5 ms·

If nothing else comes out of this, I hope we end up with an Android OS that works better than the current one. I've been running Android since the Nexus One so

by untog 10y ago

If nothing else comes out of this, I hope we end up with an Android OS that works better than the current one. I've been running Android since the Nexus One so I'm no newbie to the platform, but the ease with which iOS manages to get all UI interactions at ~unnoticable FPS and outstanding battery life is staggering when you're used to Android. It feels like some really fundamental choices were made badly on the platform that make it incredibly inconsistent and unreliable. A fresh start would be fantastic.

Inconel 10y ago
As a fellow Nexus user, I've owned the Nexus One, 5, and currently use a 6P, how much of this is due to the OS versus hardware? Will Google ever be able to achieve Apple level battery life or overall UI smoothness, not to mention update support, without having their own custom SoC? I was very happy with the 5, even with the intermittent lags, especially considering it's price at release. I suppose I'm not a very heavy phone user, and I never play mobile games, but I've been very happy with the 6P on Android 6.0-7.1. Battery life could definitely be better, and it does get fairly warm at times, but overall it's been a very good experience for me considering the Snapdragon 810 it's using is generally poorly regarded.
- pcnix 10y ago
  Google has been hinting at their own soc for the third gen Pixel devices though, so that is something to look forward to.
- scott_karana 10y ago
  Apple has had fluid UIs since the start, despite off-the-shelf, low resource Samsung SoCs. They only started making custom ones after with the 4S, as I recall.
  - glasz 10y ago
    exactly. it's not (only) a hardware issue.
  - Inconel 10y ago
    Good point, Apple's A series SoCs are so well regarded I sometimes forget they've only been around for half of the iPhone's existence.
  - fixermark 10y ago
    Yep. Out of the starting gate, Apple forced tight constraints on background and multi-threaded processing---so tight that the first versions of the iPhone OS couldn't support some types of application that the Android OSs could unless Apple wrote the program and could take advantage of the private APIs in the OS. But the advantage to that B&D approach was responsiveness and battery life, relative to an Android OS where any developer could write an app that would spawn an ill-behaved background thread and suck your battery.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- disiplus 10y ago
  i have a nexus 6 and its ruining android 7. its better then samsung devices, but it has its own problems. i run the screen at min brightness because thats the only way i can get reasonable battery life. my car is parked -2 so i lose signal every time i have to go there. and sometimes i have to restart the device to get the signal back ( no tricks like airlaine mode work) the ui sometimes gets so slow i dont know why.
camdenlock 10y ago
Bingo. This is precisely what Google needs to pull ahead. Apple's going to commence soiling their collective knickers in 5... 4... 3...
bb101 10y ago
I wonder how much of the performance issues are related to Android being Java vs iOS being C? The old Blackberry OS was also implemented in Java and I remember well the spinning hourglass and the odd pauses in its UI.
- izacus 10y ago
  Not much, modern devices and modern Android runtime is fast enough that GC and Java aren't a problem. There's bunch of other issues around though, mostly coming from the fact that devices use problematic and slow I/O controllers, apps do blocking I/O and OEMs add bloat and misconfigure behaviour of the OS to prioritize their services at the expense of apps you're actually using. But bad I/O is the killer (e.g. fun things like triggering 2 image load requests at once which then take 2500ms vs. doing them sequentally which takes 400ms on some Samsungs. This happens also if several processes collide). Apple side-steps that by throwing money at the problem (good controllers, expensive flash) which probably won't happen in budget Android market.
  - i336_ 10y ago
    Wow, this was a major TIL for me. I don't read about Android and iOS [hardware] nearly as much as I'd like to, and HN doesn't seem to generally cover the subject too well. What are some sources you could recommend I read to stay updated?
Touche 10y ago
I'd love to see data that concludes that iOS has better battery life than Android. I haven't seen such data and doubt the truth of that statement.
- jgon 10y ago
  iOS devices routinely ship with batteries ~60% the size of flagship android devices and have competitive amount of battery life. If apple chose to ship an iphone with a 3000mah battery like what can be found in Android flagships it would absolutely crush the competition in terms of battery life.
  - Touche 10y ago
    Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. Without research into this it's all just conjecture.
    - EpicBlackCrayon 10y ago
      LG G4: 3000mAh HTC One M9: 2840mAh iPhone 6: 1810mAh iPhone 6 Plus: 2915mAh In streaming video playback, the iPhone beats out all of the other devices. Galaxy S6: 6.3 hours LG G4: 6 hours HTC One M9: 5.5 hours iPhone 6: 8.8 hours iPhone 6 Plus: 11.1 hours http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/which-phone-has-the-best-battery-life#rMWc6EAAmHwtWu38.99 http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/which-phone-has-the-b...

by untog 10y ago

Inconel 10y ago

As a fellow Nexus user, I've owned the Nexus One, 5, and currently use a 6P, how much of this is due to the OS versus hardware? Will Google ever be able to achieve Apple level battery life or overall UI smoothness, not to mention update support, without having their own custom SoC? I was very happy with the 5, even with the intermittent lags, especially considering it's price at release. I suppose I'm not a very heavy phone user, and I never play mobile games, but I've been very happy with the 6P on Android 6.0-7.1. Battery life could definitely be better, and it does get fairly warm at times, but overall it's been a very good experience for me considering the Snapdragon 810 it's using is generally poorly regarded.

pcnix 10y ago
Google has been hinting at their own soc for the third gen Pixel devices though, so that is something to look forward to.
scott_karana 10y ago
Apple has had fluid UIs since the start, despite off-the-shelf, low resource Samsung SoCs. They only started making custom ones after with the 4S, as I recall.
- glasz 10y ago
  exactly. it's not (only) a hardware issue.
- Inconel 10y ago
  Good point, Apple's A series SoCs are so well regarded I sometimes forget they've only been around for half of the iPhone's existence.
- fixermark 10y ago
  Yep. Out of the starting gate, Apple forced tight constraints on background and multi-threaded processing---so tight that the first versions of the iPhone OS couldn't support some types of application that the Android OSs could unless Apple wrote the program and could take advantage of the private APIs in the OS. But the advantage to that B&D approach was responsiveness and battery life, relative to an Android OS where any developer could write an app that would spawn an ill-behaved background thread and suck your battery.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
disiplus 10y ago
i have a nexus 6 and its ruining android 7. its better then samsung devices, but it has its own problems. i run the screen at min brightness because thats the only way i can get reasonable battery life. my car is parked -2 so i lose signal every time i have to go there. and sometimes i have to restart the device to get the signal back ( no tricks like airlaine mode work) the ui sometimes gets so slow i dont know why.

camdenlock 10y ago

Bingo. This is precisely what Google needs to pull ahead. Apple's going to commence soiling their collective knickers in 5... 4... 3...

bb101 10y ago

I wonder how much of the performance issues are related to Android being Java vs iOS being C? The old Blackberry OS was also implemented in Java and I remember well the spinning hourglass and the odd pauses in its UI.

izacus 10y ago
Not much, modern devices and modern Android runtime is fast enough that GC and Java aren't a problem. There's bunch of other issues around though, mostly coming from the fact that devices use problematic and slow I/O controllers, apps do blocking I/O and OEMs add bloat and misconfigure behaviour of the OS to prioritize their services at the expense of apps you're actually using. But bad I/O is the killer (e.g. fun things like triggering 2 image load requests at once which then take 2500ms vs. doing them sequentally which takes 400ms on some Samsungs. This happens also if several processes collide). Apple side-steps that by throwing money at the problem (good controllers, expensive flash) which probably won't happen in budget Android market.
- i336_ 10y ago
  Wow, this was a major TIL for me. I don't read about Android and iOS [hardware] nearly as much as I'd like to, and HN doesn't seem to generally cover the subject too well. What are some sources you could recommend I read to stay updated?

Touche 10y ago

I'd love to see data that concludes that iOS has better battery life than Android. I haven't seen such data and doubt the truth of that statement.

jgon 10y ago
iOS devices routinely ship with batteries ~60% the size of flagship android devices and have competitive amount of battery life. If apple chose to ship an iphone with a 3000mah battery like what can be found in Android flagships it would absolutely crush the competition in terms of battery life.
- Touche 10y ago
  Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. Without research into this it's all just conjecture.
  - EpicBlackCrayon 10y ago
    LG G4: 3000mAh HTC One M9: 2840mAh iPhone 6: 1810mAh iPhone 6 Plus: 2915mAh In streaming video playback, the iPhone beats out all of the other devices. Galaxy S6: 6.3 hours LG G4: 6 hours HTC One M9: 5.5 hours iPhone 6: 8.8 hours iPhone 6 Plus: 11.1 hours http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/which-phone-has-the-best-battery-life#rMWc6EAAmHwtWu38.99 http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/which-phone-has-the-b...