PacketZoom’s News Performance Index benchmarked the performance of selected News mobile applications. The Index focused on the home (landing) screen of each app and ranked them by average time-to-read (the amount of time it takes for all landing screen files to load, allowing the user to start reading content). The variance in time-to-read is a result of both: (1) design methodology and (2) sequencing of screen elements. News apps that are ranked high in speed are likely to provide a more engaging user experience than the slower apps.

Test Methodology:

1. Downloaded each app from Apple's AppStore on iOS device.
2. Launched the app and interacted with it while examining its network traffic.
3. Captured url flow and network request pattern of all the static assets that were downloaded till the app loaded an article to read. Saved this session flow as an "executable script". (Note: These scripts are for use on our proprietary First Look platform, The only one of it's kind in the world. This platform allows us to gather RUM data on any url of our choice from thousands of actual mobile devices operating on real-world networks).
4. Using our First Look Test Platform, executed the script on hundreds of mobile devices globally on real mobile user sessions.
5. Only sessions connected to WiFi were used for this index
6. Executed this script via PZP (PacketZoom Protocol), measuring total time taken for all downloads in the script.
7. Executed the exact same script from the exact same mobile device during the exact same user sessions via HTTP(S) protocol. Same time measurements were done for this case.
8. Averaged the results from step 6 to find out the existing "Time to Read with PacketZoom" from all the test devices.
9. Averaged the results from step 4 to find out the existing "Time to Read" from all the test devices.