4 ms·

It appears to me that this article is trying a little bit too hard to paper over the poor UI performance of Android compared to iOS or WP7, and making up excuse

by w0utert 15y ago

It appears to me that this article is trying a little bit too hard to paper over the poor UI performance of Android compared to iOS or WP7, and making up excuses for less than optimal drawing performance. It doesn't say _why_ GPU rendering isn't much faster than CPU rendering on Android, it doesn't say why using OpenGL adds 8 MB to the RAM overhead to a process (something I can hardly believe by the way), it glosses over the fact that even though you _could_ render some things at 60 fps using just the CPU, that still means these CPU cycles can't be used for anything else, it doesn't mention the fact that GPU rendering is almost always more power-efficient than CPU rendering, and it doesn't differentiate at all between _what_ can efficiently be rendered by the Android hardware rendering and _how_, besides making the distinction between compositing and 'rendering in a window'. The final comment about memory bandwidth also makes little sense when talking about CPU rendering vs GPU rendering. Most mobile GPU's use some form of tile-based deferred rendering that allows the use of dedicated on-chip local buffers and efficient caching, to greatly reduce RAM bandwidth pressure. If anything suffers from constrained RAM bandwidth, it's CPU rendering. From a technical perspective this article is a very naive analysis, at best.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jan_g 15y ago
>It appears to me that this article is trying a little bit too hard to paper over the poor UI performance of Android compared to iOS or WP7, and making up excuses for less than optimal drawing performance. I'm surprised that many people are still bashing UI responsiveness/performance. I've held and played with many devices (including, but not limited to, iphone 3 and 4) and I can't really say what's bothering so many people. For me, every android device that I've used in the last 2 years feels fast and responsive. I'll just go out and say that it's a non-issue for mainstream user.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  "I'll just go out and say that it's a non-issue for mainstream user." Might also be why the "mainstream" is primarily using Apple iPads/iPods/iPhones vs the myriad of Android devices available. What bothers people is that when you swipe from screen 1 to screen 2, there can be a > .5 second delay. It doesn't feel remotely "natural" for something that you're physically touching and supposedly interacting with.
  - jan_g 15y ago
    >Might also be why the "mainstream" is primarily using Apple iPads/iPods/iPhones I don't believe the reason for that is UI responsiveness (also, I don't agree with your 'primarily' assessment, but let's not chew on that). In my opinion, the differences are so small that UI performance just isn't an issue. There are other areas where iDevices are noticeably better compared to every competing device. >What bothers people is that when you swipe from screen 1 to screen 2, there can be a > .5 second delay Hm, I don't remember that ever happening to me in the last ~2 years with two devices that I've used most: nexus one and motorola defy. But ok, I grant you that it can happen. So what? I've also seen an iPhone freeze completely.
    - bethling 15y ago
      For me, the UI performance is the single biggest reason why I don't use Android as my primary phone. No matter how fast the underlying action is, the jumpiness and occasional lagginess makes it feel slow to me. It frustrates me - there's so much I like about the OS that so many good things can be erased by leaving the visible perception of being slow.
    - mgkimsal 15y ago
      This has got to be mostly a perception problem, because it's all I ever notice when using any Android device. Swipe/scroll lag has always been noticeable for me. And yes, iPhones do crash/break/jitter, but it's by far a very small percentage of the time compared to how often they're used. As for a "reason" for people using Android: most of the people I know who use Android-based devices have "It's not Apple" as one of the top few reasons for using it.
    - CountSessine 15y ago
      Hm, I don't remember that ever happening to me in the last ~2 years with two devices that I've used most: nexus one and motorola defy. But ok, I grant you that it can happen. So what? I've also seen an iPhone freeze completely. That's funny. I use a Nexus S on a daily basis, and compared to my primary phones I've used over the last 3 years (iPhone 3GS, 4, and now 4S), the touch screen is awful. The incontrovertible truth is that every mainstream Android device on the market, including the newest SGS2's, have this annoying 500ms/20 pixel touchscreen 'slop'. And it's annoying as hell. It makes the touchscreen and all the widgets feel slippery. It ruins the built-in android keyboard (I can type at 40+ words per minute on the ios5 touchscreen keyboard, and I need swiftkey if I want to type that fast on android). Ignore this all you like. Those of us who want something better know where to get it.

by w0utert 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

jan_g 15y ago

>It appears to me that this article is trying a little bit too hard to paper over the poor UI performance of Android compared to iOS or WP7, and making up excuses for less than optimal drawing performance. I'm surprised that many people are still bashing UI responsiveness/performance. I've held and played with many devices (including, but not limited to, iphone 3 and 4) and I can't really say what's bothering so many people. For me, every android device that I've used in the last 2 years feels fast and responsive. I'll just go out and say that it's a non-issue for mainstream user.

mgkimsal 15y ago
"I'll just go out and say that it's a non-issue for mainstream user." Might also be why the "mainstream" is primarily using Apple iPads/iPods/iPhones vs the myriad of Android devices available. What bothers people is that when you swipe from screen 1 to screen 2, there can be a > .5 second delay. It doesn't feel remotely "natural" for something that you're physically touching and supposedly interacting with.
- jan_g 15y ago
  >Might also be why the "mainstream" is primarily using Apple iPads/iPods/iPhones I don't believe the reason for that is UI responsiveness (also, I don't agree with your 'primarily' assessment, but let's not chew on that). In my opinion, the differences are so small that UI performance just isn't an issue. There are other areas where iDevices are noticeably better compared to every competing device. >What bothers people is that when you swipe from screen 1 to screen 2, there can be a > .5 second delay Hm, I don't remember that ever happening to me in the last ~2 years with two devices that I've used most: nexus one and motorola defy. But ok, I grant you that it can happen. So what? I've also seen an iPhone freeze completely.
  - bethling 15y ago
    For me, the UI performance is the single biggest reason why I don't use Android as my primary phone. No matter how fast the underlying action is, the jumpiness and occasional lagginess makes it feel slow to me. It frustrates me - there's so much I like about the OS that so many good things can be erased by leaving the visible perception of being slow.
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    This has got to be mostly a perception problem, because it's all I ever notice when using any Android device. Swipe/scroll lag has always been noticeable for me. And yes, iPhones do crash/break/jitter, but it's by far a very small percentage of the time compared to how often they're used. As for a "reason" for people using Android: most of the people I know who use Android-based devices have "It's not Apple" as one of the top few reasons for using it.
  - CountSessine 15y ago
    Hm, I don't remember that ever happening to me in the last ~2 years with two devices that I've used most: nexus one and motorola defy. But ok, I grant you that it can happen. So what? I've also seen an iPhone freeze completely. That's funny. I use a Nexus S on a daily basis, and compared to my primary phones I've used over the last 3 years (iPhone 3GS, 4, and now 4S), the touch screen is awful. The incontrovertible truth is that every mainstream Android device on the market, including the newest SGS2's, have this annoying 500ms/20 pixel touchscreen 'slop'. And it's annoying as hell. It makes the touchscreen and all the widgets feel slippery. It ruins the built-in android keyboard (I can type at 40+ words per minute on the ios5 touchscreen keyboard, and I need swiftkey if I want to type that fast on android). Ignore this all you like. Those of us who want something better know where to get it.