3 ms·

Yes, I totally agree. Raw vs perceived aka deceiving performance. My advice: work with an old Apple computer and put this against a brand new super giga overcl

Yes, I totally agree. Raw vs perceived aka deceiving performance. My advice: work with an old Apple computer and put this against a brand new super giga overclocked Windows hardware monster. Apple focuses exactly on perceived performance first and foremost. On all my devices - MacBook Pro 13 from 2013, MacBook Air 2018, iPhone 6 - one thing is always smooth no matter what: UI interaction and transitions. I read a lot about Apple and Google engineering and I remember that they put a priority on perceived performance first. I think there is a 300ms seconds threshold under which optimization brings in no additional benefit, however massive discomfort above this limit in that humans perceive animations as jerky, which leads to feelings of discomfort. Jobs demanded that Apple Safari had a one or two second rule AFAIK, so that any new feature must not slow down opening up time. Displays and chip design is also aimed at this perceived performance metric. Windows always appears jerky and laggy to me, no matter the age or raw performance the machine got, while any Apple device is guaranteed to feature smooth UI interaction no matter CPU load. I love it and as a product manager it became a mantra for my enterprise software SaaS platform a mantra as well. Customers love it, they feel taken care of. And that’s great.

Taniwha 2y ago
FWIW we were building some of the first mac graphics accelerators when we were doing the above work - 24-bit graphics were new, and too slow to be usable on the original Mac 2s (that too slow plateau) - in part it was because the software guys were pissing it away - Microsoft in particular did stupid stuff - sometimes excell would erase a window 7-8 times before it ever drew any useful pixels
megamalloc 2y ago
For direct user interactions (such as opening a combo box) the threshold of perception is actually much closer to 30ms than 300ms. 300ms is usable but far from a pleasure to use. I found myself interacting with a Windows Server 2008 VM the other day (don't ask!) and was astonished how snappy the UI was, relative to today's machines (Windows or Mac).

Taniwha 2y ago

FWIW we were building some of the first mac graphics accelerators when we were doing the above work - 24-bit graphics were new, and too slow to be usable on the original Mac 2s (that too slow plateau) - in part it was because the software guys were pissing it away - Microsoft in particular did stupid stuff - sometimes excell would erase a window 7-8 times before it ever drew any useful pixels

megamalloc 2y ago

For direct user interactions (such as opening a combo box) the threshold of perception is actually much closer to 30ms than 300ms. 300ms is usable but far from a pleasure to use. I found myself interacting with a Windows Server 2008 VM the other day (don't ask!) and was astonished how snappy the UI was, relative to today's machines (Windows or Mac).