4 ms·

What activity could possibly be less laggy on your phone? I can't stand using my iPhone or my iPad for anything other than very basic features since they're so

What activity could possibly be less laggy on your phone? I can't stand using my iPhone or my iPad for anything other than very basic features since they're so slow and limited compared to how quickly I can get things done on one of my real computers. Selecting text or placing the cursor on a phone is an exercise in frustration. Browsing the web too - I have to contend with every other website treating my phone like a 2nd class citizen and some sites like Reddit or Twitch try so hard to force you to use their app. On Google I have to either use desktop mode and zoom in after each search or I have to put up with shitty AMP results. I basically associate ARM with shitty locked-down operating systems that don't have my best interests in mind.

roamerz 6y ago
You had me with you until the last paragraph. I appreciate my ARM device. In my case an iphone. Out of all if the other ‘brands’ Apple comparatively has my best interests (privacy and security) in mind. With some of the mentioned trade-offs of course.
- grawprog 6y ago
  Your best interests are not necessarily everyone's best interests, security at the expense of freedom is not mine or many other people's best interest.
  - api 6y ago
    Security/privacy and freedom are at odds these days. Freedom means the freedom to install malware and spyware and the freedom for said malware and spyware to run wild on the device. Android is more free than iOS, which means Android apps are much more free to spy on me. If you are technical enough and conscientious enough to avoid this problem that's great, but that's not the majority of the market. For most users freedom means malware and highly invasive surveillance. The Internet and the computing ecosystem decades ago was comparatively open and free. Then the barbarians came in the form of surveillance capitalism and industrialized malware operations. Now the fields are salted, the smaller settlements are burned to cinders, and everyone is cowering behind the high city walls of various walled gardens.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      > Security/privacy and freedom are at odds these days. They don’t have to be; it’s just that this is the option we have right now.
    - entropicdrifter 6y ago
      Meanwhile, Linux phones are starting to become a thing, even if they're just a group of survivors trying to tame and cultivate their own desert island
      - buran77 6y ago
        Much of the security afforded by systems without too much market share is that they are not seen as a juicy enough target. But any juicy target in the hands of a regular user (not an enthusiast, not an expert sysadmin) will be exploited. The more flexibility the user has, the bigger the chances they will pick convenience over security making the system even easier to exploit. There's no system that will make everyone happy so the interests of the many for security outweighed he interests of the few for tinkerability.
        entropicdrifter 6y ago
        Maybe I'm an outlier in this, but I don't think Linux is for everybody, nor do I think it has any reason to try to be. Linux phones should be an option for enthusiasts and security researchers, IMO. At no point did I intend to imply that they were some sort of answer to the issue of security and privacy for the majority of people. If anything I thought my comment implied the opposite, since the community is so heavily DIY that it's comparatively a Robinson Crusoe scenario.
    - grawprog 6y ago
      >Android is more free than iOS, which means Android apps are much more free to spy on me. I'm curious about this, does this mean the ios app equivalent of facebook and every other service that's been caught spying on customers, somehow doesn't do exactly the same thing on that platform? If I use facebook on an Apple device I become immune to their tracking?
oarsinsync 6y ago
> What activity could possibly be less laggy on your phone? Photos on my iPhone SE (2016) or 9.7" iPad Pro (2016) is significantly more performant than Photos on either of my MBPs (13" & 15", 2015). Like massively so, to the point that I absolutely loathe having to use my Mac whenever I need to do anything with a photo or video.
- api 6y ago
  That's probably because photos are an incredibly common task on phones and so the software has gotten a huge amount of optimization attention. I don't think it's a hardware issue. Phone UIs in general get more love just because with that tiny screen and given the normal causal use cases users are far less tolerant of slow or poorly designed UIs on phones. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and on mobile any UI issue is instant death. On desktop it's just an annoyance.
  - oarsinsync 6y ago
    The point was to give an example that desktop/laptop computers do not always result in better performance than phones. The GP didn't seem to believe it was possible that a phone could be "less laggy". In line with your own remarks, there are a number of common use cases that have been optimised on phones in a way that they never were on desktop, resulting in a superior user experience on the phone vs the desktop.
zozbot234 6y ago
> Selecting text or placing the cursor on a phone is an exercise in frustration. That's just a difference in UI - a small phone touchscreen is simply not a very effective input device compared to even a plain touchpad using the exact same area. (To the point where I think all touchscreen-only devices should support "touchpad mode" with a pointer out of the box. VNC/RDP implementations on mobile devices have been doing this for ages, so it's quite physically achievable.)

roamerz 6y ago

You had me with you until the last paragraph. I appreciate my ARM device. In my case an iphone. Out of all if the other ‘brands’ Apple comparatively has my best interests (privacy and security) in mind. With some of the mentioned trade-offs of course.

grawprog 6y ago
Your best interests are not necessarily everyone's best interests, security at the expense of freedom is not mine or many other people's best interest.
- api 6y ago
  Security/privacy and freedom are at odds these days. Freedom means the freedom to install malware and spyware and the freedom for said malware and spyware to run wild on the device. Android is more free than iOS, which means Android apps are much more free to spy on me. If you are technical enough and conscientious enough to avoid this problem that's great, but that's not the majority of the market. For most users freedom means malware and highly invasive surveillance. The Internet and the computing ecosystem decades ago was comparatively open and free. Then the barbarians came in the form of surveillance capitalism and industrialized malware operations. Now the fields are salted, the smaller settlements are burned to cinders, and everyone is cowering behind the high city walls of various walled gardens.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    > Security/privacy and freedom are at odds these days. They don’t have to be; it’s just that this is the option we have right now.
  - entropicdrifter 6y ago
    Meanwhile, Linux phones are starting to become a thing, even if they're just a group of survivors trying to tame and cultivate their own desert island
    - buran77 6y ago
      Much of the security afforded by systems without too much market share is that they are not seen as a juicy enough target. But any juicy target in the hands of a regular user (not an enthusiast, not an expert sysadmin) will be exploited. The more flexibility the user has, the bigger the chances they will pick convenience over security making the system even easier to exploit. There's no system that will make everyone happy so the interests of the many for security outweighed he interests of the few for tinkerability.
      - entropicdrifter 6y ago
        Maybe I'm an outlier in this, but I don't think Linux is for everybody, nor do I think it has any reason to try to be. Linux phones should be an option for enthusiasts and security researchers, IMO. At no point did I intend to imply that they were some sort of answer to the issue of security and privacy for the majority of people. If anything I thought my comment implied the opposite, since the community is so heavily DIY that it's comparatively a Robinson Crusoe scenario.
  - grawprog 6y ago
    >Android is more free than iOS, which means Android apps are much more free to spy on me. I'm curious about this, does this mean the ios app equivalent of facebook and every other service that's been caught spying on customers, somehow doesn't do exactly the same thing on that platform? If I use facebook on an Apple device I become immune to their tracking?

oarsinsync 6y ago

> What activity could possibly be less laggy on your phone? Photos on my iPhone SE (2016) or 9.7" iPad Pro (2016) is significantly more performant than Photos on either of my MBPs (13" & 15", 2015). Like massively so, to the point that I absolutely loathe having to use my Mac whenever I need to do anything with a photo or video.

api 6y ago
That's probably because photos are an incredibly common task on phones and so the software has gotten a huge amount of optimization attention. I don't think it's a hardware issue. Phone UIs in general get more love just because with that tiny screen and given the normal causal use cases users are far less tolerant of slow or poorly designed UIs on phones. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and on mobile any UI issue is instant death. On desktop it's just an annoyance.
- oarsinsync 6y ago
  The point was to give an example that desktop/laptop computers do not always result in better performance than phones. The GP didn't seem to believe it was possible that a phone could be "less laggy". In line with your own remarks, there are a number of common use cases that have been optimised on phones in a way that they never were on desktop, resulting in a superior user experience on the phone vs the desktop.

zozbot234 6y ago

> Selecting text or placing the cursor on a phone is an exercise in frustration. That's just a difference in UI - a small phone touchscreen is simply not a very effective input device compared to even a plain touchpad using the exact same area. (To the point where I think all touchscreen-only devices should support "touchpad mode" with a pointer out of the box. VNC/RDP implementations on mobile devices have been doing this for ages, so it's quite physically achievable.)