Google says Android can (finally) Google things faster than iPhone; shows the receipts

Android can now Google things faster than iPhone by 5-9%, claims Google.

Google says that Android is now faster than iPhone in web browsing. The performance boost stems from software-hardware integration between Chrome, the Android OS, and flagship processors. There's a catch - the speed difference might not be as big as the benchmarks suggest.

Martin Filipov, Published 03/26/2026

Just as AirDrop is starting to roll out to more Android devices, Google now claims that Android has overtaken iPhone as the fastest mobile platform for web browsing.

According to a new report from the Chromium Blog, recent optimizations have pushed Android flagship performance to record-breaking levels in key industry benchmarks - Speedometer 3.1 and LoadLine.

Speedometer is a joint project by Apple, Google, and Mozilla, and simulates common user tasks like clicking buttons to browse and scrolling to measure how "snappy" a browser feels. The benchmark results shared by Google show unnamed Android flagship phones outscoring the latest phones from a “competing mobile phone platform” (read: iOS).

The other tool, LoadLine, is a newer benchmark developed by Google and its partners. It measures how fast links are opened after you click them. Google claims top-tier Android phones are now up to 47% faster in this category than their non-Android competitors.

Google says this bump in web browsing performance is thanks to "vertical integration." By working closely with chip and phone-makers, Google has tuned the Android kernel and the Chrome engine to work more efficiently with specific hardware. However, there's a catch - the speed difference might not be as big as the benchmarks suggest.

Although the changes have reportedly resulted in a 20-60% year-over-year jump in benchmark scores, Google says users can expect roughly 5% faster page loads and 9% smoother interactions during daily use.