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The only thing about the iPhone I like more than on my EVO is the scrolling. On iPhone, scrolling has a very natural feel, as if governed by a physics engine of some kind. The motion has a distinct realistic quality, as the objects first accelerate and then decelerate. The scrolling seems to have a momentum defined by the speed of the flick.
How can I implement this type of scrolling on Android?
m03sizlak said:
The scrolling seems to have a momentum defined by the speed of the flick.
How can I implement this type of scrolling on Android?
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You could submit your resume to Google and hope they hire you to re-write their broken scrolling engine. I'm being facetious, but the point is, this is something Google needs to desperately fix. It's amazing they've been churning out Android build after build without a fix to their herky jerky scrolling mechanism. iPhone and Palm's webOS got it right the first time.
What are you guys talking about exactly? I mean I don't have an iPhone, but I was using it a few times and I don't see much difference in scrolling. So this is funny to me, because you are using phrases like "desperate fix", but I don't even see, what to fix ;-D
Scrolling is decent enough as it is, but could use a lot of improvement. The difference between the iPhone and the Google scrolling is that the iPhone scrolling slows down a lot faster if you do a flick. Like if you're at the top of a long web page, say Engadget, and you flick up on your iPhone, you'll only go down maybe 1/10 of a page. Whereas on Android if you flick up on your phone, you'll go sliding down to the bottom of the page lol.
The other thing is, because the iPhone flick slows down so quickly, the phone itself doesn't have to render all of the webpage. It renders only the part of the page that you are able to see. That's why if you go too quickly you get those checkerboxes and grey areas. You don't get that on Android, because the webpage is fully loaded.
Or maybe I'm just talking out my ass...meh.
area5x1 said:
Scrolling is decent enough as it is, but could use a lot of improvement. The difference between the iPhone and the Google scrolling is that the iPhone scrolling slows down a lot faster if you do a flick. Like if you're at the top of a long web page, say Engadget, and you flick up on your iPhone, you'll only go down maybe 1/10 of a page. Whereas on Android if you flick up on your phone, you'll go sliding down to the bottom of the page lol.
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So different scrolling parameters made it "something to desperate fix"? Anyway I really like this slow deceleration and I prefer not to change it
i find the iphone scrolling extremely annoying. Its like trying to scroll through molasses, just about to get somewhere and it stops. Horrible if you ask me.
iphones logisitics are just different i think, its more hardware than software based...
Prefer smoth android scrolling anyday over sour apples!
Well, Google acquired Bumptop April of this year. They know a few things about UI physics...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jhoWsHwU7w
ari-free said:
Well, Google acquired Bumptop April of this year. They know a few things about UI physics...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jhoWsHwU7w
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Nyce! bumptop looks sweet!
for flicking on homescreen you can try downloading LauncherPro2. it's very smooth and you can even adjust the speed.
iPhone scrolling is definitely smoother but slower than Androids. I love how fast Android can scroll, though. They just need to make it a bit smoother. I couldn't say a fix is "desperately" needed, but anything they can do to smoothen it out would help.
I'm a huge fan of the android scrolling. Fast and smooth, all I need.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
This isn't about iPhone vs. Android. I want Android to improve, and I can recognize a deficiency when I see one. The scrolling is not nearly as fluid as I've used on an iPhone or Palm Pre. When you flick and move or pan a window or menu up and down and it doesn't do it in a very natural, fluid movement. It seems to jump around and almost appears to accelerate to its final point and then abruptly stop as opposed to more gradually decelerating to its final point.
onlinespending said:
When you flick and move or pan a window or menu up and down and it doesn't do it in a very natural, fluid movement. It seems to jump around and almost appears to accelerate to its final point and then abruptly stop as opposed to more gradually decelerating to its final point.
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Could you record this behavior using a camera? Maybe I don't understand you, maybe I have different point of view on what is "natural feel" or maybe I just don't have these issues?
When I kick something, then first it will move with highest speed, speed of my leg, then it will slowly decelerate until stop or if it will hit something, then it will stop immediately. This is exactly how scrolling works in Android. It isn't always perfectly smooth, but it's natural and intuitive for me.
onlinespending said:
This isn't about iPhone vs. Android.
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No, it's not. But for some reason people think that their likes are only ones, that one type of scrolling, looking, etc. is just better than others, so they are calling second ones: broken, desperately needing a fix, etc. They totally ignore the fact that there are many people, who have different tastes and they prefer to not change anything in current solution.
Brut.all said:
No, it's not. But for some reason people think that their likes are only ones, that one type of scrolling, looking, etc. is just better than others, so they are calling second ones: broken, desperately needing a fix, etc. They totally ignore the fact that there are many people, who have different tastes and they prefer to not change anything in current solution.
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+1
The issue I have is people calling it a problem, when actually some (me) much much prefer it over the alternative.
Brut.all said:
When I kick something, then first it will move with highest speed, speed of my leg, then it will slowly decelerate until stop or if it will hit something, then it will stop immediately. This is exactly how scrolling works in Android. It isn't always perfectly smooth, but it's natural and intuitive for me.
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Well, imagine you spun a wheel that had a fair amount of friction that is fixed at its center (think of the big wheel on The Price is Right show). The moment your hand released the wheel it would decelerate at a constant rate of deceleration until it stopped. The movement would be gradual and smooth. That's not how I would describe the Android scrolling physics now.
Too often you want to flick a web page to move down, and it races all the way to the bottom without any sort of smooth deceleration. In general, the scrolling motion seemingly accelerates even after your finger is released from the screen and it abruptly stops. That is not natural. If there are those that actually prefer this motion, than I'm glad your tastes are aligned with Android's implementation. But even Google was probably not after that sort of physics engine, so I consider it broken. I only want Android to be better than it already is!
One thing you have to consider, scrolling on Android isn't GPU accelerated.
Google considered it when developing the platform, but early hardware didn't have a dedicated GPU, so they decided to go with CPU rendering only. Now that we have high-powered devices with GPUs, they are reconsidering it.
I find it a wonder that they haven't done it yet, but I really expect it to come in 3.0 with the UI overhaul.
Geniusdog254 said:
One thing you have to consider, scrolling on Android isn't GPU accelerated.
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Well, that it is true. Though I'd argue that the Palm Pre is not GPU accelerated either at the moment, and its scrolling physics are spot on.
But either way. I really look forward to the Android 3.0 GUI overhaul. It promises to be something special.
onlinespending said:
Well, that it is true. Though I'd argue that the Palm Pre is not GPU accelerated either at the moment, and its scrolling physics are spot on.
But either way. I really look forward to the Android 3.0 GUI overhaul. It promises to be something special.
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When it was announced android was getting Palm's UI guy I was excited, not because it meant we'd be getting a clone of webos, but it does mean we would be getting the same attention to detail.
I know a lot of techies like to make fun of the art majors but this is one case where you really need them.
I think what he's trying to say is that Android scrolling physics is much faster to decelerate than the ones on the Iphone. I observed it too. I tried scrolling through an article using the iphone and the scrolling ia great. It slowly decreases scrolling speed unlike the android that is much faster to stop the scrolling.
Hey all - I am VERY loath to ask any of these questions, as I pride myself on doing research and figuring things out for myself, but I've come to the point where I just need to ask this community. I purchased the Gtab as part of the Woot fiasco, and immediately replaced stock firmware with Vegantab. From a general perspective, it works fine, with all the know quirks. However, this is my first Android device. I've been modifying windows phones and working with jailbroken iphones and other fiddly things with computers for a long time, so I'm not faint-hearted at tweaking. Anyway, my questions are these:
Given the hardware this thing sports, the performance ROTS. Is it because the OS is just not polished? It's slow to shift from screen to screen. It often delays in recognizing my touch when trying to scroll icons that it thinks I actually am trying t launch an app. In general, it just feels inferior in speed and snappiness of, for instance, iOS (I understand it is much easier to have a single platform to put an OS on and optimize it). I get the program not responding screen, wait or close way too frequently for my tastes.
Then there's the fact that every app installed seems to want to run itself in the background at all times. I'm constantly using the task manager to kill everything, which frees up a ton of RAM and then the tab runs better for a little while. I can't seem to find a way to prevent these apps from doing this. There is probably something very obvious that I am missing, but Facebook should not just decide on its own to run in the background when I haven't launched it.
Any thoughts on any of these things, or can someone point me to an obvious FAQ that I'm missing that answers all my questions?
In theory Android OS should free up RAM as you need it. Google will swear up and down that task killers are unnecessary, and the user doesn't need to manage background processes. That said, I have advanced task killer widget on my home screen and use it whenever things get a little sluggish. I don't use the Facebook app, but most apps have the option in the in-app settings to disable background updates. There are task manager apps that claim to prevent other apps from launching at start up, or kill them automatically, but these will usually end up eating more resources than they save.
As far as home screen switching, I'm not a fan of the stock froyo launcher on a tablet this size. It always seems that the device is expecting a much larger swipe that should be necessary to switch home screens. I use Launcher Pro and it feels faster and more responsive than the iPad 2 for going between home screens.
The scrolling/ inadvertent selecting issue I can relate to. If your coming from iOS, there is this an expectation that the device will always tell the difference between a scroll and a tap. That expectation isn't unreasonable, because Apple is stellar at making scrolling interfaces feel perfect. They have whole sessions at WWDC about implementing scrolling lists into apps. Android on the other hand requires a more deliberate scrolling. Android has gotten a lot better over time, but it often requires a much more deliberate scrolling action by the user. "Flicking" like on the iPad usually doesn't register perfectly for me.
One thing you may notice on the G Tables is that pinch and zoom is wildly unreliable when pinching on the same x or y axis. I'm pretty sure this is a universal issue with the screen. It has trouble recognizing multitouch input when the points of contact are on the same axis. Pinching at an angle is the only way I can zoom reliably.
brettdwagner said:
In theory Android OS should free up RAM as you need it. Google will swear up and down that task killers are unnecessary, and the user doesn't need to manage background processes.
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It's like automatic garbage collection, isn't it? Really useful, but sometimes you want to explicitly free things.
There is a way to kill foreground apps on Android. Settings > Applications > Development > Stop app via long-press, will kill the foreground app if you "long-press" the Android back key. Background apps you can either kill using task-managers or not start at all using tools like Autorun Manager from Market.
One thing you may notice on the G Tables is that pinch and zoom is wildly unreliable when pinching on the same x or y axis. I'm pretty sure this is a universal issue with the screen. It has trouble recognizing multitouch input when the points of contact are on the same axis. Pinching at an angle is the only way I can zoom reliably.
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Yeah, I've noticed this too. Pinch-to-zoom at the same y-axis is hopeless. Same x-axis works okay, but, at an angle works best.
I actually appreciated your post. You knew the limitations of hte device before buying it...you didn't comment on the atrocious screen (and accepted what was to be)
The biggest downfall with the G-Tablet itself was it's software. You admitted that you immediately flashed VeganTab. When I bought mine, it came with TNT Lite, to which I then immediately also flashed to Vegan 5.1.1. I never experienced the stock rom, and actually considered myself lucky, due to the reviews I've read.
I think that some of our issues may actually be due to the fact that we're using software that wasn't specifically designed for OUR devices. Yes, they are all android, yes, they should all work fine, and do, at times, but if using a froyo or gingerbread rom, we're using software designed for phones. I haven't tried the Alpha version of HC (BOS) yet, but even in Alpha stages, people are raving about it, even with it's limitations.
I just recently started using Brilliant Corners. In the flash process, I had to have Stock 4349 (1.2 stock firmware) on the system. I can honestly say that it really wasn't that bad. The response seemed a tad better, I never got the "Forceclose : Wait" option when a process was "thinking." things would just pop up. I can only think that as bad as it is, it manages itself better than some of the ports and mod's we are using, simply becuase they were MADE for the G-Tablet. Yeah, it's ugly, and you can do half of what I can do on BC.
What I find intolerable at times is that Angry Birds: Seasons (only that one, no others) will have really choppy graphics. I haven't found a way to fix it, I've overclocked, though I didn't think that would help, I've uninstalled, and installed, I've recovered backups, etc...alas, rebooting will fix it...it's weird. Not one other game will do that, except for AB:S.
What I find intolerable at times is that Angry Birds: Seasons (only that one, no others) will have really choppy graphics. I haven't found a way to fix it, I've overclocked, though I didn't think that would help, I've uninstalled, and installed, I've recovered backups, etc...alas, rebooting will fix it...it's weird. Not one other game will do that, except for AB:S.
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It works for me, although the birds do take off on their own from time to time. Have you tried downloading from a different source? I pulled my angry birds from Amazon. I'm running Vegan-Tabs 7.0.0
Please don't be offended, as I do believe your question is being asked in good faith. However, I have to admit that I haven't experienced any of the problems you're describing. I've had an iPod Touch since gen 1, and I haven't noticed any difference in the responsiveness. My g Tablet responds the same to flicks as it does to slower swipes, without interpretting them as taps.
I also haven't experienced the slow downs you're referring to when running multiple background apps, though that may have to do with the particular apps you have.
I have not had an issue with zooming in and out by pinching along either the x- or y-axis
Finally, I at least don't feel like the swipe to change screens is excesssive, but then again that could be personal taste or because I'm using a Gingerbread-based ROM.
The one issue I do have is with the on-screen touch keyboard. I feel sometimes that it fails to register letters if I type too fast; I haven't had this issue with iOS, but at least I think I can get used to it, and for serious typing I'll probably use a physical keyboard.
Incidently, I'm using Cyanogenmod 7, which seems to be the "pet ROM" of these forums, for better (it's a solid ROM with a large developer community) or worse (it's not nearly as innovative as mods being developed by some "other users" *ahem*roebeet*cough). I'm not saying this is the reason why I have not experienced these issues; maybe they aren't so striking to me or maybe I've been lucky?
EDITTED: Most typos are due to annoyances with using an on-screen keyboard with the g Tab.
Tablet has been fine to me. Screen responsiveness is on par with iphone/ipad/my htc evo screen.
Vegan tab rom is fresh...all .my functions work sure my wifi drops out after sleeping for a while (yes changed sleep settings) but hey I spent 250 not 500 and I have flash sd and usb....all of which I use everyday.
Thanks for all the responses. I rather expected to get somewhat of a range of replies from "I agree with you" to "you're crazy, mine is fine". To be very clear, I'm not trying to rip on the device at all. I knew I was rolling the dice a little and I know that Android really hasn't matured for a Tablet just yet (in my eyes).
I guess I've sort of had my questions answered to some degree.
scyld - I'm not offended in the least. I have an iphone 4 and many of my coworkers use iPads every day. They are definitely more responsive (to me). However, the stock iOS wasn't on my iPhone. Now that I have it jailbroken and can control which apps suck up memory, it behaves flawlessly. What I believe to be the scrolling/flicking issue is actually that the OS interprets spaces IN BETWEEN icons to be part of those icons, where Apple's OS does not. If I tap between icons on the Gtab, it will launch the one closest to my finger. iOS will not do this. That alone may be why the scrolling seems to be more accurate. I may well try Cyanogen. I mostly don't care about bells and whistles - just responsiveness and usability.
I wasn't aware that Google used the same line about memory usage that Apple swears - in fact, my friend and I stopped in the Apple store because she was having a problem with docking her iphone in her car... The tech ran a scan and told her incidentally that she was out of app memory and told her how to 'kill those pesky tasks' by tapping the little red minuses on all the apps in the app dock. I couldn't stop laughing.
I guess what we're dealing with is the result of an open source open hardware landscape. By having such a fractured base of developers, manufacturers, varying hardware specs, etc, it is much harder to optimize any particular build for any particular device. I did use the stock firmware for a few days and simply found it too limiting. Not to mention the lack of a market, etc. Apple's success is in large part due to the way it's app store works. Every device has it. The app warns you what it will work on and what it will not. Application updates tell you what the update fixes or adds (which Market does only very rarely). I appreciate that there are multiple markets for Android, but they should stick to some established rules for the information given.
I'm writing a novel - sorry - All this being said, I love the idea of Android (and hate iTunes with a passion) and I'm looking forward to a generation or two down the road of the tablet ROMs. I'll give the other ROMs a shot and see if there is improvement. I really appreciate the developers work on the platform thus far. I'll keep reading and messing with settings, tips, tricks to improve what I can.
https://plus.google.com/10083827609...aJRGS#100838276097451809262/posts/VDkV9XaJRGS
Any dev's or knowledgeable people want to take a crack at this? Is it based in fact, fiction, or irrelevant?
IDK, some things made since and some didnt. The whole writup seemed to be based on iOs vs. Android on scrolling. If you break down what iOs is, its an app launcher. Android is a home screen with live widgets and information. A true comparison would be Androids app page vs. iOs since both would be app launchers.
I never understood why people try and compare apples to oranges... or in this case, an app launcher to a 5 page home screen with tons of live information on it.
I think the guy was pretty clear on identifying bias and also gaugeing how factual his claimes are. I believe him and am confident that the corrections have made it Accurate.
The last post is true. Apple has locked down and simplified their os in the sake of smoothness. Where android has opted to provide a mors content rich experiance.
But at the same time hardware fragmentation is huge, ik he says that no matter how powerful the phones get this is a limitatikn, there is a huge problem with the fact that... Some procs. Support neon and other optimizations while ofhers don't. More often than not, app devs write their apps for the least powerful in an attempt to capture everyone, in the end, the most powerful loose out on the true potential of their device.
Look at push for example, most apps that i see still have bruit force check every 5 min type notifications even though android now has push. this is getting fixed, but slowly.
Sent from my SGH-I777 using XDA App
I think the biggest problem android faces is the carriers. Buy an iPhone and there is zero carrier crap installed. Buy android and bloaty mcfatty land.
Thanks to xda development we can purge this crap (revs you rock!), but for the vast majority this is akin to voodoo and they would never attempt it.
As such android gets a bad rap. If the carriers would just be content with having their names on the phone and nothing else I posit that there would be globally better view of android. Just my two cents.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
CyberpunkDad said:
I think the biggest problem android faces is the carriers. Buy an iPhone and there is zero carrier crap installed. Buy android and bloaty mcfatty land.
Thanks to xda development we can purge this crap (revs you rock!), but for the vast majority this is akin to voodoo and they would never attempt it.
As such android gets a bad rap. If the carriers would just be content with having their names on the phone and nothing else I posit that there would be globally better view of android. Just my two cents.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
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I thought it was just the United States carriers that did this?
But, as android is an open model it opens up possibilities for carriers to customize the devices as they wish at little to no cost, also, allowing them to install apps to earn sidestreamed revenue.
I hate the carrier branding on my phone. I really really wish there was a way to get the AT&T logo off my phone.
The only place I'd allow it is the sim card.
demon9206 said:
I hate the carrier branding on my phone. I really really wish there was a way to get the AT&T logo off my phone.
The only place I'd allow it is the sim card.
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That's what you and I and many others in US pay for a subsidized phone.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
But my unsubsidized Galaxy Tab 10.1 wi-fi is still laggy as hell. It's not the fault of carrier bloatware. Android OS is the one to blame. My WP7 phones runing a single core 1GHz Sanpdragon is much more smoother than any Android phones I owned, including the GS2.
No lag problems with my 10.1...
CyberpunkDad said:
I think the biggest problem android faces is the carriers. Buy an iPhone and there is zero carrier crap installed. Buy android and bloaty mcfatty land.
Thanks to xda development we can purge this crap (revs you rock!), but for the vast majority this is akin to voodoo and they would never attempt it.
As such android gets a bad rap. If the carriers would just be content with having their names on the phone and nothing else I posit that there would be globally better view of android. Just my two cents.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
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Bingo! This is exactly what I have thought for years. Buy an unlocked Nexus S if you doubt this at all and you'll see a different Android. Or, root your phone, flash a vanilla rom and install something like ADWLauncher EX and set it to "fast". Once all the crap and skin is wiped, my current GS2 switches tasks and pages so fast that sometimes I can't even see it happen. I literally burned my hand the other day on my phone.
WMguy said:
Bingo! This is exactly what I have thought for years. Buy an unlocked Nexus S if you doubt this at all and you'll see a different Android. Or, root your phone, flash a vanilla rom and install something like ADWLauncher EX and set it to "fast". Once all the crap and skin is wiped, my current GS2 switches tasks and pages so fast that sometimes I can't even see it happen. I literally burned my hand the other day on my phone.
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What I really can't get my head around is how AT&T can think that people want their ****ty apps. They are an embarrassment.
I'm no expert, but I think that some of the apps that are on our phones out-of-box are there so that the price of the phone can be driven shown a bit more. It makes sense that AT&T would have agreements with the app makers to get money for including their app. Maybe they use that revenue to offset the overhead of distributing the device and pass that savings along to their customers.
I'm certainly not defending what they do, but just saying that could be a reason why some of this crapware is pre-installed.
Another way to look at it would be that many of the apps cost money to use. They will enroll you in some service you don't need (AT&T Nav, Live TV, etc.). Then they can steal from us by placing these little services onto our plan to be billed monthly. I have worked in customer care for one of "the big four" carriers and they would train us to employ similar tactics to trick existing customers into buying stuff. They're really like fat leaches attached to the inside of our wallets.
I have a focus and a gs2. Yes wp7 scrolls the home screen, notice I say screen since there is only one, smooth as silk. The animations are also very smooth but way too much and slowwww. Where you see the difference is in apps. Hell rebooting my focus takes forever. The engadget app and lazy tube app on wp7 really make the phone stutter and freeze. I have iPhones, winphones and androids and in my experience the gs2 is by far the fastest phone i own by a large margin. I still love the iPhone and winphone btw. The winphone is a first Gen device so it's performance is damned impressive. The animations and how slow it scrolls webpages/long lists annoy me. In android if you flick down a list real fast it goes like lightning, on the winphone it has a governor of sorts and I find myslef constantly trying to get it to scroll faster.
I know it sounds like I'm crapping on the winphone but that's not the case. It really is a cool os handbills recommend trying it out. I got a used focus for next to nothing.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
Again, people are comparing apples to oranges... an app launcher (or in WinMo case, an app launcher with really large app links) to a multi-page homescreen with live information.
Try this, use the App launcher in Android and scroll back and fourth, up and down and now compare it to iOs or WinMo. YA, NOW THEY SCROLL THE SAME!!!
If you feel that your home screen is laggy, then either get a new launcher, or dont put any widgets/icons/shorcuts/pictures/ANYTHING on your home screen.
foxbat121 said:
But my unsubsidized Galaxy Tab 10.1 wi-fi is still laggy as hell. It's not the fault of carrier bloatware. Android OS is the one to blame. My WP7 phones runing a single core 1GHz Sanpdragon is much more smoother than any Android phones I owned, including the GS2.
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You shouldve exchanged that GS2. I guarantee it would/should kick wp7 in its ass in terms of performance.
smknutson said:
You shouldve exchanged that GS2. I guarantee it would/should kick wp7 in its ass in terms of performance.
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No you can't. Obviously you don't own a WP7. All Android phones I handled (BTW, my co-worker has another GS2, same deal) are no where near the smoothness of year old (with two year old single core Snapdragon) Samsung Focus in terms of home screen smoothness. When it comes to lag and stutters, I'm writing it off as the necessary evil I have to deal with if I'm going to use any Android devices. Too those who deny it, you need to go out and play with other platforms like WP7 or iPhone to understand what is lag.
I like Android. Thus I'm on my second Android Phone and even own an Android tablet. But to deny the obvious and inherent flaw in the OS is either ignorant or pure fanboyism.
Remember, I'm purely talking about home screen. When it comes to app, a lot of other factors come into play and CPU speed does make a difference. Home screen is where we spent most time and most complaint about lag is about.
foxbat121 said:
No you can't. Obviously you don't own a WP7. All Android phones I handled (BTW, my co-worker has another GS2, same deal) are no where near the smoothness of year old (with two year old single core Snapdragon) Samsung Focus in terms of home screen smoothness. When it comes to lag and stutters, I'm writing it off as the necessary evil I have to deal with if I'm going to use any Android devices. Too those who deny it, you need to go out and play with other platforms like WP7 or iPhone to understand what is lag.
I like Android. Thus I'm on my second Android Phone and even own an Android tablet. But to deny the obvious and inherent flaw in the OS is either ignorant or pure fanboyism.
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Opening apps in WP7 has a considerable delay too. The WP7 homescreen is nothing, but a start menu. The live tile functionality really isn't there yet.
Yes, app loading is slow on first version of WP7 but it has greatly improved since then. What's the point of a great home screen when it lags like hell? GS2 is much better than my Captivate as well as my GTab 10.1. But I can still feel some slight lagness. My GTab 10.1 is almost unusable until 3.2 ROM released. Android's only saving grace right now is the raw processing power increase of the new phones that hides these inherent flaws in the OS. Google, or its partners, still has a long way to go to improve the UX of Android OS.
I mean perhaps not as smooth as ios but better than this honeycomb crap lol
broken1i said:
I mean perhaps not as smooth as ios but better than this honeycomb crap lol
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100% it runs smooth as butter on the Galaxy Nexus and that's only two cores. ICS with the hardware acceleration and 4/5 cores should be super fast.
ICS will be a significant improvement across the board on everything. IMO this honeycomb is already as smooth as IOS and I own an Ipad to constantly compare it to some people report lag, most report it being super fast. I never had any lag issues since I got this on 12/22.
You'd be surprised what one or two crappy apps set to "quietly load" on start up can do to android, even with 4 cores or my sgs2 overclocked to 1.6ghz. #1 culprit running/lagging in background, engadget app. I have no problem running it, but with a desktop widget once you run and hit back or home without "killing" it it'll take 80% cpu for no reason for god knows how long. With my gs2 my pocket starts cookin a bit as engadget is one of the only apps that bug-pegs it at 1.6ghz long term, even with the screen off, lol. And yes i see the irony, though the engadget app isnt alone. I've just learned to kill that app and remove what i dont use regularly (titanium is great for this).
Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk
Until android rewrite the UI it will never be as 'smooth' as IOS.
IOS have a seperate layer for the UI as soon as you touch the screen all processing stops (apps would never finish installing, web browser would never finish loading) and continues as soon as you remove your finger.
With android loading continues regardless of if your touching the screen or not, so it then has to try and do both things at once hence the lag when an app is installing or web page loading.
4 cores when utilised properly with ICS will help though
well gang it will be here on the 12th, can't wait.
kevinm2k said:
Until android rewrite the UI it will never be as 'smooth' as IOS.
IOS have a seperate layer for the UI as soon as you touch the screen all processing stops (apps would never finish installing, web browser would never finish loading) and continues as soon as you remove your finger.
With android loading continues regardless of if your touching the screen or not, so it then has to try and do both things at once hence the lag when an app is installing or web page loading.
4 cores when utilised properly with ICS will help though
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How do you explain the Playbook running so smooth with everything truly running in the background?. Its as smooth as iOS. (RIM actually got something right) Android lags because its badly optimised compared to iOS, QNX, WebOS and others. ICS is a step closer to getting there but not yet, it is smooth but not 'as' smooth.
recklesslife85 said:
How do you explain the Playbook running so smooth with everything truly running in the background?. Its as smooth as iOS. (RIM actually got something right) Android lags because its badly optimised compared to iOS, QNX, WebOS and others. ICS is a step closer to getting there but not yet, it is smooth but not 'as' smooth.
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Maybe the playbook had the UI rewritten. I got my information from an interview with a lead android developer and they explained what I said above. Android was developed to compete with symbian and blackberry at the time then when iphone came out, android rushed it to market but at that point the UI was already flawed.
I'll try and find the source but it was from a while ago now. Doesn't mean android isn't as fast as ios, far from it, its just the UI experience
p.s. It wasn't my interview it was just one I found on the web that I was reading, think it was on engadget at some point.
kevinm2k said:
Maybe the playbook had the UI rewritten. I got my information from an interview with a lead android developer and they explained what I said above. Android was developed to compete with symbian and blackberry at the time then when iphone came out, android rushed it to market but at that point the UI was already flawed.
I'll try and find the source but it was from a while ago now. Doesn't mean android isn't as fast as ios, far from it, its just the UI experience
p.s. It wasn't my interview it was just one I found on the web that I was reading, think it was on engadget at some point.
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If you come across it, please PM it to me. Sounds interesting.
Playbook is amazingly smooth even compared to my Prime.. anyways enough about that, not a RIM sales man lol.
Hoping ICS does take advantage of the 4 cores.
Found the article on google+ i'll paste the relevant bit here:
Going Forward
Android UI will never be completely smooth because of the design constraints I discussed at the beginning:
- UI rendering occurs on the main thread of an app
- UI rendering has 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. It’s telling that it takes the power of a Galaxy Nexus to approach the smoothness of a three year old iPhone. So why did the Android team design the rendering framework like this?
Work on Android started before the release of the iPhone, and at the time Android was designed to be a competitor to the Blackberry. The original Android prototype wasn’t a touch screen device. Android’s rendering trade-offs make sense for a keyboard and trackball device. When the iPhone came out, the Android team rushed to release a competitor product, but unfortunately it was too late to rewrite the UI framework.
This is the same reason why Windows Mobile 6.5, Blackberry OS, and Symbian have terrible touch screen performance. Like Android, they were not designed to prioritise UI rendering. Since the iPhone’s release, RIM, Microsoft, and Nokia have abandoned their mobile OS’s and started from scratch. Android is the only mobile OS left that existed pre-iPhone.
So, why doesn’t the Android team rewrite the rendering framework? I’ll let Romain Guy explain:
“...a lot of the work we have to do today is because of certain choices made years ago... ...having the UI thread handle animations is the biggest problem. 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.”
Romain doesn’t elaborate on what the downsides are, but it’s not difficult to speculate:
- All Apps would have to be re-written to support the new framework
- Android would need a legacy support mode for old apps
- Work on other Android features would be stalled while the new framework is developed
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.
When the topic of Android comes up with both technical and nontechnical friends, I hear over and over that Android is laggy and slow. The reality is that Android can open apps and render web pages as fast or faster than iOS, but perception is everything. Fixing the UI lag will go a long way to repairing Android’s image.
Beyond the perception issue, lag is a violation of one of Google’s core philosophies. Google believes that things should be fast. That’s a driving philosophy behind Google Search, Gmail, and Chrome. It’s why Google created SPDY to improve on HTTP. It’s why Google builds tools to help websites optimize their site. It’s why Google runs it’s own CDN. It’s why Google Maps is rendered in WebGL. It’s why buffering on Youtube is something most of us remember, but rarely see anymore.
But perhaps the most salient reason why UI lag in Android is unacceptable comes from the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Modern touch screens imply an affordance language of 1 to 1 mapping between your finger and animations on the screen. This is why the iOS over-scroll (elastic band) effect is so cool, fun, and intuitive. And this is why the touch screens on Virgin America Flights are so frustrating: they are incredibly laggy, unresponsive, and imprecise.
A laggy UI breaks the core affordance language of a touch screen. 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. The 200 million users of Android deserve better.
And I know they will have it eventually. The Android team is one of the most dedicated and talented development teams in the world. With stars like +Dianne Hackborn and +Romain Guy around, the Android rendering framework is in good hands.
I hope this post has reduced confusion surrounding Android lag. With some luck, Android 5.0 will bring the buttery-smooth Android we’ve all dreamed about since we first held an HTC G1. In the mean time, I’ll be in Redmond working my butt off trying to get a beautiful and smooth mobile OS some of the recognition it deserves.
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Source: https://plus.google.com/100838276097451809262/posts/VDkV9XaJRGS
If you read the top of that article. He even admits he was wrong. His article was debunked by a google engineer. (There is a link to it in the post)
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
kevinm2k said:
Found the article on google+ i'll paste the relevant bit here:
Source: https://plus.google.com/100838276097451809262/posts/VDkV9XaJRGS
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that was an excellent read. that was a nice history lesson on Android. Thanks!
edit: I read the Google engineer article that debunked this one before. A certain member here loves to always bring it up to help prove his point..lol
I still believe its true, it does kind of make sense when you think about it, plus google aren't really going to turn around and say "oh yes our UI is badly designed and needs to be re-written".
from my novice experience, the user interface performance seems fine. My first tablet so I don't have anything to base it off. It's about as quick as my old Core 2 XPS laptop running Windows 7.
It would be nice one day to have a buttery smooth experience though so hope ICS helps with the cause!
kevinm2k said:
It would be nice one day to have a buttery smooth experience though so hope ICS helps with the cause!
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I'm sure with ICS you will have an I Can't Believe It's Not Buttery experience.
With the ability to unlock the bootloader comes the ability to install custom roms which means smoothness.
I've seen that happening exactly like that on my phone.
ICS
While on the subject and trying not to go to far from the OP. Have we got any ETA from ASUS themselves about when we can expect ICS on the Prime?
I get mine on the 12th of this month and dont want to spend too long with crappy Honeycomb.
geinome said:
While on the subject and trying not to go to far from the OP. Have we got any ETA from ASUS themselves about when we can expect ICS on the Prime?
I get mine on the 12th of this month and dont want to spend too long with crappy Honeycomb.
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Well your in luck because Asus said they will roll out it starting on the 12th.
geinome said:
While on the subject and trying not to go to far from the OP. Have we got any ETA from ASUS themselves about when we can expect ICS on the Prime?
I get mine on the 12th of this month and dont want to spend too long with crappy Honeycomb.
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ICS comes out worldwide on the 12th January.
Since the launch of this device is still a couple of weeks away, I assume it's ok to be posting this here (Mods, please move if necessary.) since it will obviously be a hot topic in every custom ROM thread that will appear in this forum after Nov. 11th.
There are obviously three opinions on the matter. Some people like the UI, some people don't care otherwise, and then there's those of us who have been using Android tablets since they first came out (like me. Have had a XOOM from day one) and HATE the change from what we consider a perfect tablet UI for efficient navigation on a 10in landscape orientated tablet.
But, I'm not here to kvetch about the loss of the tablet UI in Android. I'm here to discuss what the options are as far as restoring it to the Nexus 10 (and other tablets going forward) from a development standpoint. Will custom ROM developers have to jump through hoops to bring back all (or even some) of the efficiency (and some of that space wasted by the top bar) back to our 10 inch slates? Of course, this all depends on weather the tablet UI may or may not be hidden in the code giving us the ability to turn it on or off with a little bit of hackery. Unfortunately, it looks like they've phased it out completely, which probably rules out that idea.
I've watched all of the videos and looked at the photos trying to think of ways it could be done. So far, the only idea I can come up with for bringing back a little bit of the magic is forcing the softkeys from the middle of the navigation bar to the left side of the navigation bar (that's something even I could do with a simple edit to an XML file.) This might actually be enough to make things make sense again, and moving the clock could probably be done fairly easily with a few tweaks here and there (I love how big and easy to read the clock is on the current tablet UI). But what about notifications? The way the new setup is, you have notifications on the top left and on the top right you have quick settings (which I don't consider very quick since they buttons just take you to the settings screens. Lame, Google. Lame.) This is where it obviously gets tricky and is beyond my very limited knowledge of Android code.
Any developers care to weigh in? Do any of you already miss the tablet UI and wish to bring it back even for your own use? What are your thoughts on the difficulty of implementing such changes (probably not even a valid question since the source hasn't even dropped yet, but, meh) and is it worth spending time on?
The Nexus 10 should obviously have AOSP support. This should make it pretty simple to add to CM10. Then, Paranoid Android should be pretty easy to compile for this device which brings many tablet mode features so you can have as much or as little tablet mode as you want.
con247 said:
The Nexus 10 should obviously have AOSP support. This should make it pretty simple to add to CM10. Then, Paranoid Android should be pretty easy to compile for this device which brings many tablet mode features so you can have as much or as little tablet mode as you want.
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That's what I'm getting at. Is the tablet UI code still even going to be in AOSP from 4.2 forward? It looks as if it's not. That's going to mean extra work for the devs, right?
arrtoodeetoo said:
Since the launch of this device is still a couple of weeks away, I assume it's ok to be posting this here (Mods, please move if necessary.) since it will obviously be a hot topic in every custom ROM thread that will appear in this forum after Nov. 11th.
There are obviously three opinions on the matter. Some people like the UI, some people don't care otherwise, and then there's those of us who have been using Android tablets since they first came out (like me. Have had a XOOM from day one) and HATE the change from what we consider a perfect tablet UI for efficient navigation on a 10in landscape orientated tablet.
But, I'm not here to kvetch about the loss of the tablet UI in Android. I'm here to discuss what the options are as far as restoring it to the Nexus 10 (and other tablets going forward) from a development standpoint. Will custom ROM developers have to jump through hoops to bring back all (or even some) of the efficiency (and some of that space wasted by the top bar) back to our 10 inch slates? Of course, this all depends on weather the tablet UI may or may not be hidden in the code giving us the ability to turn it on or off with a little bit of hackery. Unfortunately, it looks like they've phased it out completely, which probably rules out that idea.
I've watched all of the videos and looked at the photos trying to think of ways it could be done. So far, the only idea I can come up with for bringing back a little bit of the magic is forcing the softkeys from the middle of the navigation bar to the left side of the navigation bar (that's something even I could do with a simple edit to an XML file.) This might actually be enough to make things make sense again, and moving the clock could probably be done fairly easily with a few tweaks here and there (I love how big and easy to read the clock is on the current tablet UI). But what about notifications? The way the new setup is, you have notifications on the top left and on the top right you have quick settings (which I don't consider very quick since they buttons just take you to the settings screens. Lame, Google. Lame.) This is where it obviously gets tricky and is beyond my very limited knowledge of Android code.
Any developers care to weigh in? Do any of you already miss the tablet UI and wish to bring it back even for your own use? What are your thoughts on the difficulty of implementing such changes (probably not even a valid question since the source hasn't even dropped yet, but, meh) and is it worth spending time on?
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I am guessing Google is among for an unified code and even the code is not removed for tablet ui in 4.2, its only a matter of time; the tablet ui presents a learning curve for most android users ( who are mostly smartphone users) thus like the iPad, unified ui would mostly make android tablets more accessible to general public; the reality is most people are not tech savvy like us ( otherwise everyone would been xda) thus casting to their needs would make androids expansion in the tablet market easier ( an endeavor which have been daunting for android and with w8, competition is more fierce than ever)
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium HD app
i just wrote the same in another topic of that nature ...
1. the codebase was really, really old. dominated by honeycomb. it got tiny touch-ups with ics but thats it. the whole thing is a complete mess, though.
2. they hid tabUI from sight for the nexus7, lifting the layouts from 600dp (where the UI was situated traditionally) to 720dp, just enough for the nex7 to ignore it.
3. nexus10 will be 720dp or higher. the screenshots make it a fact that they have done something to these layout. either putting them higher still or killing them for good. i believe the second case is more likely, judging from the code.
i believe this is a transition. KLP will probably introduce a new systemUI. the old one is the worst part of the entire android framework. a messy spaghetticode something, breaking their own sdk.
Almost 400k pixels is used by... three buttons on Nexus 10. And you can't even hide them. This is ridiculous. Also I feel offended by what they said about microSD causing confusion - they treat as like idiots.
yeah, the tablet ui like it was has been perfect for tablets!
paranoidandroid for the nexus 10 would be awesome ... love it so much on my HOX. On my xoom I hide the navbar and use gestures to navigate, which is in my opinion the best way to fully use the screen's full potential. The new UI wasts precious space with a navbar AND a statusbar...
Personally I have never like the basic android User interface, it's thin and empty to say the least, it's has not a the beautiful view or a friendly user interface. Indeed I have never understood people running in search of Cyanogen ROM which are basically android base rom ported on other devices. The point of those nexus devices is having a very light ROM so you can have massive use of the play store and install 1000 apps including a better launcher for the home. Actually there is no match in beautiful and usability between android base interface and HTC sense 4.x for exemple ( which in my opinion is the best one out there and now it's also anymore that weight to run for the system ).
molesarecoming said:
i just wrote the same in another topic of that nature ...
1. the codebase was really, really old. dominated by honeycomb. it got tiny touch-ups with ics but thats it. the whole thing is a complete mess, though.
2. they hid tabUI from sight for the nexus7, lifting the layouts from 600dp (where the UI was situated traditionally) to 720dp, just enough for the nex7 to ignore it.
3. nexus10 will be 720dp or higher. the screenshots make it a fact that they have done something to these layout. either putting them higher still or killing them for good. i believe the second case is more likely, judging from the code.
i believe this is a transition. KLP will probably introduce a new systemUI. the old one is the worst part of the entire android framework. a messy spaghetticode something, breaking their own sdk.
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I hope you're getting one! Big fanboy here
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It's just me or anybody else feels like they should get rid of the design of on screen buttons? It think it's a waste of space and has a very bad design, wich is not the case of holo theme that was clearly well concepted.
Any devs been able to poke through AOSP today? How's it looking for options on modifying the UI?
I like the current tablet UI, but will give the new layout an open minded evaluation. The navigation area doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me, but maybe I am just unaware of some settings to customize it.
If you have rooted device you can now hide soft keys (and keep notification bar) without modifications and reboots. Just try my new app:
GMD Hide Soft Keys
It also adds Quick NavBar - soft keys that can be opened with simple swipe from bottom and then autohide when not needed.