5 ms·

Where's (4) Don't write slow software? Modern phone's have better specs than 2000-era PCs with software that needs to do less; they shouldn't be having these pe

Where's (4) Don't write slow software? Modern phone's have better specs than 2000-era PCs with software that needs to do less; they shouldn't be having these performance problems in the first place

kodablah 8y ago
> Where's (4) Don't write slow software? Says who, the government? We are talking about court-imposed fines here, not consumer wishes. Do we want a literal slow-software police?
- c0nducktr 8y ago
  > Do we want a literal slow-software police? That obvious answer is no, but as I think back on how many times I've been frustrated by some poorly performing piece of shit application over the past year, it's starting to not seem so bad of a solution.
- ginko 8y ago
  >Do we want a literal slow-software police? Yes please!
- Darthy 8y ago
  > Do we want a literal slow-software police? This court case shows that we kinda now already have one. The phones from 5 years ago already had amazing processors with billions of cycles per second. They can probably do nearly everything. But you know us software engineers: "make it faster till it runs wells on my test kit, then oh well ship it!" I think this ruling is a nudge into a better way. Yes deplay updates for more than 2 years, but don't stop optimizing new stuff when the latest phone can run it pretty well - keep optimizing until devices from the last 5 years run it very well.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > This court case shows that we kinda now already have one. That's patently wrong. The point of the fine was not that the phones were noticeably slower after the upgrade. The point of the fine was that the slowness was motivated as a way of inducing forced obsolescence. The manufacturers forced the updates with no rollback mechanism to render phones unusable and thus force their users to purchase replacements. If users could roll back the changes then the manufacturers wouldnt be fined.
- vokep 8y ago
  Yes. Immediately. If it can be shown that a piece of software written today has major functionality which also was written into any software before 2000, and the modern software has twice as much or more delay in its functionality, the author should be publicly executed. Maybe a little extreme but hey it'll provide an incentive :)
ancarda 8y ago
I don't think anyone intentionally wants to write slow software. What would iOS and Android developers (both app and OS) stop doing or do differently?
- twtw 8y ago
  Stop making everything animated or translucent?
  - ancarda 8y ago
    I'm curious why you were downvoted. I have found animations do slow down my phone. When I press the home button, as the apps fly in, I can't scroll left/right until the animation is done playing. I have reduce animations turned on (accessibility settings, I think) as it makes my phone feel a lot faster. Also, I remember the calculator app being unreliable due to animations: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/24/ios-11-calculator-animation-bug/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/24/ios-11-calculator-anima... Is this not a legitimate problem?
    - tomatotomato37 8y ago
      I know on Android there's an option in the developer menu to double the animation speed that can make an appreciable difference. Maybe something exists on the iPhone side too
      - mclehman 8y ago
        Thanks for mentioning this. I've noticed the setting before but never played around with it until now. I didn't have any performance complaints (Pixel 2 XL), but disabling animations makes (nearly†) everything feel noticeably snappier. † The google feed seems to have a consistent lag upon switching to it from the home screen (double tap on the multitasking button is normal) that the animations hide. It loads somewhere around 150ms slower than most applications, even taking longer than the first launch for unused apps.
- module0000 8y ago
zelon88 8y ago
Absolutely this. I am dumbfounded that some mobile applications are so painful to use when they really don't need to be. Take Snapchat for example. Why is Facebook and Instagram multitudes faster than Snapchat at taking pictures when that's 10% of FB or IG and 95% of SC? What is SC doing that requires so many resources? And every Reddit client ever, or Reddit in general. Shameless amount of cookies and a horribly bloated UI just to do the same thing they were doing 10 years ago with double the client resource usage.
- bildung 8y ago
  > And every Reddit client ever, or Reddit in general. Shameless amount of cookies and a horribly bloated UI just to do the same thing they were doing 10 years ago with double the client resource usage. The amazing/sad thing is reddit with other clients can be blazingly fast. I just tried redreader from the f-droid store (android open source store) and using it feels like the content is loaded locally.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    They presumably make it slow ("conservative"!) to limit server resources, to limit costs.
- jen729w 8y ago
  Give Apollo a go, runs great on my iPhone SE.
ken 8y ago
The whole point of this patch was to deal with old (~7 W h) batteries. Your 2000-era PC was usually plugged directly into the power grid, or if it was a laptop, it had a 50 W h battery and went a few hours away from grid power at most. It's a lot easier to "not write slow software" if you're not constrained by power limitations. Apple went to all the trouble of switching CPU architectures just to get on a better side of that problem.

Where's (4) Don't write slow software? Modern phone's have better specs than 2000-era PCs with software that needs to do less; they shouldn't be having these performance problems in the first place

kodablah 8y ago

> Where's (4) Don't write slow software? Says who, the government? We are talking about court-imposed fines here, not consumer wishes. Do we want a literal slow-software police?

c0nducktr 8y ago
> Do we want a literal slow-software police? That obvious answer is no, but as I think back on how many times I've been frustrated by some poorly performing piece of shit application over the past year, it's starting to not seem so bad of a solution.
ginko 8y ago
>Do we want a literal slow-software police? Yes please!
Darthy 8y ago
> Do we want a literal slow-software police? This court case shows that we kinda now already have one. The phones from 5 years ago already had amazing processors with billions of cycles per second. They can probably do nearly everything. But you know us software engineers: "make it faster till it runs wells on my test kit, then oh well ship it!" I think this ruling is a nudge into a better way. Yes deplay updates for more than 2 years, but don't stop optimizing new stuff when the latest phone can run it pretty well - keep optimizing until devices from the last 5 years run it very well.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > This court case shows that we kinda now already have one. That's patently wrong. The point of the fine was not that the phones were noticeably slower after the upgrade. The point of the fine was that the slowness was motivated as a way of inducing forced obsolescence. The manufacturers forced the updates with no rollback mechanism to render phones unusable and thus force their users to purchase replacements. If users could roll back the changes then the manufacturers wouldnt be fined.
vokep 8y ago
Yes. Immediately. If it can be shown that a piece of software written today has major functionality which also was written into any software before 2000, and the modern software has twice as much or more delay in its functionality, the author should be publicly executed. Maybe a little extreme but hey it'll provide an incentive :)

ancarda 8y ago

I don't think anyone intentionally wants to write slow software. What would iOS and Android developers (both app and OS) stop doing or do differently?

twtw 8y ago
Stop making everything animated or translucent?
- ancarda 8y ago
  I'm curious why you were downvoted. I have found animations do slow down my phone. When I press the home button, as the apps fly in, I can't scroll left/right until the animation is done playing. I have reduce animations turned on (accessibility settings, I think) as it makes my phone feel a lot faster. Also, I remember the calculator app being unreliable due to animations: https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/24/ios-11-calculator-animation-bug/ https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/24/ios-11-calculator-anima... Is this not a legitimate problem?
  - tomatotomato37 8y ago
    I know on Android there's an option in the developer menu to double the animation speed that can make an appreciable difference. Maybe something exists on the iPhone side too
    - mclehman 8y ago
      Thanks for mentioning this. I've noticed the setting before but never played around with it until now. I didn't have any performance complaints (Pixel 2 XL), but disabling animations makes (nearly†) everything feel noticeably snappier. † The google feed seems to have a consistent lag upon switching to it from the home screen (double tap on the multitasking button is normal) that the animations hide. It loads somewhere around 150ms slower than most applications, even taking longer than the first launch for unused apps.
module0000 8y ago

zelon88 8y ago

Absolutely this. I am dumbfounded that some mobile applications are so painful to use when they really don't need to be. Take Snapchat for example. Why is Facebook and Instagram multitudes faster than Snapchat at taking pictures when that's 10% of FB or IG and 95% of SC? What is SC doing that requires so many resources? And every Reddit client ever, or Reddit in general. Shameless amount of cookies and a horribly bloated UI just to do the same thing they were doing 10 years ago with double the client resource usage.

bildung 8y ago
> And every Reddit client ever, or Reddit in general. Shameless amount of cookies and a horribly bloated UI just to do the same thing they were doing 10 years ago with double the client resource usage. The amazing/sad thing is reddit with other clients can be blazingly fast. I just tried redreader from the f-droid store (android open source store) and using it feels like the content is loaded locally.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  They presumably make it slow ("conservative"!) to limit server resources, to limit costs.
jen729w 8y ago
Give Apollo a go, runs great on my iPhone SE.

ken 8y ago

The whole point of this patch was to deal with old (~7 W h) batteries. Your 2000-era PC was usually plugged directly into the power grid, or if it was a laptop, it had a 50 W h battery and went a few hours away from grid power at most. It's a lot easier to "not write slow software" if you're not constrained by power limitations. Apple went to all the trouble of switching CPU architectures just to get on a better side of that problem.