3 ms·

Well, its fairly unstable and the OEMs know it. The much publicized memory leak hasn't been fixed, performance is poor, battery life isn't good, and big change

Well, its fairly unstable and the OEMs know it. The much publicized memory leak hasn't been fixed, performance is poor, battery life isn't good, and big changes like Volta and ART aren't being well utilized by app developers yet. I imagine 5.0.2 isn't enough of an incentive for hesitant OEMs to push out just yet. Maybe 5.0.3? 5.1? Who knows when a lion's share of the new bugs will be fixed. I imagine the memory leak is a dealbreaker as it breaks the GUI. Clearly, 5.0 was pushed out early for the N6 launch event, which is bothersome, but that's just how google does business now I guess. Not to mention, even under ideal circumstances with a solid version of android, there's a 12 month lag before the newest version breaks 50% of installed devices. Lollipop isn't changing that. I used to joke that owning a Nexus was like being a beta tester, but honestly, its pretty close to the truth.

Zigurd 12y ago
ART is transparent to app developers. BUT ART is less of an improvement than many would think. Almost all the heavy computing in Android is below the Java layer, or in app level native code, or in RenderScript. So, except for grossly un-optimized app code, ART is going to be hard to notice. TL;DR: Andoid wasn't slow. ART won't make it fast.
- agumonkey 12y ago
  On non flagship devices, you feel the difference between dalvik and ART. The latter having less overhead and reaching lower latency, but it comes in spikes which is a regression in terms of UX (I prefer less fast but predictable).
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    Native code produced by ART is going to have a larger footprint than Dalvik bytecode, which is very compact compared to Java bytecode, never mind native code. The inconsistent, or even regressed performance is, if not predictable at least not a surprise since the system might be having to reap whole runtime instances more often to free up memory for what are now larger heaps, using ART. Especially on low end devices with less RAM. ART will work best in devices with plentiful RAM.

Zigurd 12y ago

ART is transparent to app developers. BUT ART is less of an improvement than many would think. Almost all the heavy computing in Android is below the Java layer, or in app level native code, or in RenderScript. So, except for grossly un-optimized app code, ART is going to be hard to notice. TL;DR: Andoid wasn't slow. ART won't make it fast.

agumonkey 12y ago
On non flagship devices, you feel the difference between dalvik and ART. The latter having less overhead and reaching lower latency, but it comes in spikes which is a regression in terms of UX (I prefer less fast but predictable).
- Zigurd 12y ago
  Native code produced by ART is going to have a larger footprint than Dalvik bytecode, which is very compact compared to Java bytecode, never mind native code. The inconsistent, or even regressed performance is, if not predictable at least not a surprise since the system might be having to reap whole runtime instances more often to free up memory for what are now larger heaps, using ART. Especially on low end devices with less RAM. ART will work best in devices with plentiful RAM.