[interlagos]

This isn't a "follow-up", per se.

Nonetheless, while Android continually works to smooth out the rough edges -- helped along by the march of technology -- this is something that is a bit overblown: Minor jutters of the interface is something that primarily irritates people as a relative thing, not as an absolute thing.

If you are a developer or a reviewer and you regularly use an iOS device and an Android device, the difference is evident and jarring. If you're an end-use it quickly disappears and is a non-issue. It just isn't a real problem for end users.

It's the same as getting an upgrade to your PC, a new video card, etc. You were perfectly happy before, but relative to your new reality the old one seems subpar, and you overestimate how much it interferes with your enjoyment of the device.

[vilya]

That directly contradicts my own experience with Android. I bought a HTC Hero as my first smartphone, so I didn't have any reference points to compare it with. Over 18 painful months of owning that phone I never got used to the lagginess of the UI. Not to the point where it faded into the background, anyway: I learnt to anticipate the lag, but it never stopped being annoying. So much so that when it came time to replace the phone, there was no way I was considering an Android phone again.

Basically, I'm an existence proof against your argument (and now a happy iPhone owner too).

[interlagos]

There was a dark period in Android's existence where a very immature OS came together with underpowered hardware (the GPU in an iPhone 3G demolished the GPU in the Hero) and created a pretty bad experience.

That wasn't what I was talking about. I'm talking about almost imperceptible, frame-or-two jitters that is the current state of Android on virtually any contemporary device. The top selling Android devices are all "buttery smooth" in the perception of their users, even if relative to an iPhone it is herky jerky.

[calloc]

I have iOS 4.3.x on my iPhone 3G and it stutters compared to iOS 3 at the same time. So much so that when I got my iPhone 4S I noticed how much the iPhone 3G lagged and stuttered that I no longer use it, even as a simple iPod.

[vilya]

Fair enough, I haven't tried Android on a more recent device so my experience is certainly out of date. But when there are this many people saying there's a problem, surely it would make sense - especially for a fundamentally data-driven company like Google - to do some user studies and quantify it? I haven't heard of any such studies though; do you (or anyone else) know of any?

[ImprovedSilence]

Perhaps. But once the end user notices the lag compared to their friends device, it very quickly becomes an end users (and very shortly, the platforms) problem. My android lags, and it pisses me off.

per your quote: "It's the same as getting an upgrade to your PC, a new video card, etc. You were perfectly happy before, but relative to your new reality the old one seems subpar, and you overestimate how much it interferes with your enjoyment of the device." Doesn't quite make sense in this market though. It's all about having the fastest, shiniest, device. And if you can't keep up or deliver ever demanding performance increases, you die. If good was good enough, and we didn't care that the next best thing was only marginally better, we'd still be using punch cards.

[TeMPOraL]

> t's all about having the fastest, shiniest, device. And if you can't keep up or deliver ever demanding performance increases, you die.

It's not even about that. It's about something usable and working as expected. I have an Android smartphone (LG P350) with bundled Facebook and Twitter, both of which I never use because they're too heavy for the phone. They barely work, they hang up for minutes, and crash my homescreen. And if I try to sync them, it usually ends with me taking the battery out after few minutes of staring at shining screen of a totally non-responsive (hardware buttons included) phone. Not to mention that once or twice an incoming call was too heavy for that phone to handle, => battery removal operation necessary.

Next time before choosing Android, I'll carefully test current devices, and switch to iPhone if I ever find a trace of UI lag.

[interlagos]

I don't disagree with what you've written, and the relative thing is a problem -- if people feel a bit shameful that their new device isn't as slick as the last generation iPhone, it does hurt love of one's device a bit. That's why Android 4.0 takes big steps in the "be proud to show it off" realm.

However to the relative thing, to most smartphone users the things that matter are can I use Facebook, how is the picture quality, can I share videos, etc. Others want a keyboard, big and bright screen, etc. To normal users -- the ones buying the overwhelming bulk of devices -- this just isn't the big issue that it is on tech boards. It just isn't.

[catch23]

I disagree here based on interacting with someone who owns an ipad v1. When this person tried out my samsung honeycomb tablet, she thought it was slower "computer" that hers, even though she's doesn't know the specs of my "dual-core" honeycomb tablet.

[danssig]

This is why Apple is right to not talk about specs. It doesn't matter what your specs are if your actual device is slower.

[MichaelGG]

Not quite. For instance, on a Galaxy S II, going to the home screen while in the mail app takes ~2 seconds. Doesn't matter how many times I do it, or even if I just do it in a loop, switching between mail and home. It's probably not even Android's direct fault - I wouldn't be surprised if this is Samsung's horrible software shining through - but it's very frustrating, and I don't use other devices to compare it to.

[ajross]

It's a digression (and an apples-to-oranges one at that) but your experience is definitely not typical. I have a Samsung Epic (Sprint's Galaxy S variant) running their new EI22 Gingerbread stack (very likely the same userspace base you have). And I don't see this at all. I don't use the built-in mail app, preferring K9. And I don't use the default home screen (Launcher Pro is just plain better). But the transition to the home screen is always instantaneously animated. Certainly nothing like 2 seconds.

So I'd put that up to a plain old bug (albeit a really frustrating one, and knowing the Android ecosystem one unlikely to be fixed), not a platform misfeature.

[interlagos]

A big part of the delay on the GS II is the Vlingo voice functionality. Did you know (I ask because many people don't know) that if you tap the home button twice it brings up voice mode? The ability to recognize double clicks imposes a certain floor on the responsiveness of that button.

That most certainly does bother me, and I've yet to discover how to disable it so it simply reacts immediately.

[illumin8]

Why should it? The iPhone uses a home double-click to pull up the task manager/switcher interface. Yet single clicking the home button still instantly gives you the response you expect.

[ugh]

I get a consistent slight delay on the iPad. Nothing really long (maybe 500ms?) but if I pay attention I can definitly notice it.

[interlagos]

>Yet single clicking the home button still instantly gives you the response you expect.

The task manager/switcher is a child of the home screen. This overloaded functionality makes sense that you go to the home screen immediately and if you happen to click again it goes to the secondary mode.

Vlingo on the GS II has nothing to do with the home screen. It is its own world.

Should they have made the very first click instantly go to the home screen anyways (which could involve a lot of busy work given how rich an Android homescreen can be)? Good question. I don't think the two are directly comparable however.

[MichaelGG]

Yea, I hate that. It comes up by accident all the time. Good point that it could be delaying it. Samsung incompetence.

[rayiner]

> If you are a developer or a reviewer and you regularly use an iOS device and an Android device, the difference is evident and jarring. If you're an end-use it quickly disappears and is a non-issue. It just isn't a real problem for end users.

Except when they're trying out different devices looking to buy one.

Also, to a certain extent people put up with stuff like this because they don't know it can be better. E.g. Windows's shitty move/resize for all those years. But do you think, in the face of OS X, Windows could've continued to do without compositing up to now?

[TeMPOraL]

> If you're an end-use it quickly disappears and is a non-issue. It just isn't a real problem for end users.

Yes, it is. When people ask me how I like my new smartphone, I always say to them: "I like the idea behind Android, but it sucks in use; this smartphone is too weak to handle the basic OS, which makes using it terribly annoying for most of the time".

Yes, it sucks. There are constant lags in everything from button presses to scrolling. Main screen gets killed by the OS every few minutes, and it takes it 30 seconds to load up and become usable. Activating Wi-Fi and letting Facebook and GMail sync at the same time equals to several-minute long hang followed by me plugging the battery out. The phone occasionally hangs when receiving calls, and often when trying to dial.

Yes, for me, Android phones are piece of crap. I use mine, I put up with it, but it's not pleasant. It's damn annoying every single day.

[interlagos]

Even my 1st generation HTC Magic+ had an experience absolutely nothing like what you've described. I don't know what sort of broken device you're in possession of, but it has nothing to do with Android. What is being described generally are trivial framerate deviations while animating the UI, not "30 second" pauses.