7 ms·

I was curious if now, 5 years later, if the latest Android phone still is unable to scroll smoothly and animate smoothly between apps, at 60 fps, with no lag, a

by gfodor 13y ago

I was curious if now, 5 years later, if the latest Android phone still is unable to scroll smoothly and animate smoothly between apps, at 60 fps, with no lag, and respond instantaneously to touches. These are key things the iPhone has done since it's first release since it's crucial to maintaining the illusion you are manipulating things on the screen. Every time I try the latest Android device in the store I just laugh in disbelief because inevitably it is laggy and slightly unresponsive, and feels like I am interacting with a computer. Googling around, it looks like the S4 still has animation lag in all sorts of places. Amazing. I mean, hats off to Samsung for getting as far as they have. They've basically exploited Google's engineering resources brilliantly and have been ruthlessly competitive. Their design skills seemed to have gotten slightly better, and bigger screens and every-feature-but-the-kitchen-sink moves phones when they are compared to the iPhone, especially at a lower price point. But the bottom line is they still don't really have the design chops and the attention to detail. Their "innovations" on the S4 are pretty gimmicky. They haven't built up a large economic moat around their ecosystem. I feel Apple can pretty easily leapfrog them by introducing a device that is a reasonable leap forward from where we are now. The iPhone 4, 4S, and 5 are all in the same design family. I expect the iPhone 6 will be pretty different than any phone we've ever seen before. I think Apple might even surprise us with an iPhone 6 this year. Who knows though.

Daishiman 13y ago
Some of us care more about being able to use our phone for whatever we damn please rather than depend on a highly restrictive app store that censors a ton of useful software. People have different priorities. This is a tired meme; if you're that bothered by lag you're not using Android, if you're using Android it's not going to be such a huge change in the grand scheme of things. Can we have another argument for Apple superiority please?
- gfodor 13y ago
  It's not about Apple per se because I am pretty sure Windows Phone does not have these problems either. It's an attention to detail thing. That they shipped the S4 with obvious animation lag shows they may just be blind to it or notice it and make a calculation that the tradeoff is not worth it to fix it. In other words, they're willing to ship something that is kind of shitty because of a cost-benefit analysis, or they can't even see that it's shitty. This to me is not the strategy of a company who is seeking a leadership position in terms of innovation, and in this market, a leadership position is pretty important since things change so quickly. Say what you will about Apple, but it's pretty clear they pride themselves on shipping things they are proud to put their name on because they only ship it when they feel the details are right. The App Store review process is in this spirit, they don't want shitty apps screwing up the experience on their phones. This is why the Maps debacle was a catalyst for their stock plummeting, it showed to many this may have been lost with the loss of Jobs. I think the final build of iOS 7 is going to speak volumes about how Apple's culture has changed or not. If they get the details right, they've still got it. If it's laggy, has minor usability issues everywhere, etc, then that is the type of thing that I think spells Apple's doom. edit: To summarize, I don't think 'animation lag' is in the same class of tradeoffs as 'open vs closed app stores.' Animation lag is a bug, and makes your work look objectively shitty, full stop. Animation lag 'matters' to everyone, even if they don't overtly notice it, because to everyone, animation lag breaks the illusion of fluid motion and interactivity on a subconscious level. It's sloppiness, plain and simple.
  - wtetzner 13y ago
    > To summarize, I don't think 'animation lag' is in the same class of tradeoffs as 'open vs closed app stores.' Animation lag is a bug I think a bug is more forgivable than a deliberate decision to make things broken (closed app store).
  - Daishiman 13y ago
    Censored applications are a moral failure about an order of magnitude worse. And lag bugs are a result of a technological decision in Android made 8 years ago with a cost that goes far beyond a simple fix (replacing the Java runtime with something with deterministic memory management). It's likely that in time we'll see a native of manually memory-managed runtime in Android, at a huge development cost; I can hardly see Apple providing an open ecosystem, ever.
  - Peaker 13y ago
    > The App Store review process is in this spirit, they don't want shitty apps screwing up the experience on their phones. This is false. Apple has banned applications for dubious grounds, such as competing with Apple. Extremely useful apps like Swype and its alternatives have been banned. The app store is not just about protecting users from shitty apps, it is also about total control over the iOS platform, often to the detriment of users.
    - oblique63 13y ago
      And this is why I started boycotting Apple products. Honestly, I agree with about 99% of the 'pro-apple' arguments here, because it is frustrating that companies aren't stepping up their UX game, but that's just peanuts compared to this type of nonsense: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6092875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6092875 Luckily, my Nexus 4 has given me a smoother experience than even my old ipad 2 so far (can't say the same of my nexus 7 unfortunately), so it isn't that bad either way.
    - gfodor 13y ago
      I agree that there have been times where Apple has not allowed an app in the app store for dubious reasons. For example, not allowing Google Maps for the longest time was ridiculous and blatantly anti-competitive. Swype however is kind of an obvious example of something they likely are not allowing not because of fear of competition but because Swype, if successful, would effectively fragment the text input mechanism on iOS. I can respect the argument that on iOS Apple wants to maintain control of the experience of entering text. Regardless if you feel this is an ethical thing to do, I think you have to acknowledge that in that case it is less about anti-competitive behavior and more about maintaining consistency, which is a core tenet of good design. I think overall the App Store process is largely about maintaining things like quality, consistency, and performance, and if you don't believe me you can look to examples like the Facebook platform where the element of human-screening was ignored and the place filled up with garbage.
- guscost 13y ago
  My phone has NanoStudio and can synthesize multichannel audio without noticeable latency. It might be a niche thing, but it's still not a bad argument.
voidlogic 13y ago
You should actually use some premier Android devices before slamming them. My Motorola Electrify M and Nexus 7 perform beautifully. I have a basis of comparison too, my work phone is an iPhone 5.
- gfodor 13y ago
  I'm going by YouTube videos of the s4. I only remember playing with galaxy devices in the store, no idea if others work well. This thread is about Samsung after all.
  - voidlogic 13y ago
    >This thread is about Samsung after all. That's legit. >I'm going by YouTube videos of the s4. That is not.
    - gfodor 13y ago
      Specifically YouTube videos complaining about lag and showing how to fix it. I'm not saying I am inferring there is lag by watching YouTube videos of the device.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Don't even have to be premium. My desire HD (2010 summer model) got just plain amazing after switching to AOSP 4.2 CFX build (awaiting 4.3 right now). Smooth and no lag on 1GHz single core with 512 ram. It just that on a lot of carrier phones the stock android is crap and are stuck with no updates.
aviraldg 13y ago
The S4 is the wrong device to compare against; have a look at any of the Nexii.
- myko 13y ago
  The comparison is between Apple and Samsung because the article is about Samsung. I don't think it is fair to look at the better performing Nexus 4/7. Samsung does make the Nexus 10 though, but even on 4.3 it stutters pretty regularly. Of course my iPad 3 stutters a bit too, I assume the extreme resolution plays a big role there.
  - aviraldg 13y ago
    Parent's comment is about Android.
myko 13y ago
I'm an iOS developer and while I agree iOS devices tend to be smoother overall saying there is no lag is just wrong. Loading Spotlight on iOS < 7 is a good spot to force just about any iOS device (except the iPhone 5) to noticeably lag, and it isn't the only consistent source of lag. That aside, Samsung is the most successful company with the worst design aesthetic I can think of. I don't know why people buy their devices, even if one is an Android fanatic there are devices that lag less and look much better at better prices. I'm shocked they are doing as well as they are.
- acchow 13y ago
  There is very little reason to get an S4 over an HTC One or Xperia. Except marketing and hype.
  - tl 13y ago
    Well, hype plus the fact that neither the HTC One nor the Xperia Z are available to Verizon customers.
enraged_camel 13y ago
Yes, yes, yes. I'm an iPhone user, and recently on a two day trip I took my dad's S4 with me and used it as my sole device. Oh. My. God. The difference in user experience is astronomical. I work in the tech industry and I train users on how to use my company's software, and I could not for the life of me wrap my mind around some of the most basic aspects of the phone. Most functions, from scrolling and animations to simple things like changing the focus from a text box on the web page to the URL bar of the browser, had noticeable lag. Sometimes the lag was so atrocious that I could not be sure if my taps worked. Occasionally I would get impatient and tap again, and it would register two taps simultaneously and treat it as a double-tap! You are absolutely right that it felt like using a regular computer - and old and slow one. I couldn't deal with it. At one point I was checking my work email and had to access a voicemail that arrived as an attachment. I clicked it, and instead of playing the voicemail right away (which the iPhone does), the S4 downloaded it as a file. Okay, fine, I get it, you want to pretend you're a computer. But where the hell did it go? Is there a separate browser area for downloaded items like in Chrome? Is there a desktop, or some kind of folder? And if you're pretending to be a computer, am I going to need special software to be able to open this file? Are you really going to make me open another tab and Google "how to find downloaded files on Android"?!? WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME THINK? WHY ARE SIMPLE THINGS NOT OBVIOUS LIKE THEY ARE ON IOS? In my experience, people are drawn to Android don't care much about user experience and instead want larger screens and tons of features. Personally, I view my smartphone the way I view my car: I want one that is easy to drive, responsive and won't lag for ~2 seconds every time I do something.
- vacri 13y ago
  WHY ARE SIMPLE THINGS NOT OBVIOUS LIKE THEY ARE ON IOS Coming from Android, I have exactly the same response when moving to iOS. 'Why is there no back button? Why is all the functionality shoehorned into one button? Oh, you have to press the button for certain amounts of time for different features? Where's the discoverability?". You seem to be complaining much more about unfamiliarity with workflow than real issues. In my experience, people are drawn to Android don't care much about user experience and instead want larger screens and tons of features. Did you honestly just say that a larger screen doesn't have anything to do with the user experience?
Peaker 13y ago
iPhone may be better than Android in this regard, but it is far from perfect. Many core apps in the iPhone (4S was the one I tried) have been unresponsive and had choppy animations when I toyed a bit. The perfect smoothness of the iPhone is a myth. Scrolling web pages was noticeably nicer and less laggy than in my Nexus, but still imperfect.
jsnk 13y ago
" unable to scroll smoothly and animate smoothly between apps, at 60 fps, with no lag, and respond instantaneously to touches" I am still yet to see these on my Nexus 4. Maybe some devices have the problem, but it was blown out of proportion? I don't know..
darrenkopp 13y ago
I have an iPad 1 and have used an iPhone 3G and I am surprised you say that the iphone has had smooth scrolling since it's first release, since I can barely get the 3g or the ipad to scroll smoothly, if at all. Well, I should say they scroll quite smoothly, after waiting for 10 - 15 seconds for the page to become responsive.
- r00fus 13y ago
  Web browsing has always been tough on earlier iPhones due to the limited memory. Also if they're running an OS 2+ years newer than the device, it's kind of expected - the new OS has more bloat and features, and is designed mainly for newer versions of the same phone. My iPhone OG was quite responsive until about iOS3, when it got kind of slow. I've never had problems scrolling in non-web-based apps. Of course, the equivalent operation on a similar-year Android or Blackberry makes you wonder why anyone bought those phones.

by gfodor 13y ago

Daishiman 13y ago

Some of us care more about being able to use our phone for whatever we damn please rather than depend on a highly restrictive app store that censors a ton of useful software. People have different priorities. This is a tired meme; if you're that bothered by lag you're not using Android, if you're using Android it's not going to be such a huge change in the grand scheme of things. Can we have another argument for Apple superiority please?

gfodor 13y ago
It's not about Apple per se because I am pretty sure Windows Phone does not have these problems either. It's an attention to detail thing. That they shipped the S4 with obvious animation lag shows they may just be blind to it or notice it and make a calculation that the tradeoff is not worth it to fix it. In other words, they're willing to ship something that is kind of shitty because of a cost-benefit analysis, or they can't even see that it's shitty. This to me is not the strategy of a company who is seeking a leadership position in terms of innovation, and in this market, a leadership position is pretty important since things change so quickly. Say what you will about Apple, but it's pretty clear they pride themselves on shipping things they are proud to put their name on because they only ship it when they feel the details are right. The App Store review process is in this spirit, they don't want shitty apps screwing up the experience on their phones. This is why the Maps debacle was a catalyst for their stock plummeting, it showed to many this may have been lost with the loss of Jobs. I think the final build of iOS 7 is going to speak volumes about how Apple's culture has changed or not. If they get the details right, they've still got it. If it's laggy, has minor usability issues everywhere, etc, then that is the type of thing that I think spells Apple's doom. edit: To summarize, I don't think 'animation lag' is in the same class of tradeoffs as 'open vs closed app stores.' Animation lag is a bug, and makes your work look objectively shitty, full stop. Animation lag 'matters' to everyone, even if they don't overtly notice it, because to everyone, animation lag breaks the illusion of fluid motion and interactivity on a subconscious level. It's sloppiness, plain and simple.
- wtetzner 13y ago
  > To summarize, I don't think 'animation lag' is in the same class of tradeoffs as 'open vs closed app stores.' Animation lag is a bug I think a bug is more forgivable than a deliberate decision to make things broken (closed app store).
- Daishiman 13y ago
  Censored applications are a moral failure about an order of magnitude worse. And lag bugs are a result of a technological decision in Android made 8 years ago with a cost that goes far beyond a simple fix (replacing the Java runtime with something with deterministic memory management). It's likely that in time we'll see a native of manually memory-managed runtime in Android, at a huge development cost; I can hardly see Apple providing an open ecosystem, ever.
- Peaker 13y ago
  > The App Store review process is in this spirit, they don't want shitty apps screwing up the experience on their phones. This is false. Apple has banned applications for dubious grounds, such as competing with Apple. Extremely useful apps like Swype and its alternatives have been banned. The app store is not just about protecting users from shitty apps, it is also about total control over the iOS platform, often to the detriment of users.
  - oblique63 13y ago
    And this is why I started boycotting Apple products. Honestly, I agree with about 99% of the 'pro-apple' arguments here, because it is frustrating that companies aren't stepping up their UX game, but that's just peanuts compared to this type of nonsense: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6092875 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6092875 Luckily, my Nexus 4 has given me a smoother experience than even my old ipad 2 so far (can't say the same of my nexus 7 unfortunately), so it isn't that bad either way.
  - gfodor 13y ago
    I agree that there have been times where Apple has not allowed an app in the app store for dubious reasons. For example, not allowing Google Maps for the longest time was ridiculous and blatantly anti-competitive. Swype however is kind of an obvious example of something they likely are not allowing not because of fear of competition but because Swype, if successful, would effectively fragment the text input mechanism on iOS. I can respect the argument that on iOS Apple wants to maintain control of the experience of entering text. Regardless if you feel this is an ethical thing to do, I think you have to acknowledge that in that case it is less about anti-competitive behavior and more about maintaining consistency, which is a core tenet of good design. I think overall the App Store process is largely about maintaining things like quality, consistency, and performance, and if you don't believe me you can look to examples like the Facebook platform where the element of human-screening was ignored and the place filled up with garbage.
guscost 13y ago
My phone has NanoStudio and can synthesize multichannel audio without noticeable latency. It might be a niche thing, but it's still not a bad argument.

voidlogic 13y ago

You should actually use some premier Android devices before slamming them. My Motorola Electrify M and Nexus 7 perform beautifully. I have a basis of comparison too, my work phone is an iPhone 5.

gfodor 13y ago
I'm going by YouTube videos of the s4. I only remember playing with galaxy devices in the store, no idea if others work well. This thread is about Samsung after all.
- voidlogic 13y ago
  >This thread is about Samsung after all. That's legit. >I'm going by YouTube videos of the s4. That is not.
  - gfodor 13y ago
    Specifically YouTube videos complaining about lag and showing how to fix it. I'm not saying I am inferring there is lag by watching YouTube videos of the device.
venomsnake 13y ago
Don't even have to be premium. My desire HD (2010 summer model) got just plain amazing after switching to AOSP 4.2 CFX build (awaiting 4.3 right now). Smooth and no lag on 1GHz single core with 512 ram. It just that on a lot of carrier phones the stock android is crap and are stuck with no updates.

aviraldg 13y ago

The S4 is the wrong device to compare against; have a look at any of the Nexii.

myko 13y ago
The comparison is between Apple and Samsung because the article is about Samsung. I don't think it is fair to look at the better performing Nexus 4/7. Samsung does make the Nexus 10 though, but even on 4.3 it stutters pretty regularly. Of course my iPad 3 stutters a bit too, I assume the extreme resolution plays a big role there.
- aviraldg 13y ago
  Parent's comment is about Android.

myko 13y ago

I'm an iOS developer and while I agree iOS devices tend to be smoother overall saying there is no lag is just wrong. Loading Spotlight on iOS < 7 is a good spot to force just about any iOS device (except the iPhone 5) to noticeably lag, and it isn't the only consistent source of lag. That aside, Samsung is the most successful company with the worst design aesthetic I can think of. I don't know why people buy their devices, even if one is an Android fanatic there are devices that lag less and look much better at better prices. I'm shocked they are doing as well as they are.

acchow 13y ago
There is very little reason to get an S4 over an HTC One or Xperia. Except marketing and hype.
- tl 13y ago
  Well, hype plus the fact that neither the HTC One nor the Xperia Z are available to Verizon customers.

enraged_camel 13y ago

Yes, yes, yes. I'm an iPhone user, and recently on a two day trip I took my dad's S4 with me and used it as my sole device. Oh. My. God. The difference in user experience is astronomical. I work in the tech industry and I train users on how to use my company's software, and I could not for the life of me wrap my mind around some of the most basic aspects of the phone. Most functions, from scrolling and animations to simple things like changing the focus from a text box on the web page to the URL bar of the browser, had noticeable lag. Sometimes the lag was so atrocious that I could not be sure if my taps worked. Occasionally I would get impatient and tap again, and it would register two taps simultaneously and treat it as a double-tap! You are absolutely right that it felt like using a regular computer - and old and slow one. I couldn't deal with it. At one point I was checking my work email and had to access a voicemail that arrived as an attachment. I clicked it, and instead of playing the voicemail right away (which the iPhone does), the S4 downloaded it as a file. Okay, fine, I get it, you want to pretend you're a computer. But where the hell did it go? Is there a separate browser area for downloaded items like in Chrome? Is there a desktop, or some kind of folder? And if you're pretending to be a computer, am I going to need special software to be able to open this file? Are you really going to make me open another tab and Google "how to find downloaded files on Android"?!? WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME THINK? WHY ARE SIMPLE THINGS NOT OBVIOUS LIKE THEY ARE ON IOS? In my experience, people are drawn to Android don't care much about user experience and instead want larger screens and tons of features. Personally, I view my smartphone the way I view my car: I want one that is easy to drive, responsive and won't lag for ~2 seconds every time I do something.

vacri 13y ago
WHY ARE SIMPLE THINGS NOT OBVIOUS LIKE THEY ARE ON IOS Coming from Android, I have exactly the same response when moving to iOS. 'Why is there no back button? Why is all the functionality shoehorned into one button? Oh, you have to press the button for certain amounts of time for different features? Where's the discoverability?". You seem to be complaining much more about unfamiliarity with workflow than real issues. In my experience, people are drawn to Android don't care much about user experience and instead want larger screens and tons of features. Did you honestly just say that a larger screen doesn't have anything to do with the user experience?

Peaker 13y ago

iPhone may be better than Android in this regard, but it is far from perfect. Many core apps in the iPhone (4S was the one I tried) have been unresponsive and had choppy animations when I toyed a bit. The perfect smoothness of the iPhone is a myth. Scrolling web pages was noticeably nicer and less laggy than in my Nexus, but still imperfect.

jsnk 13y ago

" unable to scroll smoothly and animate smoothly between apps, at 60 fps, with no lag, and respond instantaneously to touches" I am still yet to see these on my Nexus 4. Maybe some devices have the problem, but it was blown out of proportion? I don't know..

darrenkopp 13y ago

I have an iPad 1 and have used an iPhone 3G and I am surprised you say that the iphone has had smooth scrolling since it's first release, since I can barely get the 3g or the ipad to scroll smoothly, if at all. Well, I should say they scroll quite smoothly, after waiting for 10 - 15 seconds for the page to become responsive.

r00fus 13y ago
Web browsing has always been tough on earlier iPhones due to the limited memory. Also if they're running an OS 2+ years newer than the device, it's kind of expected - the new OS has more bloat and features, and is designed mainly for newer versions of the same phone. My iPhone OG was quite responsive until about iOS3, when it got kind of slow. I've never had problems scrolling in non-web-based apps. Of course, the equivalent operation on a similar-year Android or Blackberry makes you wonder why anyone bought those phones.