This speed test between the iPhone 6, the Galaxy S5, and the HTC One (M8) shows Apple’s newest handset roundly beating the others. I don’t usually link to this kind of technical content because I don’t have a ton of value to add on these topics. I’m also relatively unfamiliar with speed measurement techniques; this one, in which all three phones sequentially launch an identical gauntlet of apps, struck me as clever.

The apps are arranged on each phone’s home screen in three rows of four each, with the first one at top-left being the clock app. The tester starts a timer in that app and then, one by one, launches each of the other apps starting at the top row and working his way down to the twelfth app, at the bottom right. He then returns to the clock app, taps the lap button, and proceeds to run through the sequence again. After that second lap, he stops the timer in the clock app again. It’s a very basic yet very smart way of measuring speed that seems to be a useful proxy for real world usage.