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Yet how long after the hardware was absolutely capable of matching iOS for responsiveness in the current UI, did it take for Android to prioritize and achieve t

by roc 13y ago

Yet how long after the hardware was absolutely capable of matching iOS for responsiveness in the current UI, did it take for Android to prioritize and achieve that goal and how long did it then take manufacturers to update their implementations? And to what extent has it filtered down to the bulk of cheap devices? I don't think the (sane) argument is that Android can't match. Or that the hardware to match is unavailable/expensive. I think there's a valid point about Android having different priorities that often see it ignoring this area and the manufacturers of cheap devices generally just not caring to try. [1] So inasmuch as iOS6-class performance was in reach of even the 'don't really care' class of Android manufacturers, iOS7 does present a higher bar (that they are likely to continue not really caring about), meaning tens-to-hundreds of millions of devices that don't (regardless of whether they could) match on visuals. Until the inexorable march of performance-per-watt brings them brute force solutions. [1] Is Google even going to think it's worth the resources to chase blur effects at the expense of other features? And if they don't, would Samsung? And as the maker of its own 'cheaper' devices, would Samsung filter that higher-end look to its cheaper devices out of the gate? Or retain it as a differentiator to push people into buying new Galaxy kit, instead of the lower-end devices?

corresation 13y ago
Android still hasn't matched iOS in the responsiveness front, owing to some fundamental architectural choices made early in Android's development (chief being the overuse of managed code, and the costs that come with it). This is entirely a software problem, having little to do with hardware, yet the article makes a hardware argument that is simply not supported. It's also worth giving some perspective on those rampant "cheap" devices: The most common Android handset in use in the US of A is the Galaxy S3. Other very powerful devices fill the top echelon of deployments. Any notion that assumes that it's legions of bottom tier devices just isn't accurate. And the great thing about GPU shaders is that they're eminently scalable. Again, assuming that this notion that Android will chase iOS is true, these things are the most easily toggled, and having better effects on top tier devices that scale back on lower devices is trivial. All of this (the submission I mean, and related articles) is just conjecture. Apple did what Apple felt was right for iOS to improve the operating system. Framing everything in an Android context is just speculation.
- akmiller 13y ago
  Android still hasn't matched iOS in the responsiveness front Guessing you don't use Android or at least haven't in awhile? I've been Android user now since the release of 4.0 and it seems much more responsive now than my wife's iPhone 5 in almost every category from web browsing to gaming. I was very aware of the lag pre-4.0 and that was the main reason I never switched (was an iPhone user before that). Now it's as smooth as can be.
  - corresation 13y ago
    I use both Android and iOS for a considerable part of my day. On the Android side I roll with a Galaxy S3, Nexus 4 and Nexus 7. It has gotten much better, most certainly, via things like concurrent and partial garbage collections (and the improvements in the integer-units in the CPUs, simply brute forcing through these UI thread impediments), and other core improvements, but it's still most certainly behind iOS (where UI priority was a core architectural concern from day one). Aside from a still not silky smooth experience, Android still has an endemic problem with completely non-responsive interactions -- you click or do something and everything just stops with absolutely no hints or feedback....and then three seconds later a result appears.
    - akmiller 13y ago
      I honestly don't see that at all on my nexus 4. Maybe it's just the limited apps that I use. I do see more performance related issues on my Nexus 7 though.
  - snogglethorpe 13y ago
    I agree that modern Android phones (mine [Sharp 200SH] has 4.1.2, dual core CPU, 1GB RAM) are pretty smooth, and seem more or less the same as modern iOS devices on that front. [Apple sometimes seems to go to extra lengths to put in little animations etc (e.g. the screen rotation), but I'd classify most of them as frills.] ... with one glaring exception: on my Android phone, at least, pressing the home button very often takes a good 1-2 seconds (sometimes more!) to take you to the home screen, with no visual feedback that it's doing anything. A second with no feedback is an eternity in GUI time. iPhones (and iPads), on the other hand, respond pretty much instantaneously to the home button. I'm pretty used to this behavior, so I know to just wait, but it's still pretty annoying (one hits the home button quite frequently in typical usage).... Even if there's some property of the Android software that makes it challenging to do the switch itself quickly for some reason, couldn't they have at least provided a little visual feedback that it's doing something...?!

by roc 13y ago

corresation 13y ago

Android still hasn't matched iOS in the responsiveness front, owing to some fundamental architectural choices made early in Android's development (chief being the overuse of managed code, and the costs that come with it). This is entirely a software problem, having little to do with hardware, yet the article makes a hardware argument that is simply not supported. It's also worth giving some perspective on those rampant "cheap" devices: The most common Android handset in use in the US of A is the Galaxy S3. Other very powerful devices fill the top echelon of deployments. Any notion that assumes that it's legions of bottom tier devices just isn't accurate. And the great thing about GPU shaders is that they're eminently scalable. Again, assuming that this notion that Android will chase iOS is true, these things are the most easily toggled, and having better effects on top tier devices that scale back on lower devices is trivial. All of this (the submission I mean, and related articles) is just conjecture. Apple did what Apple felt was right for iOS to improve the operating system. Framing everything in an Android context is just speculation.

akmiller 13y ago
Android still hasn't matched iOS in the responsiveness front Guessing you don't use Android or at least haven't in awhile? I've been Android user now since the release of 4.0 and it seems much more responsive now than my wife's iPhone 5 in almost every category from web browsing to gaming. I was very aware of the lag pre-4.0 and that was the main reason I never switched (was an iPhone user before that). Now it's as smooth as can be.
- corresation 13y ago
  I use both Android and iOS for a considerable part of my day. On the Android side I roll with a Galaxy S3, Nexus 4 and Nexus 7. It has gotten much better, most certainly, via things like concurrent and partial garbage collections (and the improvements in the integer-units in the CPUs, simply brute forcing through these UI thread impediments), and other core improvements, but it's still most certainly behind iOS (where UI priority was a core architectural concern from day one). Aside from a still not silky smooth experience, Android still has an endemic problem with completely non-responsive interactions -- you click or do something and everything just stops with absolutely no hints or feedback....and then three seconds later a result appears.
  - akmiller 13y ago
    I honestly don't see that at all on my nexus 4. Maybe it's just the limited apps that I use. I do see more performance related issues on my Nexus 7 though.
- snogglethorpe 13y ago
  I agree that modern Android phones (mine [Sharp 200SH] has 4.1.2, dual core CPU, 1GB RAM) are pretty smooth, and seem more or less the same as modern iOS devices on that front. [Apple sometimes seems to go to extra lengths to put in little animations etc (e.g. the screen rotation), but I'd classify most of them as frills.] ... with one glaring exception: on my Android phone, at least, pressing the home button very often takes a good 1-2 seconds (sometimes more!) to take you to the home screen, with no visual feedback that it's doing anything. A second with no feedback is an eternity in GUI time. iPhones (and iPads), on the other hand, respond pretty much instantaneously to the home button. I'm pretty used to this behavior, so I know to just wait, but it's still pretty annoying (one hits the home button quite frequently in typical usage).... Even if there's some property of the Android software that makes it challenging to do the switch itself quickly for some reason, couldn't they have at least provided a little visual feedback that it's doing something...?!