4 ms·

I don't get this; everyone says it, but I've never seen it in smartphones. Laptops, sure, but Windows really DOES accumulate a lot of cruft, and OSX's updates n

I don't get this; everyone says it, but I've never seen it in smartphones. Laptops, sure, but Windows really DOES accumulate a lot of cruft, and OSX's updates never seem to improve performance. Smartphones, though? The only slowdown I've noticed is when the battery starts to go. And then you can usually tell; the device gets hot as the battery pushes up against all the ESR it's accumulated, the CPU steps back a bit...that's what I figure, anyways. For me, it's always coincided with the same inflection point when I start really noticing things like charge cycles taking much longer and a sharp drop-off in the life of a 100% charge.

bmurphy1976 9y ago
I've experienced slow-downs with both iOS and Android devices. They almost always corresponded with newer versions of operating system and all the extra functionality that came with the upgrade. The apps are also evolving. Compare Facebook today to what it was two or three years ago. The app does a ton more and all that extra functionality doesn't come for free. I suspect one of the primary reasons they broke messenger out into a separate app is that the Facebook app was simply too damn big. There have been instances where an upgrade has made my experience better, but the trend has definitely been in the other direction (for me anyway). I also have another concrete example: the original Nexus 7 had an SSD that didn't support trim. Over time it became nearly unusable as the SSD became fragmented. It was also severely bandwidth constrained. The device was decent until the first major Android revision came out. At that point, the new version of Android so significantly increased the bandwidth requirements on the SSD that it effectively strangled the device. What was an awesome device the day I got it became absolutely unusable. Eventually I installed a version of CyanogenMod and formatted it with an SSD friendly file system which made it passable again but, still sucked compared to the day I bought it.
- emerongi 9y ago
  I still have the original Nexus 7 and it's unbelievable how unusable it has become. I use a slim ROM of KitKat (the Android version it came with) and it's still so freaking sluggish. I only use it for watching videos now, it's unbearable for anything interactive. It used to be quite nice with the slim ROMs, but at this point nothing has helped to get it back to run like it used to. 4years of light use (99% of time sitting idle).
  - zlynx 9y ago
    The biggest problem on some of these is the lack of TRIM support in the hardware and/or operating system. After the device has written its complete 32 GB or whatever, it drops into slow mode on the storage Flash. There are ways to get the storage performance back, just search for Nexus 7 and trim.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - depressedpanda 9y ago
      I've had great success with ParrotMod[1] on one of my devices. But the dev doesn't have the device any longer, and the mod doesn't seem to work on Nougat. This Android 7 Nougat build[2] should have many of the ParrotMod optimizations out of the box, however. It works great on my other Nexus 7. [1]: https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-7/orig-development/parrotmod-speed-2012-nexus-7-emmc-fix-t3300416 https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-7/orig-development/pa... [2]: https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-7/development/rom-android-7-aosp-grouper-t3467514 https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-7/development/rom-and...
- SmooL 9y ago
  Just a note on messenger - they actually separate the two purposely. They know Facebook is 'dying' with the new generation, and are pushing messenger more. To that end, they are purposely separating the two, so as to seem as two separate entities. They don't wants Facebooks old legacy to bring down the new flashy messenger.
  - bmurphy1976 9y ago
    I'm pretty sure it's all of the above and many more things that contributed to the decision. It's never just one thing.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
I've felt it on my Samsung Galaxy S4, and on my SO's Samsung Galaxy S3. Both of which are high-quality devices, not some random el cheapo smartphones. Over the course of two-three years they both went from smooth&crisp to annoyingly laggy to (in case of S3) pretty much unusable even for making phone calls. Now in this story I'm just an alchemist with no experimental controls, but then again, the experience is not isolated. I'm not saying it's purposeful software slowdowns - maybe it's general bloat + flash memory wearing out? I don't know. But seeing as others report similar cases too, something is going on.
- astrange 9y ago
  The NAND will indeed slow down after years of heavy use, but if you can erase and reflash it should speed up again. I’m sure you can find a way to do profiling on a smartphone, anyway.
Bartweiss 9y ago
I've had a succession of Android phones made by Samsung. Each of them has become nontrivially slower over time, seemingly as a product of OS updates. I've even timed startup before and after installing updates as a crude check; startup at least gets measurably slower every time I update the damn thing. Obviously regular updating is important for security, but I sort of suspect users would be more open to updates if they weren't consistently harmful and occasionally catastrophic.

bmurphy1976 9y ago

I've experienced slow-downs with both iOS and Android devices. They almost always corresponded with newer versions of operating system and all the extra functionality that came with the upgrade. The apps are also evolving. Compare Facebook today to what it was two or three years ago. The app does a ton more and all that extra functionality doesn't come for free. I suspect one of the primary reasons they broke messenger out into a separate app is that the Facebook app was simply too damn big. There have been instances where an upgrade has made my experience better, but the trend has definitely been in the other direction (for me anyway). I also have another concrete example: the original Nexus 7 had an SSD that didn't support trim. Over time it became nearly unusable as the SSD became fragmented. It was also severely bandwidth constrained. The device was decent until the first major Android revision came out. At that point, the new version of Android so significantly increased the bandwidth requirements on the SSD that it effectively strangled the device. What was an awesome device the day I got it became absolutely unusable. Eventually I installed a version of CyanogenMod and formatted it with an SSD friendly file system which made it passable again but, still sucked compared to the day I bought it.

emerongi 9y ago
I still have the original Nexus 7 and it's unbelievable how unusable it has become. I use a slim ROM of KitKat (the Android version it came with) and it's still so freaking sluggish. I only use it for watching videos now, it's unbearable for anything interactive. It used to be quite nice with the slim ROMs, but at this point nothing has helped to get it back to run like it used to. 4years of light use (99% of time sitting idle).
- zlynx 9y ago
  The biggest problem on some of these is the lack of TRIM support in the hardware and/or operating system. After the device has written its complete 32 GB or whatever, it drops into slow mode on the storage Flash. There are ways to get the storage performance back, just search for Nexus 7 and trim.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - depressedpanda 9y ago
    I've had great success with ParrotMod[1] on one of my devices. But the dev doesn't have the device any longer, and the mod doesn't seem to work on Nougat. This Android 7 Nougat build[2] should have many of the ParrotMod optimizations out of the box, however. It works great on my other Nexus 7. [1]: https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-7/orig-development/parrotmod-speed-2012-nexus-7-emmc-fix-t3300416 https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-7/orig-development/pa... [2]: https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-7/development/rom-android-7-aosp-grouper-t3467514 https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-7/development/rom-and...
SmooL 9y ago
Just a note on messenger - they actually separate the two purposely. They know Facebook is 'dying' with the new generation, and are pushing messenger more. To that end, they are purposely separating the two, so as to seem as two separate entities. They don't wants Facebooks old legacy to bring down the new flashy messenger.
- bmurphy1976 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure it's all of the above and many more things that contributed to the decision. It's never just one thing.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

I've felt it on my Samsung Galaxy S4, and on my SO's Samsung Galaxy S3. Both of which are high-quality devices, not some random el cheapo smartphones. Over the course of two-three years they both went from smooth&crisp to annoyingly laggy to (in case of S3) pretty much unusable even for making phone calls. Now in this story I'm just an alchemist with no experimental controls, but then again, the experience is not isolated. I'm not saying it's purposeful software slowdowns - maybe it's general bloat + flash memory wearing out? I don't know. But seeing as others report similar cases too, something is going on.

astrange 9y ago
The NAND will indeed slow down after years of heavy use, but if you can erase and reflash it should speed up again. I’m sure you can find a way to do profiling on a smartphone, anyway.

Bartweiss 9y ago

I've had a succession of Android phones made by Samsung. Each of them has become nontrivially slower over time, seemingly as a product of OS updates. I've even timed startup before and after installing updates as a crude check; startup at least gets measurably slower every time I update the damn thing. Obviously regular updating is important for security, but I sort of suspect users would be more open to updates if they weren't consistently harmful and occasionally catastrophic.