5 ms·

Android is such a miserable experience that it has made me turn in my phone for the first closed-source computing device I have owned in 9 years. The latency on

Android is such a miserable experience that it has made me turn in my phone for the first closed-source computing device I have owned in 9 years. The latency on everything is at least 200-300ms, which makes typing consistently difficult (as if the moronic autocorrect didn't make it impossible anyways). The battery consumption is terrible (I have never been able to go more than 12 hours without a charge, and after a year, it is more like 3-4 hours). The apps are buggy as hell, and crash all the time. And they are always riddled with bloatware and carrier apps that are not removable. If you don't like giving away ever-expanding permissions to random apps, you either get pinged about it daily as everything tries to auto-upgrade, or you have to delete the app (which, like I said before, isn't always possible). I hate apple, and I hate that I'm giving them my money, but just the latency issue alone is enough for me to give up on Android. Help me Mozilla, you are my only hope.

dmxt 13y ago
Seriously? Are you implying that there's one and only one type of Android device? My Galaxy S4 is rooted and flashed to semi-vanilla Android with no extra application bundled. I charge my phone every 3 days. Using my preference of keyboard software makes typing much faster and easier and my keyboard is more efficient than keyboard on iOS 7. Regarding your latency issue, this is probably the hardware fault. It's not a "known" issue with Android. However what you were saying might make sense if the last time you tried Android device was 4+ years ago, in this case, Android has really improved greatly lately.
hhsnopek 13y ago
Not sure what android phone you were using, but my Nexus 4 has definitely provided an amazing android experience. Your phone must of been $50 because my latency close to none. Be smart and download apps that are trusted, not one of the thousand "flappy bird" clones that just give you ads. Also bloatware only gets on your phone if you put it there. I've removed all the carrier apps on my family's T-Mobile phones(all android). Giving permissions up? I believe I can tell apps what to use from me, just edit their permissions in the settings. Pick a phone that's reliable and then complain.
- jcastro 13y ago
  I have a Nexus 4 and the experience isn't as nice as it should be. Though he's full of the hyperbole he has a point. On my Nexus 4 (without carrier apps) I can't remove Chrome, Drive, Currents, Email, Gmail, Keep, Hangouts, Maps, Photos, Play Games, Play Movies and TV, Play Music, Play Newstand, News and Weather ... the list goes on and on. That adds up to a ton of space and clutters my menu. I want some of them, but I don't want some of the others, either way I'm stuck with them, which means I by default always need to get the more expensive phone with more storage because more and more things come with the phone, that's even _before_ a carrier touches it. And both the UI performance and battery performance woes on Android phones has been well documented. I've had every flagship Nexus/Google phone since the G1 and battery life and performance are not getting better overall. Every time they make an improvement in Android that improves battery life they just ship a thinner phone with a faster CPU. My G1, Nexus One, Nexus S, Nexus 4, always have lasted about a day. I don't own a Nexus 5 yet but have friends that do and they do the same thing I do - a house/car full of chargers and a battery pack for travel. Don't get me wrong I still like my Android phone, I just don't love it.
  - devcpp 13y ago
    You can fully disable these apps in Settings and you won;t see them again anywhere. As for the space, unlike iOS, you can install another OS with Gapps at all. UI performance woes? Coming from an iPhone 3GS, it's flawless to me. As for battery, it fits my bill and it's the price to pay for the huge screen.
Pacabel 13y ago
What kind of Android device did you have? What version of Android was it running?
joshbaptiste 13y ago
Indeed... everything you posted is the exact opposite of my experience with stock Nexus 5 and my non-techie friends with their S5's and Galaxy Notes.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Anecdotal, but I've got a Nexus 5 and its substantially less stable than the Windows Phone I had before it, or the iPhone before that. Not full phone crashes, but a "Unfortunately, X app stopped" messages. I'm not a power user by any means, and I don't run anything more exotic than Yelp. So when I run into a bug with basic functionality, like cropping profile photos, its irritating. Also, battery life is shit, won't get through 24 hours with 4-5 hours of screen use, which my iPhone could (see Anandtech's benchmark where he measures LTE web browsing time, in which iPhone dominates despite its tiny battery). Its a good phone with a great screen, but the software stack just isn't as solid as WP which is itself less solid than iOS.
  - techwizrd 13y ago
    Most of the "Unfortunately, X app stopped" messages are not a result of Android itself, but of bad developers who don't thoroughly debug their apps. That's not really an operating system problem. If an applications crashes with an exception or some kind of issue do to a developer, it's not reasonable or fair to blame the operating system. I don't blame iOS when a buggy app crashes. Also, I easily get about 24+ hours of battery life on my Nexus 5 with 4-5 hours of screen use. If you look on the Nexus 5 subreddit, some people have difficult getting more than 3-4 hours of screen time while others (like me) have no problem getting 4-5 hours.
  - vacri 13y ago
    The iPhone has a screen size of 4" and the Nexus 5 is 5" - does your iPhone battery last proportionately much longer?
    - rayiner 13y ago
      The Nexus 5 has 56% more screen area, but also a 56% larger battery. The Nexus 5's screen is bright, but the iPhone's is even brighter. Anandtech found the iPhone 5s got 8.57 hours of LTE web browsing, versus the Nexus 5's 6.9 hours: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7517/google-nexus-5-review/3 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7517/google-nexus-5-review/3 (all displays at 200 nits). The iPhone/iOS just seems to have a better-optimized LTE stack. If you look at Anand's data, the iPhone drops less than 5% from WiFi to LTE, while the Nexus 5 drops 23%. iOS seems to also be much more aggressive about powering down the radio to avoid burning a bunch of battery life in bad signal conditions.
leoc 13y ago
I have an old Galaxy S2 banger running the Samsung official Android 4.1.2 and I hardly ever notice UI latency issues.
vacri 13y ago
Apart from the bit about the nonremovable carrier apps, the rest of what you said is FUD. I've got a Galaxy S3 and there's no latency like you talk of; typing with Swype (not available on iOS) is amazingly easy, and is actually the only app I've ever used which has left someone slack-jawed with amazement; the battery will last a weekend on standby, but only 3-4 hours of constant screen-lit use; most of the apps aren't buggy; you can tune what alerts you; so on and so forth. Did you pay a premium price for your low-battery-life, high-latency phone? Or was it at the cheap end of the spectrum?
- colomon 13y ago
  Huh. I'm quite fond of my Galaxy S3, but I've got to admit that latency is often an issue for me. Perhaps it depends on what apps you've got going in the background?
- saosebastiao 13y ago
  Galaxy S3, and before that, HTC Thunderbolt
Shorel 13y ago
To me the issue is that you have a smartphone that runs a virtual machine instead of native software. What you describe is what I have hated from Java the last 10 years. Mozilla would be more of the same right now, as Javascript is also not native. My best bet is Ubuntu Phone, whenever it's ready.

dmxt 13y ago

Seriously? Are you implying that there's one and only one type of Android device? My Galaxy S4 is rooted and flashed to semi-vanilla Android with no extra application bundled. I charge my phone every 3 days. Using my preference of keyboard software makes typing much faster and easier and my keyboard is more efficient than keyboard on iOS 7. Regarding your latency issue, this is probably the hardware fault. It's not a "known" issue with Android. However what you were saying might make sense if the last time you tried Android device was 4+ years ago, in this case, Android has really improved greatly lately.

hhsnopek 13y ago

Not sure what android phone you were using, but my Nexus 4 has definitely provided an amazing android experience. Your phone must of been $50 because my latency close to none. Be smart and download apps that are trusted, not one of the thousand "flappy bird" clones that just give you ads. Also bloatware only gets on your phone if you put it there. I've removed all the carrier apps on my family's T-Mobile phones(all android). Giving permissions up? I believe I can tell apps what to use from me, just edit their permissions in the settings. Pick a phone that's reliable and then complain.

jcastro 13y ago
I have a Nexus 4 and the experience isn't as nice as it should be. Though he's full of the hyperbole he has a point. On my Nexus 4 (without carrier apps) I can't remove Chrome, Drive, Currents, Email, Gmail, Keep, Hangouts, Maps, Photos, Play Games, Play Movies and TV, Play Music, Play Newstand, News and Weather ... the list goes on and on. That adds up to a ton of space and clutters my menu. I want some of them, but I don't want some of the others, either way I'm stuck with them, which means I by default always need to get the more expensive phone with more storage because more and more things come with the phone, that's even _before_ a carrier touches it. And both the UI performance and battery performance woes on Android phones has been well documented. I've had every flagship Nexus/Google phone since the G1 and battery life and performance are not getting better overall. Every time they make an improvement in Android that improves battery life they just ship a thinner phone with a faster CPU. My G1, Nexus One, Nexus S, Nexus 4, always have lasted about a day. I don't own a Nexus 5 yet but have friends that do and they do the same thing I do - a house/car full of chargers and a battery pack for travel. Don't get me wrong I still like my Android phone, I just don't love it.
- devcpp 13y ago
  You can fully disable these apps in Settings and you won;t see them again anywhere. As for the space, unlike iOS, you can install another OS with Gapps at all. UI performance woes? Coming from an iPhone 3GS, it's flawless to me. As for battery, it fits my bill and it's the price to pay for the huge screen.

Pacabel 13y ago

What kind of Android device did you have? What version of Android was it running?

joshbaptiste 13y ago

Indeed... everything you posted is the exact opposite of my experience with stock Nexus 5 and my non-techie friends with their S5's and Galaxy Notes.

rayiner 13y ago
Anecdotal, but I've got a Nexus 5 and its substantially less stable than the Windows Phone I had before it, or the iPhone before that. Not full phone crashes, but a "Unfortunately, X app stopped" messages. I'm not a power user by any means, and I don't run anything more exotic than Yelp. So when I run into a bug with basic functionality, like cropping profile photos, its irritating. Also, battery life is shit, won't get through 24 hours with 4-5 hours of screen use, which my iPhone could (see Anandtech's benchmark where he measures LTE web browsing time, in which iPhone dominates despite its tiny battery). Its a good phone with a great screen, but the software stack just isn't as solid as WP which is itself less solid than iOS.
- techwizrd 13y ago
  Most of the "Unfortunately, X app stopped" messages are not a result of Android itself, but of bad developers who don't thoroughly debug their apps. That's not really an operating system problem. If an applications crashes with an exception or some kind of issue do to a developer, it's not reasonable or fair to blame the operating system. I don't blame iOS when a buggy app crashes. Also, I easily get about 24+ hours of battery life on my Nexus 5 with 4-5 hours of screen use. If you look on the Nexus 5 subreddit, some people have difficult getting more than 3-4 hours of screen time while others (like me) have no problem getting 4-5 hours.
- vacri 13y ago
  The iPhone has a screen size of 4" and the Nexus 5 is 5" - does your iPhone battery last proportionately much longer?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    The Nexus 5 has 56% more screen area, but also a 56% larger battery. The Nexus 5's screen is bright, but the iPhone's is even brighter. Anandtech found the iPhone 5s got 8.57 hours of LTE web browsing, versus the Nexus 5's 6.9 hours: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7517/google-nexus-5-review/3 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7517/google-nexus-5-review/3 (all displays at 200 nits). The iPhone/iOS just seems to have a better-optimized LTE stack. If you look at Anand's data, the iPhone drops less than 5% from WiFi to LTE, while the Nexus 5 drops 23%. iOS seems to also be much more aggressive about powering down the radio to avoid burning a bunch of battery life in bad signal conditions.

leoc 13y ago

I have an old Galaxy S2 banger running the Samsung official Android 4.1.2 and I hardly ever notice UI latency issues.

vacri 13y ago

Apart from the bit about the nonremovable carrier apps, the rest of what you said is FUD. I've got a Galaxy S3 and there's no latency like you talk of; typing with Swype (not available on iOS) is amazingly easy, and is actually the only app I've ever used which has left someone slack-jawed with amazement; the battery will last a weekend on standby, but only 3-4 hours of constant screen-lit use; most of the apps aren't buggy; you can tune what alerts you; so on and so forth. Did you pay a premium price for your low-battery-life, high-latency phone? Or was it at the cheap end of the spectrum?

colomon 13y ago
Huh. I'm quite fond of my Galaxy S3, but I've got to admit that latency is often an issue for me. Perhaps it depends on what apps you've got going in the background?
saosebastiao 13y ago
Galaxy S3, and before that, HTC Thunderbolt

Shorel 13y ago

To me the issue is that you have a smartphone that runs a virtual machine instead of native software. What you describe is what I have hated from Java the last 10 years. Mozilla would be more of the same right now, as Javascript is also not native. My best bet is Ubuntu Phone, whenever it's ready.