and we will show you how to do it.

How to test your WiFi network data connection:

• Download Speedtest.net Mobile Speed Test from the App Store, it is free. [iTunes - link]
• Make sure you are connected to your WiFi network.
• Start Speedtest.net application and it will locate your nearest server. The server provides the communication to your device which will determine your data speeds. You must have  location services turned on for this app for it to fnction correctly.
• Press Begin Test and you will see the app burst into life. It will download a test file and upload a test file to ascertain your data connection speeds.
• When complete, it will tell you your WiFi data connection download and upload speed.

How to test your cell network data connection

• Download Speedtest.net Mobile Speed Test from the App Store, it is free. [iTunes - link]
• Make sure you are not connected to your WiFi network, go to Settings, Wi-Fi and toggle Wi-Fi off. This will ensure you are using your cell data connection.
• Start Speedtest.net application and it will locate your nearest server. The server provides the communication to your device which will determine your data speeds. You must have  location services turned on for this app for it to fnction correctly.
• Press Begin Test and you will see the app burst into life. It will download a test file and upload a test file to ascertain your data connection speeds.
• When complete, it will tell you your cell data connection download and upload speed. (Don’t laugh, I know it’s pathetic)

That is all you need to do. You should notice that your WiFi data connection is reasonably stable but your cell connection can vary dramatically; this is totally normal.

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

The Verizon iPhone is one of the most anticipated smartphones in recent memory, made even more so by the endless rumors and years of waiting those who wanted it had to endure. Now it’s here and while the radio has changed it’s still pretty much the same iPhone 4 Apple shipped on AT&T back in June 2010. A 7 month old phone on a brand new network is not something iPhone users have had to consider in the past. Is it worth the wait? Is Verizon really a better network? Does CDMA have important shortcomings you need to be aware of? Will the entire thing be rendered moot when Apple announces an iPhone 5 in June?

Figuring out the answers to these questions and more have kept all of us at TiPb extremely busy over the past couple of weeks. So hit the jump and on for our full Verizon iPhone review!

Since the Verizon iPhone 4 is still an iPhone 4 we’re only going to look at and compare the differences between the Verizon model and the AT&T/GSM model here. If you haven’t already, check out our original iPhone 4 review to see all the features that are similar including FaceTime video calls, Retina Display screen, 5mp camera and HD video recording, etc.

In the box

You’ll get the standard Apple headphones, the wall adapter, a sync cable, and your manuals. The only difference is really the phone and the back of the box.

The back of the box simply specifies the carrier. Other than that, everything should be the same. Oh let’s not forget that you won’t get a handy dandy micro-SIM removal tool, since CDMA phones don’t use them.

Hardware differences

The Verizon iPhone has different breaks in the antenna band than its AT&T/GSM sibling. Even though the antenna band was redesigned for CDMA, I don’t see any improvement when it comes to the “death grip” issue (see our explanation of “death touch” vs. “death grip” for more on this). If anything, I experience it more than I do on my AT&T iPhone 4. I’m not sure if attenuation on the Verizon version is worse because of a difference between CDMA and GSM or if it’s something else. I experience the issue on my AT&T iPhone but it seems that the signal doesn’t drop as quick and when it does, it goes up quicker when I’m not touching the break in the band. The Verizon version seems to lose bars a lot quicker and it takes a bit longer for them to come back.

As most people have already figured out, putting a bumper or a case on your phone will solve the death grip problem.

Other than the breaks in the antenna bands, the mute switch and volume buttons are moved down about 2mm on the Verizon iPhone 4. This is because of the break in the antenna at the top left of the phone. For users coming from an AT&T iPhone 4, this can be annoying as many current iPhone 4 cases will not work as the silent switch and volume buttons are positioned differently.

The only other difference I have found is that the Verizon iPhone 4 doesn’t have the FCC and other clearance marks on the back the way the AT&T/GSM version does.

Software differences

The AT&T/GSM iPhone 4 is currently running iOS 4.2.1. The Verizon iPhone 4 launched with iOS 4.2.6. The only major feature 4.2.6 adds is personal hotspot capabilities (called mobile hotspot on other devices). AT&T has announced that they will offer mobile hotspot as well but no dates have been given yet, and it will require an iOS 4.3 update. Currently AT&T offers internet tethering for iPhone users but you are limited to Bluetooth and USB tethering.

The Verizon version supports wifi tethering for up to 5 devices. This is extremely nice if you’re somewhere without wifi and need to access the internet from a wifi only device (like a wifi iPad). You can simply enable the mobile hotspot feature and it’ll show up as a wireless network on your other device. You can also choose to add a password if you’d like. We’ll cover that below.

Syncing data

If your’e coming from an AT&T iPhone, you’ll feel right at home. Actually, if you’ve ever used an iPod of any kind or an iPad, you’ll already know what to do. The Verizon iPhone is no different than its AT&T brother. Plug into iTunes, sync your content, and you’re good to go. Verizon also offers a contact transfer app for current customers that’ll easily bring down all your contacts wirelessly for you (given you use Verizon’s contact backup service). If you need more help:

• How to transfer data from your old AT&T iPhone to your new Verizon iPhone
• How to transfer data from your old Blackberry or Droid/Android to your new Verizon iPhone

There’s really nothing new here, both iPhones will sync and store data in the same manner.

Apps

All the apps that run on the current AT&T/GSM iPhone also run on the Verizon iPhone (with the sole exception of carrier branded apps, like AT&T Navigator.) Apple has hundreds of thousands of apps and games available for the iPhone and Verizon will be releasing some carrier-specific ones as well, hopefully something to tie into their NFL deal. Here are some good starting points:

• Top 10 best iPhone 4 apps
• Top 5 iPhone apps for Droid/Android switchers
• Top 5 iPhone apps for BlackBerry switchers

Call Clarity

CDMA is long known to handle calls better than GSM. But is that really true? When it comes to clarity, sure. But you do lose some features when using a CDMA iPhone. Conference calls are only good for up to 3 people, including yourself. The way calls are handled can differ too. On AT&T, if you initiate a conference call, you can merge the calls, split them off, and hang up separately. On Verizon, hanging up on one will hang up on both. This is also a downside of the current version of CDMA Verizon is utilizing.

In most of our Verizon voice tests, call clarity was always on par with AT&T or better.

Personal Hotspot

Personal hotspot is definitely a welcome feature to iOS. It’s also only available for Verizon customers at the moment. AT&T has stated they have plans to release it, presumably with the launch of iOS 4.3, but no date has been given yet.

This feature allows you to turn your phone into a wireless hotspot. Up to 5 devices at a time can connect and use your iPhone 4′s internet connection. We tested this pretty thoroughly and found that it works as promised. I was pretty impressed with the speeds and reliability.

Data Speeds

Verizon is offering their customers unlimited (though potentially throttled) data, while AT&T only offers 250MB and 2GB data tiers. This is a huge selling point for them. But can their network handle the traffic? From our experience, yet it can. Quite well actually. Leanna and I both conducted speed tests. Mine in the Chicago area and hers in the Denver area. While AT&T was much faster for me, in real world situations (even tethering), neither of us had issues with Verizon and it always loaded pages within seconds of our AT&T iPhones. Sometimes it even loaded them quicker.

Data speeds and network reliability will, of course, heavily rely on coverage in your particular area. AT&T typically handles well in larger populated areas while Verizon has been known to have a strong network in rural areas as well. We conducted several Verizon iPhone 4 speed tests and the results were more than respectable.

Verizon iPhone or AT&T iPhone?

That’s really a decision each individual person is going to have to make. As always, you should base it on what the coverage is like where you live. For some, AT&T and Verizon may both be strong players in your area. If you’re in that situation, take a look at each carrier and what benefits GSM has over CDMA and vice versa. We also did a Verizon iPhone 4 vs AT&T iPhone 4 comparison. We pitted them against each other, and both held their own. You’ll really have to weigh out what options are more important to you. Do you need simultaneous voice and data or are you more concerned with call clarity? The little differences can end up being annoying over time so it may be worth it to weigh your options and choose the carrier that’ll best fit your individual needs.

State of the Verizon Jailbreak

A lot of potential Verizon switchers have been asking if they’re able to jailbreak if they switch. The answer to that is a big fat yes! greepois0n supports the Verizon iPhone as well. I jailbroke mine on launch day without a hitch. We’ve also got a complete guide up on how to jailbreak the Verizon iPhone 4. So if you’re a jailbreaker (or want to be), make sure to give that a look.

Wrap Up

We had quite a week playing with the Verizon iPhone 4. We came away feeling that Verizon is definitely capable of delivering a great customer experience. I’d have no qualms about using the Verizon iPhone 4 if you don’t need simultaneous voice and data or don’t mind some of the little annoyances that come along with CDMA. The plans on both carriers are roughly similar with the exception of Verizon offering unlimited data while AT&T only offers tiered.

Now that Verizon finally has the iPhone, both businesses are going to have to compete for our business. For almost 4 years, AT&T hasn’t had to compete for iPhone revenue. If you wanted an iPhone, you were going to play by their rules. Those days are long gone and we have a feeling it’s going to get pretty interesting from here on out. Let the carrier wars begin!

The past few days our inbox has been flooded with emails from you, our readers, letting us know that you’ve experienced significant increases in AT&T 3G data speeds. And this makes perfect sense if you consider that all of the reported claims have come from the 6 cities that AT&T recently flipped the HSPA 7.2 switch on.

Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami, with capabilities being turned up on a site-by-site basis beginning last month. Further backhaul deployment will continue in these markets and begin in additional markets across the nation.

Located in Chicago I’ve personally witnessed a slight increase in data speed but I am still nowhere close to the 7.2 that AT&T has promised. Drop us a line in the comments and let us know — what speeds are you pulling from AT&T now?

[Thank to everyone who sent in their speeds!]

It’s sure getting entertaining to watch AT&T and Verizon duke it out, commercial after commercial. Today we have the latest from AT&T to show you and this one is all about download speed. It seems AT&T has given up on the fact that Verizon covers more of the U.S. in terms of 3G reception, and is now concentrating on the claim that AT&T has the faster 3G speeds.

We’ve said it before and we will say it again, AT&T just does not seem to get it and they are obviously ignoring most of your comments as a significant amount of our readers feel they should be spending all of these advertising dollars on some more 3G towers…

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

It seems as if AT&T is gearing up to launch their HSPA 7.2 in the Dallas area, making good on their promise of having it rolled out in 6 major cities 1 major city in the US. (If anyone in Charlotte, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, or Miami is seeing signs of the boost yet, let us know).

This is indeed the right time for AT&T to give their network a boost, especially with image the latest Verizon “map for that” commercials portray.

With these upgrades, you should have a better wireless experience with more capacity on our network and improved coverage inside your home and other buildings throughout the DFW area. Look for improved coverage in area communities like Allen, Arlington, Carrollton, Colleyville, Dallas, Denton, Ft. Worth, Frisco, Garland, Grapevine, Grand Prairie, Irving, Keller, Mesquite, McKinney, Lewisville, Plano, Richardson, Rockwall, Southlake and more. We updated nearly 1,000 cell sites in these areas! The fastest gets faster! AT&T has the fastest network in Dallas/Ft. Worth* and we’re excited to announce that Dallas will be among the first 6 major U.S. cities in which AT&T plans to upgrade its existing 3G technology to HSPA 7.2.** This new upgrade will provide considerably faster mobile broadband speeds, and we plan to make it available by the end of the year.

AT&T claims to have spent 50 million to improve their 850 mhz network in Dallas alone. That should mean pristine service for those enough luck enough to be a resident of the Dallas area. At least you that’s what one would hope…

[Thanks to David for the tip!]

AT&T has unveiled plans to upgrade their 3G network to 7.2 HSPA in various markets across the US by the end of the year. What cities happen to have all of the luck on their side? Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami.

If you don’t live in any of those cities don’t worry, I will let you all know how it works here in Chicago. Unfortunately for those who are not so lucky, the wait for HSPA 7.2 will will take a bit longer as AT&T is only planning on having 25 of the nation’s 30 largest markets upgraded by the end of 2010. John Stankey, president and CEO, AT&T Operations:

“Our deployment of HSPA 7.2 and supporting backhaul connectivity will enable our customers to continue to ride the leading edge of emerging devices and thousands of mobile applications, our network is based on the predominant technology platform used by operators worldwide and has been tested by today’s most popular devices. That experience gives us an important advantage in developing and deploying new technologies to meet customers’ future needs.”

Who knows, maybe as these network upgrades are taking place we will slowly start to see apps such as SlingPlayer Mobile get rid of their Wi-Fi-only chains? Only time will tell.

Macworld is reporting that while the iPhone 3GS chipset does indeed support the new (for North America!) HSPDA download speed of 7.2 Mbps, Apple didn’t see fit to equip it with the matching HSUPA upload speed of 1.4/1.9 Mbps. Indeed, they claim the iPhone 3GS will top out its uploads (sending videos to YouTube, emailing photos, etc.) at a comparatively anemic 384 Kbps.

Perhaps not a big deal in North America where, as noted, the GSM networks are still building out their speed. (Hold your laughter, CDMA, your upload speed is faster but it’s not like you’ve flipped the switch to Rev B yet either — you all have your hidden shames!).

In Europe, however, where HSPA networks are as mature as their coffee is good, well… they’re going to suffer senselessly slower upload speeds.

We’ve asked you in the past how fast your downloads were, now let us know how your uploads are doing, and how much HSUPA — or the lack thereof — matters to you.

Jeremy and Chad both gave excellent, compelling reasons for why they ARE SO or ARE NOT upgrading to the iPhone 3G S. For certain, intelligent people will have different yet equally valid reasons for choosing to upgrade, or not to upgrade. For myself?

Apple had me at speed.

As anyone who ever managed to snag NetShare before it was yanked off the App Store, or anyone who has ever spun up PDANet, for anyone who has tethered under the iPhone 3.0 beta knows — 3G networks are a lot faster than the iPhone 3G lets on.

See, internet connection speed is only one factor. CPUs (and/or GPUs — where’s my OpenCL ES?) need to render HTML, CSS, and — the killer — JavaScript. Doing that takes a lot of crunch power, and that’s the bottleneck on the current iPhone 3G.

The new iPhone 3G S, however, has 150% of the CPU power and 200% of the RAM.

Remember a few years back when you bought a new laptop or desktop and it had a better CPU and twice as much RAM, remember how that new experience just flew. And remember going back and trying to use your old computer again, and how it just felt so slow?

Yeah, that feeling, that’s what I’m talking about.

Not only will web pages render faster at current 3G speeds, iPhone 3G S will use 3.5G/3.75G 7.2Mbps HSPA to really give them a turbo boost in areas where it’s available (hurry up, AT&T!)

And all of that is in addition to the faster task/app switching, load speeds, OpenGL ES 2.0, and other, tangible, perceptive speed boosts that Apple averages out to being TWICE as fast on the iPhone 3G.

Imagine if your new car suddenly went twice as fast.

For some people it won’t be worth it. For some the iPhone 3G wasn’t worth upgrading from the 2G either. It depends on what you value. On a tiny screen, seconds matter to me. Waiting for a page to render or apps to switch is dead time, and I’m trying to fill the interstitial moments, not just fracture them into smaller bits.

I know expectations were impossibly high for the third generation iPhone’s debut at WWDC 2009. Sites like TiPb and the rumors we all love so much didn’t help. But complaining about the iPhone 3G S not being improved enough — what did you want, a built-in espresso maker?

Apple puts new CPUs, GPUs, and RAM into their iMacs, MacBook Pros, Mac Pros, etc. all the time. Much more often than case changes (hello G5 = Mac Pro!). Fashion is nice when we get it, features perfect when they make sense (I expect that Mobile iChat one year!) but it’s power that will still drive mobile adaption. Performance size matters.

So I’ll be lining up on Friday for a new 32GB iPhone 3G S. (No pre-orders on my carrier). And when I start using it, when web pages just pop up, when apps launch in a heartbeat, when I hit HSPA 7.2, when I load up my first OpenGL ES 7.2 game…

Well, let’s just say I won’t be able to go back.

Looks like DaringFireball.net nailed it: the S in iPhone 3G S stands for speed. Faster processors (we’re guessing both CPU and GPU in line with new ARM and PowerVR chips), new OpenGL ES 2.0 implementation (no word on OpenCL yet, which leverages GPUs and CPUs).

HSPA cell downloads are also boosted up to 7.2 Mbps, where available.

Missing in the speed-boost department, however, was any word on support for 802.11n Wi-Fi according to the Tech Specs.

Guess we’re waiting on fourth gen for that?

Welcome to From the Forums, a regular post here at TiPb that gives you, our readers, the chance to get involved in our ever growing community. To get yourself started please register, it will only take a moment of your time, we promise. Now that’s out of the way, lets dive right into some of the better threads for today.

Our first thread today comes to us from iLoveiPhones and she brought up a good topic regarding data prices for our iPhones. Will the data prices rise, stay the same, or can we possibly see different pricing tiers? Personally we feel we may just start to see different pricing tiers. Granted high data prices don’t seem to be slowing people from buying the iPhone but lower data prices could open the flood gates.

Next thread was started a while back by ExBBUser and he wanted to know, what are you top 5 App Store apps? This one has been highlighted here before but with the App Store hitting the one billion mark, why not toss this thread back into the mix?

Sticking with the theme of iPhone apps, cjvitek started a nice little thread titled iPhone CrApp List. It’s simply a thread that you can go to and relieve your frustration on a app you may have purchased just to find out it is pretty pathetic… we have all had this happen at some point or another so share your experience.

Our last thread today is one that I started a while back but with the rumors of AT&T beefing up their 3G network in preparation for the next iPhone, how fast or slow is your 3G data speed? Test your speed out and feel free to post a screen shot in your reply. (Just make sure you have 10 posts to be sure you can post any images.)

See you on the forums!

We’d mentioned previously that AT&T is upgrading the ole rabbit-eared 3G network for Apple’s upcoming next generation iPhone, and WMExperts covered it yesterday, but it’s worth surfacing the details:

AT&T Mobility VP Scott McElroy says software updates will double the downstream speed to 7.2 megabits per second and are already being tested in two markets [...] But AT&T’s looking past that and toward HSPA+, which will increase speeds to 21 Mb/s. And looking even further into the future, tests with the 4G LTE standard should begin sometime next year.

A helpful commenter, Will, gave us the skinny on those phat pipes after the last podcast:

• Plain ‘ol 3G refers to the original WCDMA specs which gives a max throughput of 384 kbps.
• 3.5G in the UMTS world commonly refers to HSDPA which is already up and running.
• “3.75G” – 3GPP Revision 6 – HSDPA (max of 14.4Mbps) and HSUPA (max of 5.76Mbps), known together as HSPA
• “3.9G” – 3GPP Revision 7 – HSDPA (max of 42Mbps) and HSUPA (max of 11Mbps), known as HSPA+

Thanks Will. Well, by any other name, we hope these upgrades not only give iPhone users blazing fast speeds, but better reliability. Doesn’t matter how fast you go if you can’t connect, right?

Apple Insider reports that AT&T is trying to increase the coverage, reliability, and speed of it’s 3G network in anticipation of Apple’s next gen iPhone hardware coming this summer (perhaps to be introduced, like last year, at WWDC in June?).

AT&T’s current 3G supports up to 3.6Mb/s, though AT&T has said they have the infrastructure to go to 7.2Mb/s, with 14.4 and 20Mb/s feasible within a couple of years. As for the iPhone specifically:

Apple has been evaluating a portion of the network upgrade already accessible to its engineers for testing purposes and is genuinely impressed with its speed. A person familiar with the situation commented that Apple iPhone engineers have “never gotten pages to load as fast as they were loading on the new routers.”

This would follow on AT&T’s EDGE “plus” upgrade before the original iPhone 2G launched, and their acceleration of HSPA last year before the iPhone 3G debuted.

So, stronger, better, faster, longer… Sounds good, but can they deliver?

On other mobile platforms (hi Windows Mobile!) we often spend quite a bit of time comparing the processors of different models, seeing which one is faster and seeing what happens when you set the clock speed of a given phone to a higher number. It’s “fun,” see, because not only can clock speed be radically different from phone to phone, but so can performance even on devices with similar clock speeds.

The nice thing about the iPhone: not doing that. Well, until now. MacRumors reports that the 2nd gen iPod Touch, though it sports the same processor as its siblings, actually has a clock speed of 532MHz compared to the rest at 412MHz. The result is that certain apps like TouchSports Tennis run much better on the iPod Touch 2nd Gen. Which ultimately meant that the developer had to optimize their app for the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch 1st Gen. All three actually perform differently with the game, with the original iPod touch falling furthest behind.

It’s a bummer, because as apps become more powerful and get closer to testing the limits of the platform, developers will discover that the ‘single target’ advantage of the iPhone/iPod Touch platform may go away. We’re not talking about having to code for as many devices as you do with Windows Mobile or BlackBerry, of course, but it’s still worth noting.

Why not clock up the iPhone 3G. In a couple of words: “battery life.” In a lot of words, well, battery life plus when you have WiFi, bluetooth, Quad-band edge and Tri-band WDCMA (that’s GSM 3G to you) all packed together, they have to be finely tuned. Just changing the clock speed could be enough to ruin a whole raft of things beyond battery life. With smartphones, we live in a world where the choice of paint can radically alter signal strength, so it’s no stretch to say the changes in heat, radiation, etc. associated with a faster clock speed could potentially cause problems. Plus, again, battery life people.

It probably wouldn’t completely screw with everything if Apple upped the clock speed — people change clock speeds all the time on WinMo — but it can happen and it’s a bigger deal as they get packed more tightly together. These radios are packed pretty tightly in the iPhone 3G.

Dieter just told us about Crackberry Kevin’s uber-frustrating experiences trying to pit the iPhone 3G and Blackberry Bold head to head in the browser war to end all browser wars. But — silver lining — for iPhone users, not only did we snag bragging rights, but a handy tip as well!

Unlike the Blackberry Bold, the iPhone defaults to having Javascript enabled. As anyone who’s waited — and waited — for an overstuffed Facebook profile to load already knows, Javascript can be heavy lifting for a browser. For WebApps, it’s a necessary sacrifice, but if all you want is casual browsing, you can turn Javascript off and send MobileSafari into turbo mode.

Here’s how:

From the iPhone home screen, tap Settings. Scroll down and tap the Safari button. Under Security, slide Javascript to Off.

There you go, you’ve just switched to light, clean HTML and CSS mode (still technically “just the internet” — unless you’re in the UK…). In Crackberry.com’s tests, it made a big difference on some sites. Let us know how it works for you!

(Thanks to Crackberry Kevin!)

Here’s the backstory to what you’re looking at, above: Mobile Computing posted up a video showing that the iPhone 3G obliterated the BlackBerry Bold in a download & render test of web browsers (We just covered this, oh, hours ago). Fun stuff, except as our friends at CrackBerry noted (and MC added too) – it wasn’t a fair fight. The Bold probably wasn’t actually using WiFi and also most of the Bolds out there have pre-release ROMS on them, so the finals might be a stitch faster.

So a loyal CB reader pitched in and posted a video of the Bold loading the same page again, but this time actually using WiFi, it came in a little bit faster.

At TiPb, though, we figured it still looked slow. But since the Bold probably had a pre-release OS on it, we figured we’d hobble the iPhone 3G as well. So above, Loyal Moderator Bad Ash pits the BlackBerry Bold on WiFi against the iPhone 3G on EDGE.

Yeah, it’s closer, but we’re still ahead by 4 seconds or so. Tie the iPhone 3G’s WiFi hand behind its back, fine. Tie it’s 3G hand back there too, fine. The iPhone 3G still seems to win out — and we look forward to being able to say that about the final Bold ROM too. Hey — you guys still have (slightly) more reliable push email, so there’s that.

Between the time you click a link and a web page finishes loading on your iPhone, there are many factors that ultimately decide just how fast that process will be, including connection speed (2.5 G EDGE/3G HSDPA/WiFi) CPU speed, and rendering engine. Like desktop Safari, Mobile Safari uses Apple’s open source WebKit rendering engine, and it seems like for 2.0, WebKit has gotten its turbo on, especially in handling Javascript. Says Daring Fireball:

For all the hubbub regarding the new App Store, most “iPhone software” runs in the web browser. But improvements in WebKit performance often help native iPhone app performance, too — a slew of my favorite native iPhone apps have built-in WebKit browsers (e.g., NetNewsWire, Twitterrific, Instapaper, and Cocktails). When WebKit performance improves, any app that uses WebKit improves, and WebKit improved a lot between iPhone 1.1.4 and 2.0.0

The original iPhone on 1.0 was already fast compared to some 3G phones because of the speed of its CPU and the optimization of its WebKit engine. Now it’s getting silly fast. And I don’t think we’ve even gotten the extra nitro from the new Safari 4 and SquirelFish tech yet either?

Check out Daring Fireball for the graphs and stats…

Just prior to the original iPhone’s release, AT&T’s operation “Fine Edge” brought faster, stronger, better 2.5 / 2.75G speed to the GSM masses. This year, in a strangely reminiscent move, reports are coming in that AT&T is showing their 3G HSPA network the same type of love:

For the past few months we’ve been seeing average download speeds between 500 – 800 kbps with a spike here and there. This morning’s tests however, are yielding between 1400 – 1500 kbps.

Gee, could another iPhone release be on the horizon?

Read

Despite the iPhone’s Mobile Safari browser rendering pages faster on Edge than many “competing” devices can on lesser browsers with faster connections, the race to speed the feeds continues, and AT&T has not only taken an early lead, but is positively driving towards the 3G finish-line.

Amazing what a little technology (and a billion dollars) can do.

WMExperts.com cites a recent survey where AT&T’s HSDPA trounced EVDO Rev A., averaging 755kbps with bursts peaking at 1.6mbps(!)

In Apple-parlance: It’s a screamer.

But wait, there’s more: AT&T intends to increase its network speed by a factor of 5 by next year. That’s a quintuple screamer right there, never mind the upcoming switch to 4G LTE speeds…