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Honestly if i get flamed its bs but what ever.
My question is will the Dream just be ignore in the future for the basic fact that we can't update our hardware, while Google pushes out UI's like Rosie and more sophisticated one's in future. We've already noticed how much it lags with Rosie whats going to happen in 8-12 months when phones like the I7500 come to play with better hard ware and they make updates to those. Will the G1 suffer and thus be stuck on roms like CupeCake? I mean we are already seeing the limits that it can handle without to much lag.
Like any piece of hardware, it gets outdated. However as long as dev are kind enough to work on new ROMs for us, most likely there will be new additions, widgets, applications etc for us to use in the future.
I'm quite excited by the multi-core ARM-X processors coming out for mobile devices, plus more powerful GPUs (the iPhoneG S has a scaled down version of what's to come next year!) and hopefully Android can support such processors too.
For us G1 owners at the moment though you might as well enjoy it. I mean I don't believe I've owned a mobile previously where we had so much choice between ROMs and how fast development is... (*looks at Sony Ericsson with their slow P900 firmware upgrades, Nokia N95 Symbian upgrades etc*).
I think you're going to see the "base" Android experience (the Launcher, the bundled platform apps, etc) will require more or less the same level of computing power in the future as it consumes today. It's good practice to keep a consistent, maintainable standard and then build from there. So that's what you're seeing with Rosie, where 3rd parties like HTC add on these gaudy and poorly programmed interfaces. By producing these inefficient and cpu-intensive apps and interfaces, HTC can essentially nudge you to hardware upgrades.
But the core of Android, the stuff that comes out of 1600 Ampitheatre Parkway, should remain runnable on Dream for atleast a while. Google is aiming to have Android be a general purpose embedded systems operating system. In order to be flexible to all the types of devices Android can potentially run on, it has to have a relatively low baseline.
What you said. I think we'll see a longer life of the G1 than we've seen with past phones because of the degree of flexibility we have with it. Of course there are going to be things designed for better hardware that we won't be able to use, but Jashu's right. Not all hardware that comes out running android is automatically going to be better than the G1. As long as there's devs that have a G1, you'll continue to see development for it.
jashsu said:
I think you're going to see the "base" Android experience (the Launcher, the bundled platform apps, etc) will require more or less the same level of computing power in the future as it consumes today. It's good practice to keep a consistent, maintainable standard and then build from there. So that's what you're seeing with Rosie, where 3rd parties like HTC add on these gaudy and poorly programmed interfaces. By producing these inefficient and cpu-intensive apps and interfaces, HTC can essentially nudge you to hardware upgrades.
But the core of Android, the stuff that comes out of 1600 Ampitheatre Parkway, should remain runnable on Dream for atleast a while. Google is aiming to have Android be a general purpose embedded systems operating system. In order to be flexible to all the types of devices Android can potentially run on, it has to have a relatively low baseline.
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imbonez9 said:
Honestly if i get flamed its bs but what ever.
My question is will the Dream just be ignore in the future for the basic fact that we can't update our hardware, while Google pushes out UI's like Rosie and more sophisticated one's in future. We've already noticed how much it lags with Rosie whats going to happen in 8-12 months when phones like the I7500 come to play with better hard ware and they make updates to those. Will the G1 suffer and thus be stuck on roms like CupeCake? I mean we are already seeing the limits that it can handle without to much lag.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny you should mention the i7500... it is essentially the same as the *lower spec* htc magic, i.e. the same chipset, cpu. Actually, it has *less* RAM than htc dream (128 vs 192) -- magic comes with 192 or.. 288 (depending on what the provider ordered). The main advantages are that its got more flash onboard (though it is yet to be seen if the whole flash is usable for app installation or if it is restricted to some small amount), slightly better camera with flash, and OLED capacitive touchscreen (vs TFT/LCD capacitive). In all, the lower RAM will make it perform WORSE than any of the current HTC-android devices, including the Dream.
Have a look, its not that impressive: http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i7500-2791.php
I am not Apple fanboy, but i think that Anddroid OS has a big optimisation problem.
For example the iphone 4S had a CPU 800 Mz and it seem to be real fast. But the latest Androphone plan to use Dual CPU. Is Android OS needed more ressources than iOS?
Before make effort to get more material ressources, is n't time for google to optimise his OS ?
Symbian was an OS whitch was too optimsed and i would like to have an Android OS like that.
Someones wouldnt like what i said but it is my deep think.
+1 BRO !!!!
I really dont know why the **** iOS is that smooth, never noticed any lag on an Iphone. But you should think about that : Every Phone needs his own setup, caused of CPU, GPU and other things like ram and so on....
every iPhone got the same setup, optimized for iPhone 4 , iPhone 3GS and so one. They all got the same CPU and GPU, so they really can tweak every singe hardware.
Google just give us a source code, which every Company, Like Samsung or HTC have to port on their new device...
By the way, HTC got much better optimized Original Roms than Samsung. ( I have seen some OFW running on HTC Desire, and they are very smooth... )
lascoul said:
....
Before make effort to get more material ressources, is n't time for google to optimise his OS ?
.....
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It is same way as MS passed: one simple question to you: how would you like to optimize the OS against HUNDREDS of available hardware combinations?
Of course, the Apple choice is easy and smooth: ONE hardware set, ONE OS.
similar was already done by Ford with model T: everyone could have it with favourite colour, as long as it was black. and now the ford position on global market is...
it's easy to optimize a software for 1 device but for 10000+ devices it's not that easy
dadyal said:
it's easy to optimize a software for 1 device but for 10000+ devices it's not that easy
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If google doesn't optimise the OS. He may do it for his phones. take a look at the future Nexus prime it will get a dual core CPU. But don't think that is necessary if the OS is much optimise. The ipohne 4S had only a CPU at 800MHZ
spamtrash said:
It is same way as MS passed: one simple question to you: how would you like to optimize the OS against HUNDREDS of available hardware combinations?
Of course, the Apple choice is easy and smooth: ONE hardware set, ONE OS.
similar was already done by Ford with model T: everyone could have it with favourite colour, as long as it was black. and now the ford position on global market is...
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Click to collapse
But a think that the OS is not optimise for googles phones. Otherwise why will they use a dual core CPU in Nexus Prime?
I thought the difference in speed was because of the way they handled multitasking. It was only recently that iOS even had multitasking. But this is probably just a part of the reason why iOS is faster.
lascoul said:
If google doesn't optimise the OS. He may do it for his phones. take a look at the future Nexus prime it will get a dual core CPU. But don't think that is necessary if the OS is much optimise. The ipohne 4S had only a CPU at 800MHZ
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iPhone 4S: 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor
They both have dual-cores.
Yea ios is optimized better. But it also doesn't have many basic features like android. Like a proper customizable homescreen with the ability to chose your launcher (no, lockscreen and an app tray are NOT an homescreen like apple has been trying to sell it), widgets, proper multitask, proper application integration, live wallpapers, lack of an external SD, etc. That makes for a lightweight system. You gain speed but lose features.
That said, granted, android needs to be generic. But as soon as a big company like samsung picks up android and starts developing to one device of their own making, this "1 OS for all devices" gap ceases to exist. Its 1 OS being optimized to a single piece hardware, and they have all they need for proper optimization.
This isn't the same as windows -> 1000 kinds of hardware. Windows comes prepared from Microsoft to run everywhere so that applies. Android doesn't come prepared to run everywhere from google. You can't simply just download and put it on your phone regardless of brand. Has an extra step of preparation from hardware developing companies like HTC or Samsung.
What i'm trying to say is, there is room for optimization. But companies don't care much because they are on a tight schedule on market competition to put out the next big thing, have hardware specs to compensate for poorly optimized coding and in the end stuff works just the same, since most people, sadly, won't notice or care that much for those extra delays/lags.
Can't speak for other brands, but Samsung proved with SGS they don't care much for good coding. The community has been, since its release, improving this phone leaps and bounds and continue to do so even though a successor has shown up.
At the end, companies don't care enough, imo.
kaynpayn said:
What i'm trying to say is, there is room for optimization. But companies don't care much because they are on a tight schedule on market competition to put out the next big thing, have hardware specs to compensate for poorly optimized coding and in the end stuff works just the same, since most people, sadly, won't notice or care that much for those extra delays/lags.
Can't speak for other brands, but Samsung proved with SGS they don't care much for good coding. The community has been, since its release, improving this phone leaps and bounds and continue to do so even though a successor has shown up.
At the end, companies don't care enough, imo.
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Click to collapse
i am aggre with u. The compagny must provide us much optimise Room before growing the specs of the phones.
lascoul said:
I am not Apple fanboy, but i think that Anddroid OS has a big optimisation problem.
For example the iphone 4S had a CPU 800 Mz and it seem to be real fast. But the latest Androphone plan to use Dual CPU. Is Android OS needed more ressources than iOS?
Before make effort to get more material ressources, is n't time for google to optimise his OS ?
Symbian was an OS whitch was too optimsed and i would like to have an Android OS like that.
Someones wouldnt like what i said but it is my deep think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Iphones are smooth because iOS was designed to work on one device (technically, 9 devices if you count all the variants of iphones, ipads and ipods) only whereas Android has to work on hundreds of devices with different processors and hardware.
Also, iOS removes so many functionalities from the user, hence has more free ram.
disclaimernotice said:
Iphones are smooth because iOS was designed to work on one device (technically, 9 devices if you count all the variants of iphones, ipads and ipods) only whereas Android has to work on hundreds of devices with different processors and hardware.
Also, iOS removes so many functionalities from the user, hence has more free ram.
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Click to collapse
The job of compagnies like SAMSUNG, HTC ... isn't to optimise the OS for they devices? To say that there are more devices is not an apologizes
First step then should be: CLOSE the system. Lock it all, and after that, you can optimize system individually for each phone, completely separately. Another option is to push Samsung, HTC, LG, SE or whoever else to have SAME hardware configuration.
Then: you will loose:
- all custom ROMs, bootloaders, CWM, root, kernels;
- all customized versions of stock apk's, like phone, start screens, themes, Market etc.
- ANY ROM update will be available only after OFFICIAL release, through Kies.
Well, xda does pretty good work with optimization, while Android is kept OPEN, not locked, like iOS.
I personally prefer that it will continue this way.
---------- Post added at 06:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:37 PM ----------
lascoul said:
The job of compagnies like SAMSUNG, HTC ... isn't to optimise the OS for they devices? To say that there are more devices is not an apologizes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
??? Why are you stating that they are not doing this? But, one thing: DO NOT flash everything available here, but just stay with OFFICIALLY released ROM's, via Kies (in case of SGS).
For example: JVR, JVS, JVT ROM's are not officially released, and then any claim that the sys is not optimized is pointless.
Whilst the first post is correct regarding speed and optimisations they fail to realise that Apple have only their own hardware to work on, so they can really work it until its perfectly optimised.
Google have one device to work on, but multiple manufactures use their open source platform using different hardware, so its up to them to optimise the software for their hardware, not google.
You also failed to quote correct hardware specs for the iphone, which has dual core and I believe as much memory as the galaxy s2... So it does sound like your trying to bash android with incorrectly informed arguments.
Just to close the item, and to proof how optimised the IOS is, the recent update, iOS 5, caused vanishing of the music, files, messages, contacts, customised folders and applications for not very small group of users:
Brilliant iOS5 update, example 1
Error 3200 and 3004
3002, 3200, 3194
So, I think that the conclusion may be:
Apple has much more simple way to optimise their sys, because they have much less kind of hardware than Google.
But, Apple is not able to manage even so small amount of the hardware variations, and iPhone CAN go smoothly on its 2 cores CPU (yes, dear OP, read the specs more closely) if Apple will not mess the sys or its update... what just happened.
It's only multitasking problem.suspend and resume of iOS paid off better although you miss some features because of that but on all basic features it way better.
I always wonder why dialer and messaging apps sent out of memory,they should have been kept in memory like browser.
We shouldn't be nagging much about it as things can be done by Android are much more.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
I can't predict the future of course, but it is not unlikely we will see some performance increase with ICS.
I would deem it likely that ICS will use HC's memory manager which is definitely faster than GBs, especially when used with programs that are massive memory hogs. HC's still constantly frees memory it doesn't need to free though ( == waste of cycles), so there is still room for improvement there, let's hope ICS brings it.
Likewise, UI hardware acceleration is already better in HC than it was in GB, and it is rumored to be further improved in ICS. If that is true, ICS devices will likely seem much more fluent. It doesn't actually make them faster, but it will look that way.
In the end, iOS is much more optimized than Android, but ICS should be a good step in the right direction. It will probably not bring the optimization to an iOS level, though.
kaynpayn said:
Yea ios is optimized better. But it also doesn't have many basic features like android. Like a proper customizable homescreen with the ability to chose your launcher (no, lockscreen and an app tray are NOT an homescreen like apple has been trying to sell it), widgets, proper multitask, proper application integration, live wallpapers, lack of an external SD, etc. That makes for a lightweight system. You gain speed but lose features.
That said, granted, android needs to be generic. But as soon as a big company like samsung picks up android and starts developing to one device of their own making, this "1 OS for all devices" gap ceases to exist. Its 1 OS being optimized to a single piece hardware, and they have all they need for proper optimization.
This isn't the same as windows -> 1000 kinds of hardware. Windows comes prepared from Microsoft to run everywhere so that applies. Android doesn't come prepared to run everywhere from google. You can't simply just download and put it on your phone regardless of brand. Has an extra step of preparation from hardware developing companies like HTC or Samsung.
What i'm trying to say is, there is room for optimization. But companies don't care much because they are on a tight schedule on market competition to put out the next big thing, have hardware specs to compensate for poorly optimized coding and in the end stuff works just the same, since most people, sadly, won't notice or care that much for those extra delays/lags.
Can't speak for other brands, but Samsung proved with SGS they don't care much for good coding. The community has been, since its release, improving this phone leaps and bounds and continue to do so even though a successor has shown up.
At the end, companies don't care enough, imo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disable to slight extent. I felt that Samsung have done something to the ROMs they provide for SGS. Example the old RFS filesystem, lags like hell in the past but feels good now. Im using RFS instead of EXT4. Still, I have to agree, they don't care much on good coding, new phones are coming up, why bother? The community makes it happen
Apple hires a ton of CPU architects solely for this purpose. Apple prioritizes fluency and optimization above features and openness.
Just a different strategy, no better, no worse.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using xda premium
My mate has the latest iPhone his wife had the SGSII, I had the chance to compare them both side by side last night. What can I say except the SGS is larger, faster, smoother, has more apps, more customisable, the difference is amazing. The iPhone is like
a kiddies toy compared to the SGS.
Remember that the iPhone has been going a lot longer than Android, yet Android had had voice recognition for over a year. Enough said
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all i want to know when moto atrix is getting ics.i also have sgs captivate and it is running on ics port and woking very well.so i also want to have ics on this phone also.pls do it quickly
sx4 said:
all i want to know when moto atrix is getting ics.i also have sgs captivate and it is running on ics port and woking very well.so i also want to have ics on this phone also.pls do it quickly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seriously, SEARCH!! there's already too many threads about this. And writing another thread isn't gunna help it get here faster. We need another tegra device to get it first. You'd know this if you SEARCHED!!!!
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
sx4 said:
all i want to know when moto atrix is getting ics.i also have sgs captivate and it is running on ics port and woking very well.so i also want to have ics on this phone also.pls do it quickly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This sense of entitlement is why devs are leaving XDA.
There is currently no ICS port. The group working on CM7 will be doing a version for CM9 but as with any version of CM, no etas. Next time use search. If you want ICS badly, you already have it on your captivate.
sx4 said:
all i want to know when moto atrix is getting ics.i also have sgs captivate and it is running on ics port and woking very well.so i also want to have ics on this phone also.pls do it quickly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want it so bad, port it hisself instead of giving orders in a somewhat polite way.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
sx4 said:
all i want to know when moto atrix is getting ics.i also have sgs captivate and it is running on ics port and woking very well.so i also want to have ics on this phone also.pls do it quickly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pls do it quickly? Every dev in here is probably cursing your phone and hoping it breaks right before ics leaks. Might want to take your a la carts attitude to the windows phone forums.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
[opinion]you will never see an official port for ICS from the Atrix, Atrix 2, or any device using the webtop.[/opinion]
In addition, the Atrix 4G has the FP scanner. These two features are going to kill any official support from Motorola. Why?
They are LAZY! The webtop was cobbled together in the first place. This is why the 'the optimus 2x is getting ICS' argument doesn't work in the case of the Atrix. Sure this will leave a bad taste in consumers' mouths, for maybe two seconds until they come out with something new and shiny. Seems people are willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for hardware that isn't even an upgrade, so why bother putting effort into updating software when it isn't profitable?
Its also worth noting that there are some parts of the world where GB isn't even an official release yet! Once they roll out GB in all regions, they will bury support for this phone six feet under, despite the customer objections.
Besides, our clandestine group of developers for the Atrix have pushed out better software than the official Moto devs ever could. You'll see a CM9 port before you even hear an utterance from Motorola to support the Atrix.
SirFork said:
you will never see an official port for ICS from the Atrix, Atrix 2, or any device using the webtop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Source please!
CaelanT said:
Source please!
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Aside from Motorola's track record, I have none. Hence, the several paragraphs explaining my reasoning. The lack of correspondence from Motorola (all I have gotten from them are canned almost political-sounding statements) and the present state of affairs for Atrix support in addition to the points I made previously are why I am extremely skeptical of ICS ever coming to the Atrix officially.
Of course I hope that I will eat my own words some day, like an ice cream sandwich
Edited my previous post to reflect as an opinion article not as fact.
SirFork said:
Aside from Motorola's track record, I have none. Hence, the several paragraphs explaining my reasoning. The lack of correspondence from Motorola (all I have gotten from them are canned almost political-sounding statements) and the present state of affairs for Atrix support in addition to the points I made previously are why I am extremely skeptical of ICS ever coming to the Atrix officially.
Of course I hope that I will eat my own words some day, like an ice cream sandwich
Edited my previous post to reflect as an opinion article not as fact.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Including the fact that since July, Motorola has released or is about to release the Droid 3, Bionic, RAZR, Droid 4, RAZRMAX, Photon 4G, Triumph, and Atrix 2. Throw on the Cliq 2, Atrix, and Droid X2 from earlier in the year.
im running ics on my atrix right now CM9, enginerring build, lots of things broken, def not for public and will not be made available for public for a while. so DO NOT ASK FOR IT. btw all credit to turl and atrix-dev-team. my point is, never say never because its already a fact.
samcripp said:
im running ics on my atrix right now CM9, enginerring build, lots of things broken, def not for public and will not be made available for public for a while. so DO NOT ASK FOR IT. btw all credit to turl and atrix-dev-team. my point is, never say never because its already a fact.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great news! I'm sure none of us will be stupid enough to ask for ETA's!
I'm assuming no HW Acceleration and the good stuff. Have you heard about Nvidia's plans to release ICS drivers and binaries for their Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 line early next year?
coolnow said:
Great news! I'm sure none of us will be stupid enough to ask for ETA's!
I'm assuming no HW Acceleration and the good stuff. Have you heard about Nvidia's plans to release ICS drivers and binaries for their Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 line early next year?
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actually is really smooth, the issues are on other things, im not gonna go into detail, but is def very nice and smooth
There you go! Now all ICS on Atrix speculation can be laid to rest!
samcripp said:
actually is really smooth, the issues are on other things, im not gonna go into detail, but is def very nice and smooth
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you saying hw accel or no hw accel?
sent from a galaxy far far away.
maybe idk, just got it today, sure feels hw accelerated, any ways, no more questions
samcripp said:
maybe idk, just got it today, sure feels hw accelerated, any ways, no more questions
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the input mate. I'd get ready to go into hiding if i was you I can just rest easy now
As always, thank you and the Atrix Dev Team, and all the other devs who work on this phone, thank you, thank you, thank you so very much!
;19986019 said:
So you saying hw accel or no hw accel?
sent from a galaxy far far away.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How about some Android graphics true facts?
• Android has always used some hardware accelerated drawing. Since before 1.0 all window compositing to the display has been done with hardware.
• This means that many of the animations you see have always been hardware accelerated: menus being shown, sliding the notification shade, transitions between activities, pop-ups and dialogs showing and hiding, etc.
• Android did historically use software to render the contents of each window. For example in a UI like there are four windows: the status bar, the wallpaper, the launcher on top of the wallpaper, and the menu. If one of the windows updates its contents, such as highlighting a menu item, then (prior to 3.0) software is used to draw the new contents of that window; however none of the other windows are redrawn at all, and the re-composition of the windows is done in hardware. Likewise, any movement of the windows such as the menu going up and down is all hardware rendering.
• Looking at drawing inside of a window, you don’t necessarily need to do this in hardware to achieve full 60fps rendering. This depends very much on the number of pixels in your display and the speed of your CPU. For example, Nexus S has no trouble doing 60fps rendering of all the normal stuff you see in the Android UI like scrolling lists on its 800x480 screen. The original Droid however struggled with a similar screen resolution.
• "Full" hardware accelerated drawing within a window was added in Android 3.0. The implementation in Android 4.0 is not any more full than in 3.0. Starting with 3.0, if you set the flag in your app saying that hardware accelerated drawing is allowed, then all drawing to the application’s windows will be done with the GPU. The main change in this regard in Android 4.0 is that now apps that are explicitly targeting 4.0 or higher will have acceleration enabled by default rather than having to put " in their manifest. (And the reason this isn’t just turned on for all existing applications is that some types of drawing operations can’t be supported well in hardware and it also impacts the behavior when an application asks to have a part of its UI updated. Forcing hardware accelerated drawing upon existing apps will break a significant number of them, from subtly to significantly.)
• Hardware accelerated drawing is not all full of win. For example on the PVR drivers of devices like the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus, simply starting to use OpenGL in a process eats about 8MB of RAM. Given that our process overhead is about 2MB, this is pretty huge. That RAM takes away from other things, such as the number of background processes that can be kept running, potentially slowing down things like app switching.
• Because of the overhead of OpenGL, one may very well not want to use it for drawing. For example some of the work we are doing to make Android 4.0 run well on the Nexus S has involved turning off hardware accelerated drawing in parts of the UI so we don’t lose 8MB of RAM in the system process, another 8MB in the phone process, another 8MB in the system UI process, etc. Trust me, you won’t notice -- there is just no benefit on that device in using OpenGL to draw something like the status bar, even with fancy animations going on in there.
• Hardware accelerated drawing is not a magical silver bullet to butter-smooth UI. There are many different efforts that have been going on towards this, such as improved scheduling of foreground vs. background threads in 1.6, rewriting the input system in 2.3, strict mode, concurrent garbage collection, loaders, etc. If you want to achieve 60fps, you have 20 milliseconds to handle each frame. This is not a lot of time. Just touching the flash storage system in the thread that is running the UI can in some cases introduce a delay that puts you out of that timing window, especially if you are writing to storage.
• A recent example of the kinds of interesting things that impact UI smoothness: we noticed that ICS on Nexus S was actually less smooth when scrolling through lists than it was on Gingerbread. It turned out that the reason for this was due to subtle changes in timing, so that sometimes in ICS as the app was retrieving touch events and drawing the screen, it would go to get the next event slightly before it was ready, causing it to visibly miss a frame while tracking the finger even though it was drawing the screen at a solid 60fps.
• When people have historically compared web browser scrolling between Android and iOS, most of the differences they are seeing are not due to hardware accelerated drawing. Originally Android went a different route for its web page rendering and made different compromises: the web page is turned in to a display list, which is continually rendered to the screen, instead of using tiles. This has the benefit that scrolling and zooming never have artifacts of tiles that haven’t yet been drawn. Its downside is that as the graphics on the web page get more complicated to draw the frame rate goes down. As of Android 3.0, the browser now uses tiles, so it can maintain a consistent frame rate as you scroll or zoom, with the negative of having artifacts when newly needed tiles can’t be rendered quickly enough. The tiles themselves are rendered in software, which I believe is the case for iOS as well. (And this tile-based approach could be used prior to 3.0 without hardware accelerated drawing; as mentioned previously, the Nexus S CPU can easily draw the tiles to the window at 60fps.)
• Hardware accleration does not magically make drawing performance problems disappear. There is still a limit to how much the GPU can do. A recent interesting example of this is tablets built with Tegra 2 -- that GPU can touch every pixel of a 1280x800 screen about 2.5 times at 60fps. Now consider the Android 3.0 tablet home screen where you are switching to the all apps list: you need to draw the background (1x all pixels), then the layer of shortcuts and widgets (let’s be nice and say this is .5x all pixels), then the black background of all apps (1x all pixels), and the icons and labels of all apps (.5x all pixels). We’ve already blown our per-pixel budget, and we haven’t even composited the separate windows to the final display yet. To get 60fps animation, Android 3.0 and later use a number of tricks. A big one is that it tries to put all windows into overlays instead of having to copy them to the framebuffer with the GPU. In the case here even with that we are still over-budget, but we have another trick: because the wallpaper on Android is in a separate window, we can make this window larger than the screen to hold the entire bitmap. Now, as you scroll, the movement of the background doesn’t require any drawing, just moving its window... and because this window is in an overlay, it doesn’t even need to be composited to the screen with the GPU.
• As device screen resolution goes up, achieving a 60fps UI is closely related to GPU speed and especially the GPU’s memory bus bandwidth. In fact, if you want to get an idea of the performance of a piece of hardware, always pay close attention to the memory bus bandwidth. There are plenty of times where the CPU (especially with those wonderful NEON instructions) can go a lot faster than the memory bus.
On a side note, the Tegra 2 does not have NEON instructions and only uses single-channel memory, which limits how well GPU acceleration helps with smoothness.
thanks.
sent from a galaxy far far away.
samcripp said:
maybe idk, just got it today, sure feels hw accelerated, any ways, no more questions
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Click to collapse
Sure would love to see a screenshot or 10. Have seen absolutely zero anywhere else about this happening.
Not saying "prove it" or anything, mind you! Just curious (as is everyone else here).
It's great to know that ATrix CM9 is in the oven. I personally have no doubt that ATRIX will get ICS officially.
A former intern for Google's Android team has provided explanations for why Android experiences more touch interface lag than competing mobile operating systems from Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion.
Undergraduate software engineering student Andrew Munn posted his observations on Google+, as noted by Cult of Mac. He did disclaim, however, that he will be starting an internship with Microsoft's Windows Phone team in January, adding that any opinions from the report were his alone.
According to Munn, Android has a difficult time dealing with the touch interface because it handles rendering "on the main thread with normal priority," as opposed to iOS, which treats UI rendering with real-time priority. He cites examples of website loading and the Movies app on Android where the operating system will continue to load while registering touch input.
Munn identified several other factors that contribute to UI lag on Android. For instance, the photo gallery app in either Android 3.0 Honeycomb or 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is capped at 30 frames per second in order to prevent a noticeable "hiccup" at 60 FPS.
"Capping the frame rate at 30 fixes the hiccup problem at the expense of buttery smooth animations at all times," he said.
The author also pointed to hardware issues for Android. According to him, Nvidia's Tegra 2 chip limits Android because of its low memory bandwidth and lack of NEON instruction set support. Tablets based on Honeycomb would be "better off with a different GPU," such as the Samsung Hummingbird or Apple A4.
Munn noted that Android "has a ways to go" before achieving more efficient UI compositing, especially when compared against Apple's iOS.
"On iOS, each UI view is rendered separately and stored in memory, so many animations only require the GPU to recomposite UI views," he said. "GPUs are extremely good at this. Unfortunately, on Android, the UI hierarchy is flattened before rendering, so animations require every animating section of the screen to be redrawn."
Another reason for the lag is the limitations of Android's Dalvik virtual machine, which is "not as mature" as a desktop-class Java VM, Munn said. However, the issue with Dalvik will be offset by hardware acceleration from Ice Cream Sandwich on and improvements to Dalvik.
But, in spite of the improvements, Munn believes the Android user interface "will never be completely smooth because of the design constraints" that limit UI rendering to the main thread of an app with normal priority.
"Even with a Galaxy Nexus, or the quad-core EeePad Transformer Prime, there is no way to guarantee a smooth frame rate if these two design constraints remain true," he said. "It’s telling that it takes the power of a Galaxy Nexus to approach the smoothness of a three year old iPhone."
According to Munn, the reason behind the design change is that the original Android prototype didn't have a touchscreen, as it was meant to be a BlackBerry competitor. As such, Android's architecture is meant to support a keyboard and trackball. Munn further claimed that after the original iPhone arrived in 2007, Google rushed to complete Android, but "it was too late to rewrite the UI framework."
He cited Windows Mobile 6.5, BlackBerry OS and Symbian as examples of other older operating systems that suffered similar problems with touch performance. Microsoft, RIM and Nokia have all abandoned those OSes in order to start from scratch. "Android is the only mobile OS left that existed pre-iPhone," the report noted.
Android Software Engineer Romain Guy admitted as much when he said that choices made years ago had contributed to work the team has to do now.
"Having the UI thread handle animations is the biggest problem," he said. "We are working on other solutions to try to improve this (schedule drawing on vsync instead of block on vsync after drawing, possible use a separate rendering thread, etc.) An easy solution would of course to create a new UI toolkit but there are many downsides to this also.”
According to the report, those downsides include the fact that apps would have to be rewritten to support the new framework, Android would need legacy support for old apps and work on other Android features would be held up while the new framework was being built.
"However, I believe the rewrite must happen, despite the downsides. As an aspiring product manager, I find Android’s lagginess absolutely unacceptable. It should be priority #1 for the Android team," Munn said.
UI Lag has long been an area for which reviewers have criticized Android. One recent usability study by Jakob Nielsen on Amazon's Android-based Kindle Fire found erratic scrolling and "huge lag in response after pressing command-buttons." Nielsen suspected that "sloppy programming" was causing the issue.
The New York Times' David Pogue also took issue with the Kindle Fire. "Animations are sluggish and jerky -- even the page turns that you'd think would be the pride of the Kindle team," he said in his review. "Taps sometimes don't register. There are no progress or 'wait' indicators, so you frequently don't know if the machine has even registered your touch commands. The momentum of the animations hasn't been calculated right, so the whole thing feels ornery."
Munn himself viewed the issue as damaging to Android's image. He also saw it as a violation of Google's guiding principles, which have generally led to faster, optimized products. Finally, he mentioned that UI lag breaks the direct 1-to-1 relationship that touch screens offer.
"The device no longer feels natural. It loses the magic. The user is pulled out of their interaction and must implicitly acknowledge they are using an imperfect computer simulation. I often get “lost” in an iPad, but I cringe when a Xoom stutters between home screens," he said.
To conclude, the report ended on a more upbeat note, with Munn voicing his belief that the Android rendering framework is in the hands of a capable team. "I know they will have it eventually," he said.
___________________________________________________________________
I`m sorry o hear this .. so is there any chances that google make android on same structure as ios?
I know IOS is for only Apple devices, and because of that is feeling so smoth .. but how windows (computer windows) can be smoth for all computer configurations? and Android can`t, even quad core can`t stable android ....
This article makes me think. Let`s hope that there will be future improvement on how Google will write it`s UI code. I mean, it`s sad to have an SGS2 or an quad-core powered phone/tablet and a OS to hold back it`s power.
And more or less in reply to this came a post by Dianne Hackborn, who is part of the Android development team, explaining why most of this was either irrelevant or wrong.
https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/XAZ4CeVP6DC
Still, plenty of questions of course.
I heard that android was made for phones with buttons and because of this we have all problems ...
No way this is true.
Nope, the system is power smooth and no lag whatsoever. Nada.
The truth is IQ restricted to a few in Android. Be happy with what you got. All the user posted issues are IDIOT related, as a senior member reminded me.
/sarcasm off
Dalvik VM limitations were known and were a set back from the beginning (just like fat32). Nevertheless, they ''fixed it'' somehow, this is why Oracle is giving hard time to Google.
I can't say WP7/BBoS is smoother/better when compared to SGS2 GB...but both OS's are smoother when compared to appropriate hardware.
Student i see well that's not somebody that knows what they are talking about is it .
jje
This is false because thread priority can be assigned by the OS or even the software (in certain cases). The reason why the web browser in the iPhone is more responsive than in Android is as follows.
On the iPhone, the web browser is rendered with a tiling method, What this means is that the only things drawn in high quality are the "tile" that you see (everything on screen) as well as the immediately touching tiles. Ever notice that when you pan/scroll on iOS, it seems to only leap one page, similar to Page Down on your PC? This gives the browser time to dump tiles that are no longer adjacent while rendering the newly adjacent tiles in higher quality.
On Android, the entire page is rendered in the same quality. This is more work, so scrolling/panning/zooming fluidity suffers. This allows for a consistent but not as smooth approach. It also means that you can flick-scroll indefinitely.
On the SGS2, Samsung tried to implement the tiling approach but left in the Android scrolling limitations. This means that you can sometimes scroll faster than the page can keep up, causing a checkerboard affect (this is what Apple is hiding with their method).
On the ICS browser, Google also adopted the tiling method (finally), and managed to disguise the checkerboard affect by covering it with the webpage's default background color. The "checkerboard" is still there, but you never see or notice it. Anyway, I did a writeup with videos to illustrate this. Unfortunately, most idiots are taking the videos as fanboy fodder. They seem to think that the point was to show off how much better phone X is than phone Y, rather than to show the differences in approaches. The RAZR/Rezound will have these enhancements with their 4.x update.
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67100
Yep, pretty much accurate info here but this is only regarding browser smoothness. Responsiveness is another issue android seems to have. When you scroll in iOS the contents are almost always directly below your finger, not "lagging" behind your swipes trying to catch up as you normally see in Android. I'm no expert so I have no idea what the cause of this is.
jaykresge said:
This is false because thread priority can be
assigned by the OS or even the software (in certain cases). The reason why the web browser in the iPhone is more responsive than in Android is as follows.
On the iPhone, the web browser is rendered with a tiling method, What this means is that the only things drawn in high quality are the "tile" that you see (everything on screen) as well as the immediately touching tiles. Ever notice that when you pan/scroll on iOS, it seems to only leap one page, similar to Page Down on your PC? This gives the browser time to dump tiles that are no longer adjacent while rendering the newly adjacent tiles in higher quality.
On Android, the entire page is rendered in the same quality. This is more work, so scrolling/panning/zooming fluidity suffers. This allows for a consistent but not as smooth approach. It also means that you can flick-scroll indefinitely.
On the SGS2, Samsung tried to implement the tiling approach but left in the Android scrolling limitations. This means that you can sometimes scroll faster than the page can keep up, causing a checkerboard affect (this is what Apple is hiding with their method).
On the ICS browser, Google also adopted the tiling method (finally), and managed to disguise the checkerboard affect by covering it with the webpage's default background color. The "checkerboard" is still there, but you never see or notice it. Anyway, I did a writeup with videos to illustrate this. Unfortunately, most idiots are taking the videos as fanboy fodder. They seem to think that the point was to show off how much better phone X is than phone Y, rather than to show the differences in approaches. The RAZR/Rezound will have these enhancements with their 4.x update.
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67100
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dinan said:
Yep, pretty much accurate info here but this is only regarding browser smoothness. Responsiveness is another issue android seems to have. When you scroll in iOS the contents are almost always directly below your finger, not "lagging" behind your swipes trying to catch up as you normally see in Android. I'm no expert so I have no idea what the cause of this is.
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Click to collapse
Depends on the device. This was absolutely true of my HTC Incredible on Android 2.1. With 2.2/2.3 and bloatware removed, the UI outside of the browser is more responsive than my wife's old iPhone 4, but a hair behind her new 4s (The 4 slowed down with iOS 5 due to the new notification shade). This goes back to a previous post I made in another thread where the iPhone's entire UI is GPU accelerated due to not having high requirements. Android's UI is more complex which causes OEMs to decide which elements are accelerated and which are not. In most newer phones the notification shade is always accelerated, the wallpaper is not, but the homescreens are to varying degrees. There is a fill-rate budget and the OEM has to decide what is accelerated and what isn't within this budget.
A prime example is the Nexus S vs. the Galaxy Nexus. While both use the SGX540 GPU, the Galaxy Nexus version is clocked higher and has MUCH higher performance. As such, the entire Galaxy Nexus UI is accelerated. However, for the Nexus S ICS build, only certain parts of the UI are accelerated. Google has gone on record as saying that this is due to hardware limitations.
I'd be willing to bet that this is why the Nexus One isn't getting ICS. The Adreno 200 GPU was subpar even when it came out. With the new overlays in ICS, the UI in the N1 would become laggier rather than smoother, as with previous releases. Google may have felt that the user experience of GB on the N1 is superior to that of ICS due to the new features. Even budget phones today using scaled down Snapdragon S2s or the older OMAP4 have a better GPU than what the N1 had.
sounds like a disgruntled employee speaking half truths.
Guess this guy never tried an sgs2. No lag whatsoever!
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Pretty much spot on. You cnt disagree that ios is muuuuuch smoother than android and that it does lag at times. Student nailed it in my opinion. Well written. Ive always said it has a long way to go and quad core wont b much differnt to dual core phones. When i used a iphone 4s for a while.... it blew me away how slick it was. Future versions will hopefully only get better. But iphone cnt match android open source fun lol. .
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Fizzerr said:
Guess this guy never tried an sgs2. No lag whatsoever!
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Since when u have your s2? Cuz on my s2.. I get lag.. and you know when? UI. When unlocking.. when i close an app it takes some time to get to UI...and so on. And I am on stock firmware.
Cristitamas said:
Since when u have your s2? Cuz on my s2.. I get lag.. and you know when? UI. When unlocking.. when i close an app it takes some time to get to UI...and so on. And I am on stock firmware.
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No lag whatsoever on my GSII. And on my iPhone 4S there is also no lag. Both aee extremely fluid in my opinion. Galaxy Nexus, GSII, and the 4S are the fastest phones on the market right now.
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Fizzerr said:
Guess this guy never tried an sgs2. No lag whatsoever!
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In fact, when scroll in tapatalk lags, when im moving in desktop and receive a message of whats app or miyowa messenger lags too.
iNeri said:
In fact, when scroll in tapatalk lags, when im moving in desktop and receive a message of whats app or miyowa messenger lags too.
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It lags...period lol
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androidkid311 said:
It lags...period lol
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Correct. So far any Android device lags. Any phone, any tablet, all of them. Sure, we are lucky to have one of the more lag-less devices but anybody who says the SGS2 doesn't lag at all either:
a) is ignorant
b) is very easy to please
c) is blinded by Android fanboyism
d) hasn't seen a true lag free device yet.
The SGS2 lags. Sometimes a little, sometimes like crazy, so be it. Don't claim otherwise.
Yes, my old xperia x10 lagged all the time. But my custom-ROM-running sgs2 doesn't lag. Yes, I've had an iPhone 4 for 8 months so I can compare them.
IMHO, lag is mostly placebo and expecting too much these days. Ugly code can cause the UI to stutter on every platform, including iOS.
# Galaxy S II w/ tapatalk
Pfeffernuss said:
The SGS2 lags. Sometimes a little, sometimes like crazy, so be it. Don't claim otherwise.
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LOL. You must have a heap of bloatware on that thing. Either that or you've flashed a dodgy ROM. I get no lag at all. I think you are getting lag confused with app loading time. If you fire up Asphalt 6 and it takes 10 seconds to load that's not lag. Have a play with a Galaxy S on one of the earlier ROM's. Then you will see lag.
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Fizzerr said:
LOL. You must have a heap of bloatware on that thing.
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Click to collapse
No bloatware whatsoever.
Either that or you've flashed a dodgy ROM.
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Tried many many Roms, many many kernels, many many Launchers, etc. All the same thing. The phone will once in a while lag and/or show micro-stutters.
I get no lag at all.
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None at all, really. A statement like that makes all the other things you say worthless. Every Android device will once in a while lag and/or expose micro-stutters.
I think you are getting lag confused with app loading time. If you fire up Asphalt 6 and it takes 10 seconds to load that's not lag.
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I know what lag is, thank you.
It's exactly the same as when people say "my screen is perfect. I have no yellow/darker left side on my panel". When you check it yourself of course the panel isn't even. Usual reply? "Well, I don't see it so it doesn't bother me". That's not the point, it's there. The fact that the phone is 100% smooth for you is nice, only it is not.
Your SGS2 also will have occasional lag/micro stutters. In all apps/all the time? No. In most apps/usually? No. In some apps/occasionally? Yes.
Is it still an amazing phone? For sure. Probably the best/smoothest Android so far? Guess so. Does it sometimes lag and/or stutter? Absolutely.
The Write Up
Windows Phone 8 has now been out about two weeks and with its eye-catching hardware, beautiful UI, and plethora of new features; has captured the hearts of more people than even I expected. Nokia's Lumia line has been consistently sold out all over the world and is still in high demand while HTC is certainly pulling out all of the stops in bringing their most beautiful device to date into the Windows Phone market. Huaweii seems to be ready to innovate for the first time in quite some time and Samsung is bringing up the rear with the same ol' stuff they've been putting out since the Samsung Behold days but there's a market for everything.
As a student developer, I try to keep a very clear mind about phones as a whole. At present I own a Tegra HTC One X, an AT&T Galaxy Note II, an iPhone 4s, and the AT&T Nokia Lumia 920. It could simply be a honeymoon period but for the past two weeks the Lumia has been my daily driver. I have also been frequenting the forums of numerous tech blogs and news articles, scouring the web for any complaints and praise for both the Note and the Lumia. As it stands, the Lumia seems to be the more sought after of the two with the Note being slightly underwhelming compared to its predecessor. The Lumia is not without its flaws though, the battery life has been subpar on a number of the devices, there is a bug in the NFC usage that causes immense battery drain, and the photos could be slightly sharper. However, for every shortcoming, most of which Nokia says will be repaired with a software update, there are more than enough selling points to justify it. After two weeks, I finally felt it was just to do a review comparing Windows Phone, iOS, and Android.
User Interface
First, I'll start with what you see upon powering on, the UI. The common complaint with Windows Phone, is the lack of a dedicated notification center like the ones you would see on Android or now, iOS. I was truly concerned on coming from using the One X as my daily driver and HTC's amazing Friendstream that the Lumia's activity simply would not be enough. Let me be the first to tell you that not only does the live tile system work, it's removed so many swypes and taps from my typical use that I'm probably saving an hour of battery life a day on that alone. Unlock the screen, swype down, check anything I want, done. It's very simple and very straightforward. I believe Windows Phone's initial marketing statement was, "Get in, get out, get on with your life." It's simple to do just that however it's also easy to get immersed in the live tiles. The customization available despite the lack of backgrounds is quite amazing and sometimes I'll spend half an hour deciding on a particular tile layout that suits me and my present color scheme. The OS is simply aesthetically pleasing, plain and simple. You might be able to download a dozen apps to kick your android UI into gear or Dreamboard your phone but in terms of usability I would have to give the cake to Windows Phone. That said, Android's notification system is right on par with Windows Phone and is certainly no slacker. iOS simply lags behind.
User Interface:
Android: 6
iOS: 7
Windows Phone: 9
Notifications:
Android: 9
iOS: 4
Windows Phone: 8
Camera
With our phones being an extension of our arms, it's only viable that it replace that big clunky camera on a laniard that we were once forced to tote around if we wanted to capture the moment. Now, it's as easy as pulling your phone out and snapping a picture. Windows Phone tried simplifying this further by allowing access to the camera directly from a sleeping phone, a feature imitated and executed well by the competition but born of Windows Phone and the original still seems to execute it best. Each OS aside from iOS has a variation of cameras on a variation of different phones and each have their strengths and weaknesses. My personal preference, hardware aside, is Windows Phone strictly because of the requirement of a hardware camera button. Each OS has it's own photo editing options as well, iOS being the birthing place of instagram, a photo-social network. Android having a ton of applications with filters and editors, and at least Nokia's Windows Phones implementing lenses with work amazingly well. If you haven't gotten to toy around with cinemagraphs then you simply haven't gotten to enjoy a camera on a phone. Overall, I'd say it's safe to give tens across the board on software alone as the hardware preference is just that, a preference.
Camera
Android: 10
iOS: 10
Windows Phone: 10
Hardware Choices
Your general consumer has an idea of what they want but will not be particularly picky. It has to be eye-catching but practical, it has to have screen real-estate but be pocketable. Your phone has to fit you better than you fit it. iOS in this area, is awful. You get one device that most recently has rendered a lot of games ugly due to the screen's aspect ratio shifting drastically. Overall, the iPhone 5 may be the worst in the series despite slightly improved hardware. Android of course has the broadest range of specs, 600 mhz processors making up the low-end of the spectrum and pushing into the quad-core monsters at the higher end. Until Android's most recent iteration, it suffered from a discernible lag that, while not a deal breaker, certainly offered a bit of a low-end feel. However, android is now about up to par with the competition and is finally, "Buttery smooth." on all different kinds of hardware.
Windows Phone devices are also found on a variety of hardware, however what sets it apart and really makes it pull ahead is the availability of many color options. No other OS before it has offered such an array of high end devices in such a wide variety of colors. The Lumia 920 alone comes in five different colors, 3 of which are rare to find on any other quality device. Due to the color variations, I'd have to give this one to Windows Phone as it's proven time and again that it doesn't need the ridiculous hardware to run as fluid as the competition.
Hardware
Android: 9
iOS: 2
Windows Phone: 10
Social
What are our phones for if not communication? Sure, they all make calls with varying quality, they all connect to Facebook, they all send texts and picture messages, they all get the job done. However, who gets it done best? For this comparison, I'm using stock Android. Had I chosen to use HTC's Sense then it likely would've been more favorable for Android but, spoiler alert, stock android doesn't fare too well.
iOS basicaly reinvented the smartphone and have thus created an immeasurable ecosystem spanning across millions of users. Due to this, they are able to have their own video chat that doesn't work with other devices, their own messenger client that only works on their devices, even their own social networks of sorts. They have an ecosystem, but what about the rest of us? Both iOS and Android sync your facebook contacts as well as contacts from other email clients and social networks without much fail and with the installation of third party applications have no issue notifying you of your facebook notifications. However, this isn't about the applications, just the OS itself and aside from what's mentioned, neither have a whole lot to offer. With Windows Phone, I have felt no need to install a facebook application as everything I need is built into the OS. I have facebook chat that sends me all my messages through the same messaging system that my texts come through, I can update my status from my Me tile on a number of different social networks simutaneously, I can take a picture and have it on facebook faster than any other OS, shown clearly in the Smoked by Windows Phone videos and I can do it all without installing anything additional. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn being baked into the OS has accelerated my social networking to a whole new degree.
The most important aspect of a social network though, the keyboard. I mean sure you can Speech to Text everything but that seldom works out as well as you want it to. android has an excellent keyboard layout by default but the response time on it is notably slower than either other and the predicted text never quite gets me to where I want. It seems as though it doesn't know higher English and any bigger words I use are quickly transformed into two or more little words. iOS is again, a joke. The keyboard layout forces you to go to a separate page to use a period, the auto-correct has spawned numerous sites about how terrible it is, and it's very ill responsive. The first thing you notice about using a Windows Phone is the tactile responsiveness, it seems as though the button is hit maybe even a millisecond before you touch the screen it's so fast and the words are only corrected when it's actually needed. Overall, in terms of the general social networking, I have to give it to Windows Phone here as everything is so deliciously baked in. I should mention though that Android has a plethora of keyboards better than the default at your disposal.
Networking
Android: 5
iOS: 6
Windows Phone: 10
Keyboard
Android: 6
iOS: 4
Windows Phone: 8
Apps and Software and Features, Oh My!
Well, it's not all rainbows and butterflies in the Windows Phone world. The application store isn't 1/10th of the competition yet and the games we do get are often crippled versions of their Android and iOS counterparts. Not only that, we often pay more strictly for the fact that we can get Xbox Live gamer points. However, Xbox live on the phone is amazing and a selling point in itself, it still doesn't justify the sometimes ridiculous price of our games and apps.
iOS is the clear winner as far as games and apps go. Sure, Android has more games and applications but they are never as polished as those on iOS and oftentimes won't work on a good portion of the devices due to fragmentation. Both trump Windows Phone with their high def, 3D games and form fitting applications.
Android and Windows Phone now utilize NFC, iOS's only real shortcoming in this area. Windows Phone has pushed it a step further offering wireless charging on most of their higher end devices which, while gimmicky, is one hell of a gimmick. If you pick up the JBL Charging Speakers then your Nokia will absolutely blow you away.
I would like to clarify, of the 40 or so apps that are must haves on my phones, I can easily find an alternative to 36-38 of them on Windows Phone but those 2-4 apps I can't find really do seem to jump out at me a lot of the time and are a thorn in the side of WP8. That said, with access to native code this will hopefully change.
Goodies
Android: 8
iOS: 9
Windows Phone: 5
Wrap-up
Well, after owning my first long term Windows Phone device I can say that this is as unbiased as I can get aside from a possible honeymoon phase with this pretty little device. This is of course from a basic user standpoint and not a developer standpoint as so many of us like to brag about having. The final score tallied up is:
Android: 53/70
iOS: 42/70
Windows Phone: 60/70
None of the OS's are bad and each could certainly suit you and will vary with your needs. As far as the most generic needs go, Windows Phone pulled out just ahead of Android with iOS trailing behind, left in the dust. If you haven't picked up a Windows Phone and have only gone off of the rumors, I suggest you at least give it a try. Thank you for reading and I hope you all have a happy Turkey Day.
-Poecifer
Thanks for sharing! One thing that interests me about the Windows Phone is editing Microsoft Office files on the go. Currently I have many formatting and compatibility issues trying to do this with my Android device. Have you experimented much with this yet?
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buffjam9011 said:
Thanks for sharing! One thing that interests me about the Windows Phone is editing Microsoft Office files on the go. Currently I have many formatting and compatibility issues trying to do this with my Android device. Have you experimented much with this yet?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app
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Mainly just wordpad documents, I'll look more into the others and get back to you afterwards. Word files are epic though.
Strangely enough I agree with almost quite everything you say, but your scoring seems to be a little wonky. Your user interface scores were as follows:
Android: 6
iOS: 7
Windows Phone: 9
Very subjective if you ask me. You could ask ten different people what they believe that order should proceed in, and I'm willing to bet their answers will vary greatly. I don't understand how IOS could possibly have a higher interface score than Android if its simply a grid of icons with a horrendous notification system. If you wanted to replicate that on Android you very well could with a launcher, MIUI, etc. Android essentially IS iOS with flexibility; customizable grids on the homescreen, widgets, more intuitive lockscreens, etc. Giving iOS a higher score doesn't seem to make sense to me.
Hardware
Android: 9
iOS: 2
Windows Phone: 10
I'd like to think the massive range of Android phones would overcome the simple fact that Windows phones come in several new colors. I think it's fair to say Android should hold top dog in this regard.
Android: 5
iOS: 6
Windows Phone: 10
Above are the scores for social networking on each mobile OS. Again, if Android by default has every third party application installed automatically integrated, how can you justify giving it not only that low of a score, but below iOS? (While iOS only has facebook/twitter integration).
Also, I'm curious as to which keyboard you used for Android.
But great write up, honestly I don't mean to try and dismantle everything you said, I just don't entirely agree with the scoring. But good work, I gave ya a thanks )
MultiLockOn said:
Strangely enough I agree with almost quite everything you say, but your scoring seems to be a little wonky. Your user interface scores were as follows:
Android: 6
iOS: 7
Windows Phone: 9
Very subjective if you ask me. You could ask ten different people what they believe that order should proceed in, and I'm willing to bet their answers will vary greatly. I don't understand how IOS could possibly have a higher interface score than Android if its simply a grid of icons with a horrendous notification system. If you wanted to replicate that on Android you very well could with a launcher, MIUI, etc. Android essentially IS iOS with flexibility; customizable grids on the homescreen, widgets, more intuitive lockscreens, etc. Giving iOS a higher score doesn't seem to make sense to me.
Hardware
Android: 9
iOS: 2
Windows Phone: 10
I'd like to think the massive range of Android phones would overcome the simple fact that Windows phones come in several new colors. I think it's fair to say Android should hold top dog in this regard.
Android: 5
iOS: 6
Windows Phone: 10
Above are the scores for social networking on each mobile OS. Again, if Android by default has every third party application installed automatically integrated, how can you justify giving it not only that low of a score, but below iOS? (While iOS only has facebook/twitter integration).
Also, I'm curious as to which keyboard you used for Android.
But great write up, honestly I don't mean to try and dismantle everything you said, I just don't entirely agree with the scoring. But good work, I gave ya a thanks )
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Not a problem at all, friend. I love criticism regardless and constructive is my favorite flavor. I gave UI to iOS over android because I'm trying to use vanilla android opposed to sense or touchwiz and sadly it still suffers from minute hickups. Had I been reviewing Sense, android and Windows Phone would have certainly been neck and neck.
As far as my hardware statement, as much as the hardware for android differentiates under the hood, they do little to differentiate themselves cosmetically and that seldom makes for a beautiful device even when the power under the hood is insane. It's often left looking like a bunch of generic Samsung phones.
In social networking, I ignored the existence of third party applications and only gave the bonus point to iOS for the ease of setup as both are essentially the same in that regard.
When I use android, I've been using swype since the HTC Dream days and don't feel a need to switch. Swiftkey isn't terrible though.
Again, there may be some bias as I'm still in the honeymoon phase but I made an attempt to be unbiased that at least beats out what you'll get at cNet.
Poecifer said:
Not a problem at all, friend. I love criticism regardless and constructive is my favorite flavor. I gave UI to iOS over android because I'm trying to use vanilla android opposed to sense or touchwiz and sadly it still suffers from minute hickups. Had I been reviewing Sense, android and Windows Phone would have certainly been neck and neck.
As far as my hardware statement, as much as the hardware for android differentiates under the hood, they do little to differentiate themselves cosmetically and that seldom makes for a beautiful device even when the power under the hood is insane. It's often left looking like a bunch of generic Samsung phones.
In social networking, I ignored the existence of third party applications and only gave the bonus point to iOS for the ease of setup as both are essentially the same in that regard.
When I use android, I've been using swype since the HTC Dream days and don't feel a need to switch. Swiftkey isn't terrible though.
Again, there may be some bias as I'm still in the honeymoon phase but I made an attempt to be unbiased that at least beats out what you'll get at cNet.
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Most definitely ahaha, cnet is one of the most Apple centric tech sites I've ever seen. And I really do appreciate this write up, I always told myself if I had to move to a locked down OS Windows 8 looked like a viable choice, and now it seems I have a third party to back it up reasonably. It's sad really, most people glance at Windows phone and ate immediately turned away because of how strange the ui is initially. I think it's a beautiful design personally, and they're innovating in their own way.
One thing however. Do you really find sense more appealing then stock android? I've found the last three versions on android (4.0 - 4.2) to be wonderful. Honestly, everything from the notification bar to gapps with the blue tint looks great. I always thought sense was overrated, but more now than ever it seems to be riding on the tailcoat of its gb days. Maybe then I might've thought it sleek and edgy but lately sense hasn't seem to have changed at all, it looks dated. Everything from the app drawer to the notification panel is rather stale looking, I'd go as far to say that the touchwiz nature ux is much preferable, but that's just me.
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MultiLockOn said:
Most definitely ahaha, cnet is one of the most Apple centric tech sites I've ever seen. And I really do appreciate this write up, I always told myself if I had to move to a locked down OS Windows 8 looked like a viable choice, and now it seems I have a third party to back it up reasonably. It's sad really, most people glance at Windows phone and ate immediately turned away because of how strange the ui is initially. I think it's a beautiful design personally, and they're innovating in their own way.
One thing however. Do you really find sense more appealing then stock android? I've found the last three versions on android (4.0 - 4.2) to be wonderful. Honestly, everything from the notification bar to gapps with the blue tint looks great. I always thought sense was overrated, but more now than ever it seems to be riding on the tailcoat of its gb days. Maybe then I might've thought it sleek and edgy but lately sense hasn't seem to have changed at all, it looks dated. Everything from the app drawer to the notification panel is rather stale looking, I'd go as far to say that the touchwiz nature ux is much preferable, but that's just me.
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From a purely aesthetic perspective, I completely agree. Sense looks stale. However, it brings to the table a plethora of built in apps and widgets that I find more useful than anyone else's offerings and for that I will choose Sense over Touchwiz or stock any day. I liked the way Sony was going, too bad they can't quite get their software right.
I think you overreacted when you said iphone has score 2 as far as hardware is concerned. Just because they do not take the route android does (make up for poor software with overkill hardware) doesn't mean their hardware ain't good. They basically do just like Windows Phone: pick up a nice platform, then base everything on that so it can be optimized.
mcosmin222 said:
I think you overreacted when you said iphone has score 2 as far as hardware is concerned. Just because they do not take the route android does (make up for poor software with overkill hardware) doesn't mean their hardware ain't good. They basically do just like Windows Phone: pick up a nice platform, then base everything on that so it can be optimized.
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They still only release one device a year with severely dated hardware and ridiculous fragility. They often have next to no real selling point aside from habit. I'd say it was justified.
dont agree with you about the keyboard. check out swiftkey.... i miss it so hard on wp8 :S
Love the write up, and I agree with most of what was said. I can support the lower hardware score for iOS because it is a gradual improvement of an existing design, as opposed to every year the hardware is cutting edge. That does have something to do with the fact that the OS doesn't require such boundary pushing hardware...
That's why I gave up on iOS. After a while you really get tired of the apps as the only attraction. Heck, jail breaking took off merely for the fact that it was a way to unlock the phone for usage on other carriers. Based on the hardware limitations, once you started to add the custom add-ons to change the looks and performance of the phone, iOS starts to lag. I'm sure things have improved with the iPhone 5, but I've got no interest in trying Apple.
It still boils down to taste. I do enjoy using WP7, and so far WP8 is a nice upgrade. As far as Android goes, I prefer stock over any other skin other there. Yes, stock used to be atrocious and not as friendly visually, but 4.0 has changed much of that. Still, I like Sense as the best skin out there, even though it has gotten bloated. sense 4 is a right step, but I won't use anything HTC Android wise until Sense gets much lighter (that's why my Galaxy Nexus will back up my Lumia 810 for the foreseeable future).
I like the WP idea of letting some customization in the form of apps and amps and hardware tweaks. But the consistent UI is my biggest draw to the platform. Now, if only MSFT can make Windowsphone.com easier to use and add a few more apps and tweaks...
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Poecifer said:
They still only release one device a year with severely dated hardware and ridiculous fragility. They often have next to no real selling point aside from habit. I'd say it was justified.
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You're not talking about Apple are you? If so, this just ruins everything you typed Severely dated hardware? Seriously ?
Don't get me wrong, everyone is entitled to their opinion; but dated hardware? ?
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vetvito said:
You're not talking about Apple are you? If so, this just ruins everything you typed Severely dated hardware? Seriously ?
Don't get me wrong, everyone is entitled to their opinion; but dated hardware? ?
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1.3 GHz processor, underwhelming screen, no NFC, no wireless charging, nothing that sets them apart hardware-wise. At what point as of late have they innovated?
Poecifer said:
1.3 GHz processor, underwhelming screen, no NFC, no wireless charging, nothing that sets them apart hardware-wise. At what point as of late have they innovated?
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You said severely dated hardware, didn't you? Name one phone that beats the iPhone 5 in graphics and performance? Underwhelming screen? Do people even legitimately know what the iPhone is clocked at?
NFC? Seriously, what is windows phone doing with it now besides pairing speakers?
Wireless charging, now thats palm pre innovation. Wow.
I know you can come with something better than that.
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vetvito said:
You said severely dated hardware, didn't you? Name one phone that beats the iPhone 5 in graphics and performance? Underwhelming screen? Do people even legitimately know what the iPhone is clocked at?
NFC? Seriously, what is windows phone doing with it now besides pairing speakers?
Wireless charging, now thats palm pre innovation. Wow.
I know you can come with something better than that.
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Graphics is a matter of the software and developer interest, neither of which have been called into question. The screen was cool when it was introduced 2-3 years ago, now it's certainly not top tier. The iPhone 5 is clocked at 1.3 GHz which does prove we don't need ridiculous specs with optimized software. It simply hasn't been top of the line in a long while.
^ but no other chip is beating the iPhone 5 in graphics or performance right now. Not even the S4 Pro(quad core). If that isn't top of the line, then I don't know what is.
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Poecifer said:
Graphics is a matter of the software and developer interest, neither of which have been called into question. The screen was cool when it was introduced 2-3 years ago, now it's certainly not top tier. The iPhone 5 is clocked at 1.3 GHz which does prove we don't need ridiculous specs with optimized software. It simply hasn't been top of the line in a long while.
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Genuine question, where do you find a graphics test that ignores the OS software as a whole? I want to know for personal testing.
Poecifer said:
Genuine question, where do you find a graphics test that ignores the OS software as a whole? I want to know for personal testing.
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You don't really. Every test in SOME way is going to be more optimized for one gpu then another; you can't say "well this game runs smother on this phone thus making this gpu better". Benchmarking isn't realistic at all. To be honest I'm not sure of a great way to judge graphics card performance other then a long term
Overview of how it handles games. I could be wrong though, if someone wants to correct me feel free
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"hardware choices"
you gave more credit to one _software_platform_ (your definitions of competitors) for choice of colors....
yes, that makes sense.
ohgood said:
"hardware choices"
you gave more credit to one _software_platform_ (your definitions of competitors) for choice of colors....
yes, that makes sense.
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Average consumer perspective. How much do cores matter to your mom or dad?