3 ms·

I've never understood why rotating the app resets the state like this without writing code to handle it. I mean even a lightweight website can change its interf

I've never understood why rotating the app resets the state like this without writing code to handle it. I mean even a lightweight website can change its interface on rotation using only CSS without losing any state. It's been several years since I messed with Android development. I assumed it would be fixed by now.

jabot 7y ago
Maybe that's because the website already has a serialized state - the HTML?
izacus 7y ago
Because the alternative is not resetting the state and having to deal with the fallout. iOS does this and it's a source of even more strange bugs and side issues (based on doing cross-platform development across several teams). This even led to the point where a huge amount of iOS apps simply banned rotation support to not deal with it. It's just a different tradeoff. The underlying issue is that developers don't want to deal with storing the state which causes issues on lower end devices, which start to break as users multitask. The Android tools for that also aren't all that great - although I also haven't really seen any other toolkit do it better.
- cerberusss 7y ago
  I'm an iOS developer and I'm not sure what you mean. Auto Layout provides enough hooks to take care of rotation. Why would rotation be a source of strange bugs and side issues?
  - izacus 7y ago
    Because not all the state and layout is handled by AutoLayout... and it has its own set of bugs. Heck, iOS apps themselves (iMessage, Springboard) and riddled with rotational layout bugs in iOS 12 and 13.
    - cerberusss 7y ago
      But how bad is it, I mean how many have you encountered so far? I don't doubt it, but in my years of iOS development, I haven't seen them.
jinushaun 7y ago
Because web has “unlimited” memory. Mobile devices don’t, especially if you have an OS that aggressively kills apps to maintain decent battery life. That said, I agree. Rotation should not be conflated with general app suspension. They are two different concerns. iOS does this.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  And Symbian did as well.

jabot 7y ago

Maybe that's because the website already has a serialized state - the HTML?

izacus 7y ago

Because the alternative is not resetting the state and having to deal with the fallout. iOS does this and it's a source of even more strange bugs and side issues (based on doing cross-platform development across several teams). This even led to the point where a huge amount of iOS apps simply banned rotation support to not deal with it. It's just a different tradeoff. The underlying issue is that developers don't want to deal with storing the state which causes issues on lower end devices, which start to break as users multitask. The Android tools for that also aren't all that great - although I also haven't really seen any other toolkit do it better.

cerberusss 7y ago
I'm an iOS developer and I'm not sure what you mean. Auto Layout provides enough hooks to take care of rotation. Why would rotation be a source of strange bugs and side issues?
- izacus 7y ago
  Because not all the state and layout is handled by AutoLayout... and it has its own set of bugs. Heck, iOS apps themselves (iMessage, Springboard) and riddled with rotational layout bugs in iOS 12 and 13.
  - cerberusss 7y ago
    But how bad is it, I mean how many have you encountered so far? I don't doubt it, but in my years of iOS development, I haven't seen them.

jinushaun 7y ago

Because web has “unlimited” memory. Mobile devices don’t, especially if you have an OS that aggressively kills apps to maintain decent battery life. That said, I agree. Rotation should not be conflated with general app suspension. They are two different concerns. iOS does this.

pjmlp 7y ago
And Symbian did as well.