“These lab tests are manufactured,” the company claims

Oct 9, 2015 07:47 GMT  ·  By
Small teaser from Softpedia's upcoming iPhone 6s Plus review: iPhone 6s Plus versus the standard iPhone 6 Plus
   Small teaser from Softpedia's upcoming iPhone 6s Plus review: iPhone 6s Plus versus the standard iPhone 6 Plus

The new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus which were both announced by Apple on September 9 come with two different chips that are manufactured by Samsung or TSMC and it recently came to our attention that the latter provides at least 50 minutes of additional battery life on either device.

Benchmarks that were performed recently on different A9 chips that are integrated into the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus show that the version developed by TSMC can last longer under heavy usage, while Samsung's drains the battery faster.

But according to Apple itself, these are what the company calls “manufactured lab tests” and are extremely misleading for the public because they actually stress the processor at the maximum level, a level that's never reached in real life.

In a statement for TechCrunch, the company explained that it has already performed its very own in-house testings which are a lot more accurate and are based not only on their own data, but also on customer data that shows exactly how much the battery can go depending on different usage patterns.

Just a 2 to 3 percent difference

But interestingly enough, Cupertino admits that there's indeed a difference between the two chips, but says that it's so small that you won't even notice. It is somewhere around 2 or 3 percent, it says, and that's what the internal tests revealed, which should be a lot more accurate.

Here's Apple's statement in full (emphasis is ours):

“Certain manufactured lab tests which run the processors with a continuous heavy workload until the battery depletes are not representative of real-world usage, since they spend an unrealistic amount of time at the highest CPU performance state. It’s a misleading way to measure real-world battery life. Our testing and customer data show the actual battery life of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, even taking into account variable component differences, vary within just 2-3% of each other.”

So how does Apple actually measure battery performance? Whenever you set up your iPhone, you are asked to enable or disable diagnostic info sharing, which helps the company not only see how long the battery can last on your phone, but also which apps need the power. This way, it can analyze usage patterns and optimize the chips to perform certain tasks without a big impact on battery life.

The iPhone 6s Plus comes with what it's being called a coprocessor, known internally as M9, which is there specifically to run some processes all the time, such as the ones for tracking (including gyroscope and barometer, but also Siri).

That's also one of the reasons why Apple never provides specific battery life numbers, as the final figures depend on usage patterns which the company doesn't necessarily collect to generate the average autonomy, but to find ways to improve future chips for longer battery.

Certainly, there is a difference in terms of battery life on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus and this difference is even more noticeable when compared to the previous versions.

The iPhone 6s Plus brings a nearly 10 percent drop in battery life as compared to the standard model according to our own tests, but we'll detail this in our iPhone 6s Plus review that should go live during the weekend, so keep an eye on Softpedia to find more on battery performance.