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Why android will likely never have a truly hardware accelerated UI.

Okay, first of all I am not a fan of android and wouldn't use it but I do work as a liason to some of Google's subsidiaries. I was speaking with some people on our end who were overseeing the latest update and whether or not it would finally step up to the plate and get a hardware accelerated UI like all of the other big competitors and word for word what he told me is "That's up to the boys at Samsung (he meant all other OEMs but we were talking about Samsung's devices at that point in time.) So, like the good little XDAer I am I went and did my research, android can not have a hardware accelerated UI built into the base OS because of the variation in hardware. It is entirely up to your OEM's to implement a GPU accelerated UI which would require a whole new branch to a development team and since it effects so few people it's highly unlikely that it will occur. They are more than willing to contract a third party to utilize an OS that was already in development or in HTC's case build from scratch but the prospect of hiring an individual development team for something so trivial has little to no chance of occurring. I never did expect much from the ugly duckling except for it to market well with people who either wanted an alternative to the iphone or people who couldn't afford an iphone but this is a real kick in the head to pretty much everyone. I now appreciate the way apple and even moreso microsoft are going about the mobile phone game even more.

I know I shouldn't feed the troll but I have some spare time.
Firstly, considering how smooth android is it becomes obvious that it doesn't need hardware acceleration (unlike WP7 for instance).
Should the day come when it is required, then it will be implemented.
There. Question answered.

Umm
isnt the Galaxy S II hardware accelerated
i think its the only android phone that is

qwerty warrior said:
Umm
isnt the Galaxy S II hardware accelerated
i think its the only android phone that is
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Click to collapse
Actually you're right, the Tegra provides hardware acceleration, and there are several tablets and phones that use it.

qwerty warrior, the chipset available in the S2 is completely ready to go for a fully hardware accelerated UI and it is partially implemented but not fully.
xaccers, I see no reason to get into it with you regarding this matter again, android as an OS is just not up to par with the others, it's just another place for google to advertise. Trust me, the nice people here at google aren't going to prioritize adding features no one cares about. They'd much rather glorify a pallet swap and call it an update. It's slower than the rest and the only selling point is the market and the fact that you can get any app for free.

z33dev33l said:
android as an OS is just not up to par with the others
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Click to collapse
Except it is, many of us accepted your challenge regarding the lack of smoothness with android, and found you were very wrong.
You can start as many threads as you like denying it, but the fact remains you are wrong.

This is the second thread I see you dissing android. What'd the point? Why don't you use winmo 7, which I like as well, and let us use whatever we want without you winning. I could go and complain abt winno too and how its not customizable, its market is way too small and all its devices are outdated.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

It's Windows Phone 7, nothing like winmo. I'm not dissing android, just stating the facts regarding a meeting I had with a Google representative in passing.
xaccers, your "tests" prove absolutely nothing, I'm sure all of you just busted out your iphone next to your high end android device and swiped side to side? First of all that's highly unlikely and secondly regardless of what you say anyone who has moved to another OS will tell you just how terribly laggy fragmented android is. We've had this debate before, if you want to have another back and forth spanning three days with nothing but your alleged tests as your foundation then have at it. I will do the same on my smooth and seamless Dell Venue Pro that will be recieving the next update just as it did the last one.

what do u mean partially ?
ive used it and there is no stutter what so ever
ie( playing 1080p video on youtube while pinch zooming and its buttery smooth)
i just cant see any stutter
even most people on the SG2 section dont bother with custom roms
some people install custom roms because of battery draining services
currently im running stock and my phone lasts about 3+ days
im not attacking anyone i like everything when it comes to software/hardware

I've used WP7, it sucks, and I use Android at the moment, and it doesn't.
Android is smooth as silk, it doesn't need any long winded transitions to hide the lag of loading an app, I just tap on a shortcut and it opens.
Of course Android can actually have icons, we're not stuck with duplo CGA tiles to bore ourselves to death with.
Once again Zee, you've made comments that can't be substantiated (ie there are many hardware accelerated android devices) and been left looking like a fool.
Maybe one day you'll actually find something genuine to pick holes in Android with, there's plenty of them.

qwerty warrior said:
what do u mean partially ?
ive used it and there is no stutter what so ever
ie( playing 1080p video on youtube while pinch zooming and its buttery smooth)
i just cant see any stutter
even most people on the SG2 section dont bother with custom roms
some people install custom roms because of battery draining services
currently im running stock and my phone lasts about 3+ days
im not attacking anyone i like everything when it comes to software/hardware
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
accidentally thanked you haha, enjoy .
I agree, it's the best android experience I've had and while my opinion may be jaded against android due to such a long history of lag and such I did get a bit of stutter exiting and entering apps, and while running angry birds and trying to check email it was not that great. :/ Also the browser and a few other aspects don't seem to be hardware accelerated but the apps I was running should not have been enough to cause such a definitive stutter. Perhaps I've been spoiled by windows phone 7 but I'm just used to everything being seamless.

xaccers said:
I've used WP7, it sucks, and I use Android at the moment, and it doesn't.
Android is smooth as silk, it doesn't need any long winded transitions to hide the lag of loading an app, I just tap on a shortcut and it opens.
Of course Android can actually have icons, we're not stuck with duplo CGA tiles to bore ourselves to death with.
Once again Zee, you've made comments that can't be substantiated (ie there are many hardware accelerated android devices) and been left looking like a fool.
Maybe one day you'll actually find something genuine to pick holes in Android with, there's plenty of them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are many means of picking holes, I have no interest in doing so. I haven't even bothered with these forums as I don't need to mod my devices to make them better than any android device on the market. I just came on to verify that it was safe for me to utilize my developer account on multiple windows phone 7 devices. I am still looking forward to the day that I am so blinded by an OS that I can't see the obvious lag or lack of even moderately decent coding. Windows Phone has wowed me more than any other mobile OS in existence but even it can't leave me completely blind. I do wonder how a static icon to leave the page looking cluttered and generally ugly could possibly beat out a live tile constantly updating me with all the information I need. Perhaps I just like uniformity across an OS rather than clutter, that's my style.

z33dev33l said:
I am still looking forward to the day that I am so blinded by an OS that I can't see the obvious lag or lack of even moderately decent coding.
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Click to collapse
You think WP7 is good, congratulations, you've been living that day for quite some while, apparently so blinded that you haven't noticed.
I have 4 icons on my home screen, icons I can choose the look of, and the placement, showing off the beautiful animated wallpaper I have.
As for poking holes, I'd be tempted to believe you, after all so far you've not managed to poke any holes, however you start a thread making false claims about Android and it tends to look like you're trying hard.

z33dev33l said:
accidentally thanked you haha, enjoy .
I agree, it's the best android experience I've had and while my opinion may be jaded against android due to such a long history of lag and such I did get a bit of stutter exiting and entering apps, and while running angry birds and trying to check email it was not that great. :/ Also the browser and a few other aspects don't seem to be hardware accelerated but the apps I was running should not have been enough to cause such a definitive stutter. Perhaps I've been spoiled by windows phone 7 but I'm just used to everything being seamless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks
i used nokia phones for a long time and i never made the switch to android because there was a lot of stutter even with custom roms
that small split second of " stutter " really used to piss me off thats why i used non touch screen phones like nokia
they were super fast for what i used it for
then bought a samsung i8910
was a great phone with Symbian ,it had copy paste and the opera browser was awesome .... the the screen cracked after it for 5 meters .... still worked and used it for another 4 months and i was still waiting for the "perfect " android phone and when i saw the SG2 in action i was amazed .personally i dont see the stutter and that enough for me
i never wanted wp7 or IOS because i felt like i was in a jail( coudnt change launchers or overhaul the UI) ... that was basically it ,i just wanted a fast phone that i could upgrade forever until the OS would be soo heavy for the duel core
peace

xaccers said:
You think WP7 is good, congratulations, you've been living that day for quite some while, apparently so blinded that you haven't noticed.
I have 4 icons on my home screen, icons I can choose the look of, and the placement, showing off the beautiful animated wallpaper I have.
As for poking holes, I'd be tempted to believe you, after all so far you've not managed to poke any holes, however you start a thread making false claims about Android and it tends to look like you're trying hard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What it does have is not due to Google or Icecream or whatever pallet swap they're pumping out now. It is due entirely to Samsung so Android itself does not and will not have a hardware accelerated UI and it will likely never be fully implemented on any android device. I have 12 tiles on my homescreen, once for my calls, constantly updating with any missd calls or voicemails, one with my people which constantly cycles up to 9 friends at a time over the icon, all my friends or people I know, a messaging tab which keeps me updated on any missed texts and has a cool little face that shows different emotions based on the number of tabs, my hotmail which just keeps me updated there, my maps which shows my current or most recent destination, my internet explorer... pretty inactive... my me tile which cycles between a picture of myself and my son and any facebook/MSN notifications I might have, an xbox live tile which actively has my live avatar popping in and out (he's wearing a scorpion outfit, it pretty much rocks) and leads to the greatest game hub ever. My calendar that is pretty much my lifeline with this new job, my pictures hub that cycles between 30+ pictures of my little boy, a zune tile that shows my most recent artist listened to and a marketplace hub which constantly informs me of updates. All of this information is readily available with one swipe of my finger and I don't have to worry about whether that unlock is going to go through, whether I'll meet lag on the way down, or anything else. I can also pin literally anything to my homescreen but I don't like clutter. Overall it is without a doubt the most user-friendly user interface and is lag and clutter free, iOS can claim lag free, android can claim neither.

qwerty warrior said:
thanks
i used nokia phones for a long time and i never made the switch to android because there was a lot of stutter even with custom roms
that small split second of " stutter " really used to piss me off thats why i used non touch screen phones like nokia
they were super fast for what i used it for
then bought a samsung i8910
was a great phone with Symbian ,it had copy paste and the opera browser was awesome .... the the screen cracked after it for 5 meters .... still worked and used it for another 4 months and i was still waiting for the "perfect " android phone and when i saw the SG2 in action i was amazed .personally i dont see the stutter and that enough for me
i never wanted wp7 or IOS because i felt like i was in a jail( coudnt change launchers or overhaul the UI) ... that was basically it ,i just wanted a fast phone that i could upgrade forever until the OS would be soo heavy for the duel core
peace
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Commendable enough, I do appreciate the ability to change launchers and such and force updates on your phone but neither of them are things I would've ever done if I hadn't needed them. That's why I swapped, the speed and functionality were just a plus... Plus no other mobile game can compare to ilomilo.

I had a nexus one since day one and there was never any lag on it. Seriously smooth on everything it did. I now have a sensation and there is some lag here and there because of sense (i used temp root to disable some bloatware and its much better now). I had an HD7 since launch and it was a great phone, really smooth but I missed some apps on my android and tethering so I gave the HD7 to my dad and moved back to android. Moral of the story, my dad loves his HD7 and I love my android phone.
Android is fine now as is. I use google everything so android just integrates better with that than any OS ever will. Google maps on android is amazing and free.
Seriously man, just let go.

For the record this is not the android general section and any post speaking of another OS as superior is not blasphemy, I am just repeating what was told to me by a high-ranking official working on the latest version of android. It is entirely up to the OEM to set up and always will be.

I notice significant lag on my Nexus One between the time I unlock the phone and when it becomes fully usable, that's using the stock Gingerbread 2.3.4 GRJ22. It's not a big deal though, I just have to wait a few seconds before things settle down before it becomes responsive.
I don't really notice hardly any lag on my Froyo Droid Incredible.
So, lack of UI acceleration... why should I care?
And actually, iOS is not as un-customizable as most would believe. There are plenty of themes and UI customization, I've even seen some emulating WP7 for whatever reason. All you need is to be jailbroken, a process easier than rooting many Android phones.
So far I have not found any way to jailbreak the latest version of WP7, it really is a phone for people who just want to use it the way Microsoft intended. I've read you can downgrade, install ChevronWP7, then re-upgrade and keep the jailbreak, but other than pirating apps, there's not really any benefit to doing that that I'm aware of as I don't believe the homebrew community has really taken off with WP7 (but I'm sure I will be corrected if I'm wrong).

z33dev33l said:
What it does have is not due to Google or Icecream or whatever pallet swap they're pumping out now. It is due entirely to Samsung so Android itself does not and will not have a hardware accelerated UI and it will likely never be fully implemented on any android device. I have 12 tiles on my homescreen, once for my calls, constantly updating with any missd calls or voicemails, one with my people which constantly cycles up to 9 friends at a time over the icon, all my friends or people I know, a messaging tab which keeps me updated on any missed texts and has a cool little face that shows different emotions based on the number of tabs, my hotmail which just keeps me updated there, my maps which shows my current or most recent destination, my internet explorer... pretty inactive... my me tile which cycles between a picture of myself and my son and any facebook/MSN notifications I might have, an xbox live tile which actively has my live avatar popping in and out (he's wearing a scorpion outfit, it pretty much rocks) and leads to the greatest game hub ever. My calendar that is pretty much my lifeline with this new job, my pictures hub that cycles between 30+ pictures of my little boy, a zune tile that shows my most recent artist listened to and a marketplace hub which constantly informs me of updates. All of this information is readily available with one swipe of my finger and I don't have to worry about whether that unlock is going to go through, whether I'll meet lag on the way down, or anything else. I can also pin literally anything to my homescreen but I don't like clutter. Overall it is without a doubt the most user-friendly user interface and is lag and clutter free, iOS can claim lag free, android can claim neither.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Except, once again, you're wrong about the lag, you always have been, you always will be.
I don't like clutter, hence only 4 icons, the lovely animated wallpaper, and a subtle slide down notification bar sould I recieve new emails, texts, missed calls, open wireless networks, etc (It's so good even apple have copied it, give it a few updates and Microsoft will probably copy it too).
I don't want anyone who's looking at my phone to just be able to see what my friends are up to, why would I? So I just slide to another page and get the updates as they happen (of course if I was a saddo I could have that on my home screen).
A flick the otherway and I'm listening to my music, again I can have that on my home page if I so wished, but I don't like clutter such as the WP7 tiles force upon you.
Rather than having a tiny photo of my loved ones trapped in a tile, I can of course have them as full wallpaper images, cycling through the photos, after all, if you want to see pictures of your loved ones, 480x800 (or 960x800) is so much better than 173x173.

Ice Cream Sammich early?

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_...g-to-unwrap-ice-cream-sandwich/?tag=cnetRiver
If it's coming on new phones early does that mean we might get it early too?

the sooner they release the source code the quicker we will get it.

I prefer they hold onto it longer and test the heck out of it. Heck ship it late if it means fewer bugs!
Hopefully Google learned it's lesson with Honeycomb/Xoom on what happens when you rush something to market in response to an Apple announcement.

...because rushing the OS worked so well last time around.
Seriously, Google. Take your time, and get it right this time around. If you don't, you're going to get a reputation for sloppy, buggy operating systems that you'll never be able to throw.

I wish they would take their time, we dont need another Microsoft OS.

slipshft said:
I wish they would take their time, we dont need another Microsoft OS.
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Click to collapse
I wish Android was half as bug free as Windows 7.

please delete, duplicate

jerrykur said:
I wish Android was half as bug free as Windows 7.
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Click to collapse
Xbox360 Cough.....
The most bug-ridden ****e in consumer history, still broken after 5 years....

personally, I hope they take their time releasing it. I love honeycomb and how my transformer performs. 3.2 is excellent. Why rush the update?

CrazyPeter said:
Xbox360 Cough.....
The most bug-ridden ****e in consumer history, still broken after 5 years....
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Click to collapse
I'm curious... what bugs? I can't say I've noticed a single bug on my Xbox 360, nor ever had a crash of any kind. I have, however, found a few bugs in Win7.

knoxploration said:
I'm curious... what bugs? I can't say I've noticed a single bug on my Xbox 360, nor ever had a crash of any kind. I have, however, found a few bugs in Win7.
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Click to collapse
You know, the bug where you have no life, and play games for hours and hours on end, therefore receiving the RROD. Then get pissed because after running a freaking computer (game console, same thing) for 5 hours straight with poor air circulation, it shouldn't fry.
When I had my 360 I had no issues at all. Then again, I have a life ....

dictionary said:
You know, the bug where you have no life, and play games for hours and hours on end, therefore receiving the RROD. Then get pissed because after running a freaking computer (game console, same thing) for 5 hours straight with poor air circulation, it shouldn't fry.
When I had my 360 I had no issues at all. Then again, I have a life ....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The RROD is a hardware issue, not a bug. If we want to equate to Android, the RROD would correlate with initial production of Asus' Transformer dock draining power all the time it's powered on, even when the tablet itself is asleep. A hardware issue, not a bug.
That said, I've run for five hours at a time with no issue (so far, touch wood). My ventilation's probably not great -- my Xbox sits in an enclosed desk above a 24-inch flat panel and a Core-i7 950 desktop that are both powered on all the time, and generate a fair amount of heat. There's maybe 1-2 inches free behind the Xbox, 6-8 inches above and to the sides, and it's almost always dusty.
Guess I've (so far) been lucky...

Unfortunately Google will rush it out and try beat iOS 5 release, which is stupid imo. But what can you do, when markets rule this world, not common sense!

knoxploration said:
The RROD is a hardware issue, not a bug. If we want to equate to Android, the RROD would correlate with initial production of Asus' Transformer dock draining power all the time it's powered on, even when the tablet itself is asleep. A hardware issue, not a bug.
That said, I've run for five hours at a time with no issue (so far, touch wood). My ventilation's probably not great -- my Xbox sits in an enclosed desk above a 24-inch flat panel and a Core-i7 950 desktop that are both powered on all the time, and generate a fair amount of heat. There's maybe 1-2 inches free behind the Xbox, 6-8 inches above and to the sides, and it's almost always dusty.
Guess I've (so far) been lucky...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That totally went over your head, lol. I know it isn't a bug, I was just poking fun at those who'd call it such, as that is the only problem I've ever seen with the 360, and it's hardly a bug.

Probably wanna put it out first so people won't say it's a copy of iOS 5.. but if it turns out crappy, then people will still hate on it. Boned either way!

IC
It really not up to Google exactly , it up to the OEMs like Asus. Google puts the basic OS and APIs together. That's really the easy part. Then to make it run on a particular device the OEMs have to write a hardware abstraction layer and HW drivers. The sooner Google releases source code the faster these hardware specific parts can be created. Of course the big partners like HTC and samsung have pre-release copies and are already working on it.

Well ICS was supposed to release around the winter holidays but with the new iOS5 supposedly coming in September, I can see them wanting to have something new to offer as well.
While I hate rushed software, new stuff is always fun to play with. Sure for the normal consumer grade peeps it may be icky but if you get ice cream you expect to get a little sticky.
Ice Cream Sandwich is supposed to bring us 2 things; Graphically Accelerated OS apps (like iOS) and a combination of Phone and Tablet apps (auto sensing?). Honeycomb 3.2 already brought us the phone support with the expanded view much like Apple's iPad/iPad2 does with their iPhone apps.
Really most phone apps expand pretty well on the tablet as they cover the screen well without "pixelated zoom" we see on the iPad's. Only a few crappy apps don't display properly but what do you expect, at least they work...
But the functions are supposed to be incorporated at the heart of Android where menu's (such as Settings) will auto adjust accordingly automatically. Some apps already do this. My Weather app on my phone, when setting the DPI to a lower setting it will automatically display the tablet version. The new Market also does this. With my LG G2x set at a 190 DPI, the tablet version of the market is displayed. All of the phone apps are still accessable as it reads your build.prop for phone model information.
I would imagine that once the CORE Android apps auto-sense and they allow GPU acceleration for pretty transitions and effects, it would be a smooth transition. Seems they are already implementing these functions right before our eyes and we don't know it (which means they are working properly).
The good thing with Android is that individual apps can be updated on the fly, where iOS uses a whole OS upgrade.
All I ask for is Smart Dialing!!!

dictionary said:
That totally went over your head, lol. I know it isn't a bug, I was just poking fun at those who'd call it such, as that is the only problem I've ever seen with the 360, and it's hardly a bug.
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Click to collapse
lol so that's what that whooshing sound was. Thought it was just another work deadline going by. ;-)

I've been using iOS 5 on my iphone 4 for a few months now and it is a lot better then 4.x.x but my feeling is that it is (don't flame me) equal to gingerbread let me explain first
ios 4 and android 2.2 were the break out ones they brought a lot of new features to the platforms and changed how they all worked
ios 5 and android 2.3 are more minor upgrades, bringing things up to date and keeping it current but not bringing about massive innovation.
ICS in my view (if done correctly) would change everything. Major updates across the board. It would bring about the dawn of the android tablets and make them the massive selling beasts that the iPad is.
I am neither an iPhone fanboy or an Android fanboy. I get excited when iOS gets new features and when Android gets new features. Innovation or copying.
That's why i have a devices running both.

knoxploration said:
The RROD is a hardware issue, not a bug. If we want to equate to Android, the RROD would correlate with initial production of Asus' Transformer dock draining power all the time it's powered on, even when the tablet itself is asleep. A hardware issue, not a bug.
That said, I've run for five hours at a time with no issue (so far, touch wood). My ventilation's probably not great -- my Xbox sits in an enclosed desk above a 24-inch flat panel and a Core-i7 950 desktop that are both powered on all the time, and generate a fair amount of heat. There's maybe 1-2 inches free behind the Xbox, 6-8 inches above and to the sides, and it's almost always dusty.
Guess I've (so far) been lucky...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The point was, Microsoft knew about all the problems with the XBox, including RROD and disk scratching and the like, but decided that it was far more important to launch it anyway, and being first to market is more important, consumers are idiots and easily forget, give them a few months free Xbox Live and their $400 piece of overheating crap is the best thing ever (the free couple of months of Xbox Live is soon won back by all the costly accessories and recurring Xbox Live fees, so it's win-win for Microsoft).
http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/05/x...tory-of-microsofts-video-game-console-woes/1/

Top hardware but lots of stuttering: do we deserve better?

OK, I bought an Android Tablet. Although the iPads probably are better for the average user, that's not the case for me: I'm a developer, a tweaker. I want to root stuff, to play with widgets, customisations, and so on. That's why I feel more related to Google than to Apple.
So I went for an Android tablet. I did not want a cheap, slow, outdated one like the ones you can buy at the supermarket for no money.
I was going for quality, so I bought an Asus Infinity. The tablet with the fastest hardware you can get. Splendid HD screen. Nice hardware keyboard included. This should be a top buy!
I have the tablet for some days now, and yes, the hardware is quite good. Decent aluminium unibody, although the color is not my style and the shiny metal catches all finger prints. The 1920 x 1200 display is really outstanding. No complaints here.
But where it goes wrong is the software ...
Android ICS, with minor tweaks by Asus, looks ok. But the OS and apps don't run smooth at all...
Apps run slugish or even freeze for seconds. Even keyboard input hangs sometimes. The stock browser and the Google Chrome browser can render basic sites quite well, but more advanced stuff like animations and video is just bad.
I compared with an iPad 1 and the iPad almost always wins involving smoothness of scrolling and interacting with inline video. An iPad 1, more than 2 years old, is faster than the Android tablet with the fastest hardware available on tablets. That's just ... sad. Very disapointing.
Another problem is the fact that no sites are well tested on Android, resulting in quirks that probably are solved on iOS because every decent site developer does test on his iPhone and iPad. But not on the huge number of Android devices out there. And being a developer myself, I know by experience that each device can have its own quirks.
A good example is wrong platform detection, resulting in bad user experience at the best, lack of features, or even no content at all at worst. 'You need to install Flash to run this site' ... Ok, Android can run Flash, but its days are over, as we all know.
So, what's up next?
Shall I make use of the 'cooling down period' and return this tablet? Exchange it for an iPad3? Will Jelly Bean solve some issues? Will these problems be solved by a system update? Will future sites be rendered better when html standards are used more often and Android browsers improve?
That’s a lot of if’s, no?
Apps running slow:
-stock browser
-Chrome
-Dolphin browser: better than the above, but css3 transformations/animations still very bad compared to iOS
-Google plus: scrolling the items is really bad
-Pulse: swiping between pages of an open article is slow and stutters
-Google Earth: slow and even crashes
Apps running ok:
-gmail: smooth
-currents: rather ok, sometimes
-Plume: ok
-Google maps: smooth
I guess, the situation will improve over time. But when will that be? If ever?
Did I expect too much? Am I exaggerating?
Your thoughts please!

My thoughts are that you cannot compare ipad and Android. Everyone keeps saying how smooth is ipad but everyone seems blind to all of the things iPad cannot do and Android (especially the Infinity) does.
I will not make an extensive list but just mentioning browsing the Web, half the websites are gone with iPad: no flash support and even the supposely replacement html5 renders quite poor on iPad. Check the html5rocks slides for instance.
If you are not sensible to that, get an iPad and you will be stuck but happy. Otherwise, open up and discover what Android had to offer.
the change log for jelly bean are out.check them out, that brings quite some news and fixes.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

chevdor said:
My thoughts are that you cannot compare ipad and Android. Everyone keeps saying how smooth is ipad but everyone seems blind to all of the things iPad cannot do and Android (especially the Infinity) does.
I will not make an extensive list but just mentioning browsing the Web, half the websites are gone with iPad: no flash support and even the supposely replacement html5 renders quite poor on iPad. Check the html5rocks slides for instance.
If you are not sensible to that, get an iPad and you will be stuck but happy. Otherwise, open up and discover what Android had to offer.
the change log for jelly bean are out.check them out, that brings quite some news and fixes.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't get me wrong, I am very aware of the benefits of Android. That's why I bought an Infinity ;-)
But I have a strong feeling that surfing the web is just a better experience on an iPad ... and surfing is a primary task for me and most of us.
Dolphin HD works the best, but still regular freezes of seconds. I guess this should be better with the outstanding hardware of the infinity, no?
Tnx for your response.

Gert Stalpaert said:
I guess, the situation will improve over time. But when will that be? If ever?
Did I expect too much? Am I exaggerating?
Your thoughts please!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know this is not the ideal answer regarding a device you just paid top dollar for but: it may have some software issues but it also has highly capable hardware. Thankfully, there will be many great developers paying attention to this device. Either via official updates or through the combined efforts of the community (or both), I expect most of the issues will be worked out. At the very least, the updates Jelly Bean brings address the lagging and stuttering on Android, and this device will most likely get it soon enough. You can rest assured knowing this is one of the best Android 10-inchers out there and with the proper support it can only get better.

I have only had android tablets up to this point.
I have had the Asus Tf101 and 201. I always found something laggy, or apps crash, etc. Even putting custom ROMS on them caused them to have unique issues based off of whatever ROM I put on it. SO I was constantly re flashing to the new ROM, hoping it fixes the issues and doesn't cause additional issues.
I spent more time flashing, than just using them. What fun is that?
So after I heard all the weird Asus Infinity issues, I canceled my Asus order. I ordered an Ipad 3. Should have it thursday of next week.
But I am using the Ipad 1 that is a work tablet, and it just works. No crashes, no weird little issues.
I am sold. I can't believe I hated the Ipads so much.
One negative to the Ipads though, that I will miss. And that are the widgets and live wallpapers. Other than that, Ill kepp my android phone, but the tab will be an Ipad.

acdcking12345 said:
I have only had android tablets up to this point.
I have had the Asus Tf101 and 201. I always found something laggy, or apps crash, etc. Even putting custom ROMS on them caused them to have unique issues based off of whatever ROM I put on it. SO I was constantly re flashing to the new ROM, hoping it fixes the issues and doesn't cause additional issues.
I spent more time flashing, than just using them. What fun is that?
So after I heard all the weird Asus Infinity issues, I canceled my Asus order. I ordered an Ipad 3. Should have it thursday of next week.
But I am using the Ipad 1 that is a work tablet, and it just works. No crashes, no weird little issues.
I am sold. I can't believe I hated the Ipads so much.
One negative to the Ipads though, that I will miss. And that are the widgets and live wallpapers. Other than that, Ill kepp my android phone, but the tab will be an Ipad.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had been considering getting a new iPad rather than waiting for Android to get the tablet basics right; however, the main reason why I haven't is my dislike for Apple's motto of litigation over innovation. So I will give Android tabs another chance and get the Infinity. There will definitely be another *new* iPad and this will certainly not be my last tablet. Hopefully Jelly Bean will improve the whole experience. If it gets it and I love it, then great. Otherwise, I am sure I will be able to sell it for a decent price.

I see what you mean. I figure when you can get a tab with Jelly Bean, I hope that android tabs will work better. I hope so. Android is open source and great things go on with newly developed ROMS.
I just can't handle all of the crap wrong and all of the constant issues having to be fixed. For awhile, Ill use the Ipad 3 and wait until android really kick ass. Unless the new MS Tablet is even better.

Android will never compete with UI experience in comparision to Apple unless they change the underlying system.
Apple gives all power to the UI first which results in a smooth experience. But that will also cost power for background tasks. So while you can smoothly scroll your pages in a PDF suddenly it takes ages to load a page, I have seen it.
Android is balanced. So you might see stuttering while scrolling through PDF's but pages will load a lot faster.
That as an example.
It is up to you what system you prefer.
There is a detailed blog post by some google dev somewhere, couldn't find it, sorry.

Jelly bean will definetly smooth out anything having to do with touch response such as scrolling and pinch zooming. That is if it does what its supposed too.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda premium

My suggestion is to go try out a Nexus 7 and see how smooth it is. The Infinity will be very similar to that once it's updated to Jelly Bean.

KilerG said:
My suggestion is to go try out a Nexus 7 and see how smooth it is. The Infinity will be very similar to that once it's updated to Jelly Bean.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is only our wishful thinking, not a fact yet.
I don't see iPad outperforming Infinity in real life performance however, apart from lags when copying large amounts of data (I can't seem to notice iPad 2 being better for browsing, tried it with iPad 2 today - and remember that on the Infinity it is 1920x1200; iPad 3 with a somewhat better resolution has been reported to become burning hot btw).

What bothers me is not the issues with Android, but the shortcuts and crappy manufacturing that seems to plague the category. Asus, for example, comes out with innovative stuff but seems to chronically release devices before they're ready. Samsung came out with a solid, if uninspiring, 10 inch tablet last year, but the new one has been getting reviews that say it's inferior to the previous model. The Nexus 7 is finally rolling out, but with reports of sloppy build -- Asus strikes again? The Acer has decent specs on paper but doesn't make the target in terms of real-life operation.
I hate Apple with a fire deep in my belly. But, most of the time (iPhone 4 antenna excepted), when they release a mobile product, it's ready to roll -- functionally and aesthetically. Much higher initially quality than the Android products I've had or shopped.
Seriously, how fooking hard can it be to put together a decent feature set and build it properly?

I see your point. There have been numerous bugs in every single iPhone version however. My friend who was apple-lover has returned 80% of their devices in the recent years - from iPad 2, through MacBook Air to LCD.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using xda app-developers app

It lags due to the weak Tegra 3 GPU not able to run at full 60fps for the 1920x1200p.
Heck it even lags on 1280x800 sometimes. Even with Jelly Bean, it will still have hiccups due to the GPU limitation.

MrPhilo said:
It lags due to the weak Tegra 3 GPU not able to run at full 60fps for the 1920x1200p.
Heck it even lags on 1280x800 sometimes. Even with Jelly Bean, it will still have hiccups due to the GPU limitation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You say this, yet the Tegra 3 used in the Nexus 7 isn't as good as the one in the Infinity. The GPU is plenty capable, as it's buttery smooth in Jelly Bean. There is no GPU limitation, it's software at the moment.

So here is my quick background.
I have been a huge fan of tablet. I started out with Windows based tablet back when it was Windows XP that was like 7-8 years ago. Then I moved onto very first android tablet Xoom. Switched to Samsung Galaxy 10.1. Due to specific application only available on Ipad, I had to go with Ipad so I bought iPad 2 and sold Galaxy 10.1, which I still have. I then got Galaxy 10.1 4G Verizon back, which I sold in anticipation of Transformer infinity..
So with that, here is my take on iOS vs. Android.
"Really depends on what you do."
Stability/Fluidity: iOS
It is indeed the fact iPad runs smoother. Though there are some test showed higher stability rate of Android over the iOS, my personal experience goes along with crowd i.e. iOS is more stable. BUT I have not tried ICS (nor New iPad).
Also there is another catch here. iPad is not fail safe. It does still crush and if it crush, it crushes constantly i.e. simply cannot open the file or perform the action.
Multitasking: Android
As someone else suggested earlier in this forum, this is probably due to difference in the underlying focus/design motto between iOS and Android. iOS DOES NOT do real multitasking. I know some say it does, but it's not true for at least the current iOS version and with my iPad 2.
It basically freezes/hibernate the background application. I tried to download files in background several times, or have some application load files into, which usually takes several minutes as it tries to decompress or do whatever it needs to. So after launching these tasks, I go surf web with different browser or application. I go back there is nearly zero progression. There may be minimal multitasking as I have seen progression of downloading file for like 1MB after 10 minutes but this happened more like within the initial few minutes or seconds and since then it had to be frozen in background because I did check this after 2 minutes and still the progression were the same.
Alternatively, needless to say but Android allows you to download files in background but sounds like transformer line suffers from hanging when this happens. I never used torrent on tablet but I remember downloading some files like 100MB+ on web in background while I was using some other application, which usually worked no problem but my foreground application was not demanding.
Applications: Mixed
This is where it really comes down to what you want. Many says Apple store is better, which I agree with games. So if games are your priority, I go with iPAD. It may change in the future, but by the time it changes basically you can buy newer better tablet anyways. So for now for games, go with iPad. But personally, if truly want to play games, I'd rather by portable gaming system like 3DS or PS Vita... But that's just me. Apple store certainly have more selections, and better optimized for iPad. However, many of iPad applications are not free and no real trial. So you have to sort of buy and see.
Whereas, android has tons of applications that are free with ad. This may be one reason why app developers are not making much money on Android market hence avoiding or deprioritizing... who knows. But some applications are simply better on Android. For instance, I use Anki which is perhaps the best cross platform flashcard application. If you want to have the real version of Anki on iPad it costs $20+. You can sort of do a work around with cheaper $5 application but you won't get autosynch of decks, no statistics transfer etc. Whereas on Android.... It's FREE and does autosynch. Other application is ebook reader like epub and pdf. When comparing iPad applications to the Android at least iPad 2 vs. Galaxy 10.1, large files like 300+MB epubs opened much quicker on Galaxy 10.1. Not sure if this is due to pure CPU advantage vs. application difference.
Notifications: Android
Sort of fits into the multitasking but iOS notification is less invasive (using good term), less evident (more of cons for me). When I get new email, Android nicely shows pop up on the corner. In IOS, I generally have no clue until I close my application and check my email. Though notification works with iMessage so may be its just Apple deciding who gets what access to the notification.
File Transfer/Management: Android
Huge downside of Apple. In last 6 months or so, they have added wifi file transfer/synching but this happens only when you have your iPad plugged into outlet.
Individual applications may decide to offer wifi file transfer, but generally slow and its individual application based.
Files are local to each application so very easy to have duplicated files consuming your hard drive space. For instance, if you have a book in iBook, opening it in other EPUB reader you simply have to make a duplicate copy within the other application.
Android is basically simply drag and drop and generally most files can be open from any application anywhere though some does make its own local copy. As far as transfer, AirDroid is such an awesome application.
Jellybean:
The theme of this is amazing. The functionality is not ground breaking but Google finally decides to put emphasis on the UI fluidity. So if it achieves what its intended, I think overall Android simply becomes better ecosystem as it already offers more functionality and flexibility but the major drawback/downside was the UI fluidity. Though as far as application stability, I am not sure if Jellybean is answering that part as I never read anywhere specifically stating such. In any event, ASUS generally so fast in pushing the latest version of Android, I would personally wait until Jelly bean comes out and see if it truly solves the issues. Its definitely a possibility but no gurantee so buying something based on the speculation may not be an optimum unless you got tons of money to spare.
Nexus 7:
Just like Jellybean. This is simple speculation, and probably we should not buy a system based on "what will likely to happen" because there is no guarantee. But I am speculating/hoping when Nexus 7 sells well, which probably does. Developers will have much better support on tablets. Even though Nexus 7 is 7 inch tablet, its resolution is compatible to non-high def android tablet i.e. in theory all the nexus 7 optimized applications will look native on the non-high def android tablet though button layouts may be slightly suboptimal. This is definitely much better than scaling phone app onto the tablet resolution.

I also 'hope' that ASUS gets their act together and resolves the IO issue and lag, or that JB really does the trick. But care should be taken I'm afraid: I'm sure there were many Transformer Primer users who went ahead and purchased 'hoping' the GPS issue was software resolvable; they weren't, it was terminal, and GPS was removed form the official specs. ASUS has a track record.
Lets face it, the camera click issue on 'press to focus' is a hardware design fault (they have not insulated the microphone/s from the focus mechanism). Hard to see how that will ever be solved. It is not an issue that will bother many but what is significant is that it is a sloppy, muppet mistake like the GPS issues on the Transformer Primer that could have been easily avoided - a mistake that camera manufacturers like Casio were making 10 years ago on early digital cameras (I know, I had one). That's just not good enough ASUS.

robhorsefield said:
I also 'hope' that ASUS gets their act together and resolves the IO issue and lag, or that JB really does the trick. But care should be taken I'm afraid: I'm sure there were many Transformer Primer users who went ahead and purchased 'hoping' the GPS issue was software resolvable; they weren't, it was terminal, and GPS was removed form the official specs. ASUS has a track record.
Lets face it, the camera click issue on 'press to focus' is a hardware design fault (they have not insulated the microphone/s from the focus mechanism). Hard to see how that will ever be solved. It is not an issue that will bother many but what is significant is that it is a sloppy, muppet mistake like the GPS issues on the Transformer Primer that could have been easily avoided - a mistake that camera manufacturers like Casio were making 10 years ago on early digital cameras (I know, I had one). That's just not good enough ASUS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good job copying and pasting from your other thread.
The I/O issue isn't hardware related from what I can tell. It really just seems like something that just needs to be resolved in the kernel.

robhorsefield said:
I also 'hope' that ASUS gets their act together and resolves the IO issue and lag, or that JB really does the trick. But care should be taken I'm afraid: I'm sure there were many Transformer Primer users who went ahead and purchased 'hoping' the GPS issue was software resolvable; they weren't, it was terminal, and GPS was removed form the official specs. ASUS has a track record.
Lets face it, the camera click issue on 'press to focus' is a hardware design fault (they have not insulated the microphone/s from the focus mechanism). Hard to see how that will ever be solved. It is not an issue that will bother many but what is significant is that it is a sloppy, muppet mistake like the GPS issues on the Transformer Primer that could have been easily avoided - a mistake that camera manufacturers like Casio were making 10 years ago on early digital cameras (I know, I had one). That's just not good enough ASUS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ASUS has problems with attention to detail. Failing to notice these issues is completely indicative of poor engineering and lacking quality control. Users have been identifying problems right away. I can deal with minor software discrepancies; those can eventually be solved. However, basic hardware problems like these are alarming. On their own they might seem minor, but compounded (camera, I/O, screen ripples, SD card support, ...) I wonder if ASUS just took a bunch of hardware components, fit them together like a puzzle, and then sat on it for months without testing waiting for release. This device is coming half a year after it was announced. These issues could have been corrected.

KilerG said:
Good job copying and pasting from your other thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It wasn't exactly the same. ...same poor design and manufacture problems, so same opinions and comments apply, sorry, fact.
cipherbreak said:
ASUS has problems with attention to detail. Failing to notice these issues is completely indicative of poor engineering and lacking quality control. Users have been identifying problems right away. I can deal with minor software discrepancies; those can eventually be solved. However, basic hardware problems like these are alarming. On their own they might seem minor, but compounded (camera, I/O, screen ripples, SD card support, ...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bang on the point, thanks. And compounded also with the Prime GPS debacle.
I doubt Apple will let another Antenna-gate slip out, we'll see.

[Q] Nexus (pure Android) vs iOS simplicity

I know for a lot of average phone users, the argument is always, "Apple is so much easier to use!" It's understandable why people claim it's easier with Apple's focus on simplicity, unchanged UI, and locked down user environment on their OS. I've been using the latest jellybean and I'm trying to be as fair as possible giving my opinion for a non-techie/average phone user. I really think that Nexus (pure Android) is now as simplistic as iOS. Yes, there is a file system on android and other additional features, but average phone users mostly only explore home screens and other basic features. Jellybean UI only has the on-screen three navigation buttons with the three dot menu access either located at the top right of bottom right.
Apple only has the home button, but some times the back button is located in different areas of an app or to access shortcuts, you have to click the home button a certain amount of times which can not be very user friendly for people that just want to 'see' the button to access what they want. I've been using my parents' phones (HTC EVO 4G) and I agree gingerbread or other older android versions for that matter are hard to use for an average user. There's too many navigation buttons, phone's touch input is bad, plenty of needed improvements on an unsupported android version, and gingerbread is slow. I believe new comers can adapt very easily to Jellybean; everything is fast, fluid, attractive, and has become much more simplistic for setting up or accessing everyday features on the phone.
What do you guys think? Have you convinced family or friends to convert to the Nexus line of Android?

Ive been trying so hard to convert my gf from her icrap... Geez she had a droid bionic before i knew her but that had old gingerbread and skinned with blur(the worst ui for android) aosp or nexus is way to go
Sent from an Apple killing JellyBean

moparfreak426 said:
Ive been trying so hard to convert my gf from her icrap... Geez she had a droid bionic before i knew her but that had old gingerbread and skinned with blur(the worst ui for android) aosp or nexus is way to go
Sent from an Apple killing JellyBean
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. I need to sit down with some people who own iPhones and just show them side-by-side everyday tasks on Nexus (aosp). For example, telling them to show you how to attach a photo to a text message and then showing how to do it on Android. It's virtually the same and everything is much nicer on Android.

I'll say up front that I've owned Apple products and would consider doing so again.
iOS is a flaming heap of crap when it comes to the UI. It was what the user-base needed when smartphones where new, but we have so much more functionality now that it's ridiculous not to integrate it.
iOS is that person that still thinks it's the 1980s. Really garish and outdated, but not old enough to be classic and cool - or at least make people smile at how quaint it seems. It's everyone in Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days - those people that had an awesome time in high-school and now can't think of anything else.
I understand wanting to keep things the same for "non-tech" people who don't want to learn a new system every time they get a new phone. This is why they need to integrate small changes and improvements over time and teach people how to use them by explaining in a tutorial/greeting on the phone. I feel that Google does a very good job of that.
3/4 of my parents and step-parents have Android devices - and they have all picked it up pretty quickly.
My mom has a dumbphone on which she doesn't text and probably uses less than five minutes a month and still asks me how to attach files in an e-mail. I helped her pick out, buy, and set-up a TF700. She seems to be doing really well with it - a lot of people I've spoken with feel that an Android tablet is more "tech n00b" friendly than even a traditional computer - it's simple, everything is easy-to-find (and you usually don't need to go mucking around in the file-system), and you can reach out and touch what you want to do which is more natural for many than using the mouse.
She originally was thinking of an iPad, but it honestly wasn't the best choice for her. She needed a good camera (work-related) and the iPads that were in her price-range didn't have very great ones - and having a microSD card slot means that she doesn't have to worry about her video-recording taking up too much internal space even if she forgets to delete them when she's done. And she has the processing power and RAM that what she does isn't skipping and struggling when going back and forth through frames of HD video (something she specifically mentioned being worried about).
I think she would have been fine with an iPad, but she didn't have the budget for a newer one. Android offers options, customisation, and competition. Manufacturers are willing to take chances and try new things that might fail - whereas Apple plays it safe. I give credit to Apple for being the force to really push tablets into the mainstream - I just hope that iOS can get some much-needed innovation.
I believe my friend's "tech impaired" mom got an S3 and is doing fine. Touchwiz might be more bloated than Stock, but it does a pretty good job of being simple and teaching new users how to use it without overwhelming them. I think Samsung has done a great job with the S3 and their push behind it - offering something that appeals to many users and many different needs, allowing everyone to get what they want out of it. To me, that's what Android is all about - options, choices, and finding what's best for yourself.

Pennycake said:
I'll say up front that I've owned Apple products and would consider doing so again.
iOS is a flaming heap of crap when it comes to the UI. It was what the user-base needed when smartphones where new, but we have so much more functionality now that it's ridiculous not to integrate it.
iOS is that person that still thinks it's the 1980s. Really garish and outdated, but not old enough to be classic and cool - or at least make people smile at how quaint it seems. It's everyone in Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days - those people that had an awesome time in high-school and now can't think of anything else.
I understand wanting to keep things the same for "non-tech" people who don't want to learn a new system every time they get a new phone. This is why they need to integrate small changes and improvements over time and teach people how to use them by explaining in a tutorial/greeting on the phone. I feel that Google does a very good job of that.
3/4 of my parents and step-parents have Android devices - and they have all picked it up pretty quickly.
My mom has a dumbphone on which she doesn't text and probably uses less than five minutes a month and still asks me how to attach files in an e-mail. I helped her pick out, buy, and set-up a TF700. She seems to be doing really well with it - a lot of people I've spoken with feel that an Android tablet is more "tech n00b" friendly than even a traditional computer - it's simple, everything is easy-to-find (and you usually don't need to go mucking around in the file-system), and you can reach out and touch what you want to do which is more natural for many than using the mouse.
She originally was thinking of an iPad, but it honestly wasn't the best choice for her. She needed a good camera (work-related) and the iPads that were in her price-range didn't have very great ones - and having a microSD card slot means that she doesn't have to worry about her video-recording taking up too much internal space even if she forgets to delete them when she's done. And she has the processing power and RAM that what she does isn't skipping and struggling when going back and forth through frames of HD video (something she specifically mentioned being worried about).
I think she would have been fine with an iPad, but she didn't have the budget for a newer one. Android offers options, customisation, and competition. Manufacturers are willing to take chances and try new things that might fail - whereas Apple plays it safe. I give credit to Apple for being the force to really push tablets into the mainstream - I just hope that iOS can get some much-needed innovation.
I believe my friend's "tech impaired" mom got an S3 and is doing fine. Touchwiz might be more bloated than Stock, but it does a pretty good job of being simple and teaching new users how to use it without overwhelming them. I think Samsung has done a great job with the S3 and their push behind it - offering something that appeals to many users and many different needs, allowing everyone to get what they want out of it. To me, that's what Android is all about - options, choices, and finding what's best for yourself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This post is excellent. Apple does integrate small changes in the software every year, with the same minor upgraded phone that, "Changes it all." Problem is, is their platform is not moving fast enough and every software upgrade is poorly integrated leaving lag for multitasking and the notification bar to name a few. Apple definitely started the revolutionizing of smartphones and tablets into the mainstream, but I feel like they are no longer as innovative or exciting to hear about. Android has many phones across their platform with different themed phones that can deter users to go and choose an iPhone, but like you said it also gives the user many options and customization.
How come you didn't just buy your mom a phone for hd photo/video and rendering? Tablets are kind of awkward to hold for users who want to do that. I know that Apple has more apps optimized for their tablet, but on a budget, they're not the best buy. The best buy right now is the Nexus 7 or 10, but no sd card slot. You think she would need more than 16-32gb and additional cloud storage? Many "tech-impaired" people are still able to use old android phones quite well - more than I would want to. If they could just see what newer android phones offer, they're so much easier to use and it should no longer be said that, "Apple is so much easier to use than Android!" It's simply not true anymore - especially for the Nexus (pure Android) devices I'm talking about.
Google does do a great job of user-interactive tutorials first setting up the phone. I hate to be completely biased; I've had Apple devices in the past and am around them nearly everyday. They don't have that excitement or new features that have been on Android for awhile now. Not to mention how locked down their hardware and software is - slowing down development. I've also heard recently that Apple's new approach for their devices and software, is what they feel is the best for their interest and not the communities interest. That right there completely turns me off of ever owning one of their devices and I'll continue to support Google as they're my favorite company.
Another argument you'll always hear is, "Well Apple just has so many more apps and they work better." Well, they been around longer than Android and recently Android announced they have around 675000 apps now which is nearly identical to the Apple store. Pretty impressive considering how much longer Apple has been out. Also, saying they work better is entirely not true. There's been many tests on apps on both platforms and apps perform better on newer versions of Android. I just bought a Nexus 4 for $300 off-contract featuring a quad-core cpu, 2gb ram, true hd ips+ lcd screen, and the latest purest version of android. Does it get better than that?

An android developer's first contact with iOS

Hi long time xda fellows. Just wanted to share with you some of my thoughts
Brief Intro
This is just my personal thoughts and it only may apply to me so please don't feel offended by this article. Well, I am developing android apps for a few years now, doing this for a living. Developing various project for my clients most of the time I came across projects which involved "Make it work on android as it works on iOS" and I ended up with the same thing "I need to get an iPhone for testing". I finally took the step 4 months ago and purchased a used iPhone 5 16 GB. The reason was for getting an older version were pretty obvios: I did not wanted to spent too much money on a device which will be used primarily for testing. Iphone 5s was too expensive and 5C was basically an 5 with plastic body.
I am very picky when it comes to my daily driver device. I have owned in the past many devices, my first acceptable device was Galaxy S1 (oh, the lag of android 2.3), then went for Galaxy Nexus (which was quite a good device and I still own it and runs pretty acceptable), Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 3, LG G2. Given the fact that I have small hands, I found G2 to be quite impressive: such small bezels, pretty acceptable firmware, good camera, great form factor and battery life... until I noticed the slippery back which was the main reason to get rid of it. I can't really understand why producers tend to get this shiny plastic as back-cover which offers zero grip. All the time I had the impression it will slip from my hands. I love the back material on black Nexus 5 and I hope they'll continue to use it on the next model. The Note 3 was quote a near perfect phone, contrary to many, I liked the fake leather back as it gave me good enough grip, the touchwiz isn't that bad, stylus was working very good but, after trying to get used to its form factor for 2 months I had to give up. It was simply to uncomfortable for me use, most of the time I found myself needing to use it with one hand and couldn't. Just try to put the shopping list on it and hold the note in one hand and the grocery basket in the other and then check what you buy. But this really comes to personal preference since I gave it to my wife and she says she'll never want a smaller device.
So back to main idea, I purchased a used iPhone 5 for around 350$ while iPhone 5s it is being sold in my country for around 900$. Since I got rid of Note 3, I told myself that if I paid for it, I should use it, so I started using iPhone 5 as a daily device. This means two gmail accounts, calls, skype and instagram.
First impressions:
Where is my notification light ? After years of getting used to it I find it a bit hard to live without. Many say it is not needed but to be frankly I prefer to look at the phone on my table to see if I missed something rather than waking the screen up. Not to mention that I recently released JeFeel app on Google Play and I receive a lot of Instagram notifications. For each of them my iPhone's screen wakes up.Not great for battery life I suppose. Let be honest, how much would a blinking led cost for production ? one cent? Not to mention the other cool things like RGB LEDs on most of the android devices which can be configured to know exactly what notification you received by the color it shows.
What's with this small text size ? Went to Settings to make it bigger and it seems that the Dynamic Font size only works on some of Apple's apps and the rest simply ignore it. I have good eye view and I really find it too small to comfortable read it. Might be because of only 4 inch of diagonal or something. It was a small relief to find the Bold setting which makes things a bit better. Not to mention browsing reddit funny pictures was not that fun.
After being spoiled for years with SwiftKey keyboard, with multiple language support, swipe, fantastic auto correct, I found to iOS keyboard horrible. The auto correct gives me more trouble than helping me so in the end I disabled it. Also to press 2-3 keys to get to things like comma "," or numbers/symbols I find it far from ergonomic. Basically these were my main three things I did not like, coming from android
After three months of usage
Well, believe it or not I got used to the small text size and now I find it acceptable. Still, the screen size is too small to do serious browsing or email answering. I find the keyboard to be still a pain to use. However, I noticed a lot of other things: * I like the notification center and how notification are shown on lock-screen. Swiping a notification opens the app to which it belongs to without the need to unlock. I like how when I read an email on my computer, the notification from lockscreen gets dismissed. Quite cool.
Control center is handy and I use it mostly to toggle auto rotate lock and media volume. Is great that I can access it from anywhere but sometimes I simply open it by mistake when browsing a webpage in landscape orientation
I like how auto brightness works and it really is pleasant for my eyes.
I like the fact that there is a physical button on front, I am definitely not a fan of using the Power button. On android I specially developed StandBy Touch Advanced app to deal with putting the phone to sleep without reaching the Power key. I took a look at iOS SDK and couldn't find a way to do it so I suppose this is not allowed. I have to say inhere that many Android offered quite a nice way of waking the phone from standy by: LG has KnowckOn, HTC has something similar, OnePlus one has it, if I recall well Sony too... Double tap to wake is way more convenient than searching for power key, especially on tall devices. i5 is not the case since it is easy to reach, but I use the Home key a lot to wake the device.
I am not a big fan of metal and I never use cases, I find it slippery and cold, however given the size of the iPhone, it is easy to hold it and never had the feeling that I drop it.
Battery life is not so great, I charge it every day.However it seems to be dropping constantly and I haven't noticed any battery drain (GooglePlay services drain rings a bell on android ?) I am 95% of the time in WiFi coverage and I did a test: I disabled the Cellular data, since WiFi is always on and have found that the battery life has improved a lot. So even if data is not used, I suppose that the cell module is active, most likely waiting to do a quick switch if WiFi turns to be poor. I would have preferred an option to keep it disabled until actually leaving the WiFi area. This things make me miss tools like Tasker on Android.
I like the screen and color reproduction. There is no back-light bleed and colors look real enough for me. Best LCD screen I had. Also the resolution is more than enough for 4" and I don't miss 1080p from android
iOS feel more smooth, I remember not resetting the phone for about 2 months and it was as smooth as in day one. Transitions are smoother, rotate is smoother, app switching is smoother. I like it, I feel that it's more polished than android and even the screen seems more responsive to touches.
some apps seem better on iOS, with more attention to details. My last app JeFeel relies a lot on instagram so I am using it quite a lot to check followers and pictures. Instagram for iOS is easier to use, easier to reload, I don't know, it just feels better. I also like TapaTalk more and some other apps like Reddit pics browser, skype, dolphin browser and so on. I sure miss FireFox since is my browser on PC and I would have loved to have bookmarks sync but since I don't to that much browsing, I'm ok with Dolphin/Safari. A special mention goes to Safari for reading mode (or how it is called) when it renders the text from the page at big size, making it easier to read. Great feature.
As android developer I rely on Google services: Maps, GMail, Google+, Drive and some apps are working ok, some are bad. The biggest disappointment is the Gmail app which is more ergonomic and nicer on Android. No contact pictures, no swipe to delete, I miss these features. Also the rendered text in emails is quite small, so it's good enough for email checking if you don't have many emails.
I haven't changed my ringtone yet because from what I saw I need iTunes for that... well that sucks.
Ah the camera, I don't think I made so many pictures with a phone. I know the camera is not top of the chart, but the form factor of the phone actually made it easier for me to take it out and grab a quick picture. Note 3 had a great camera but getting it out of the pocket, 2 hands needed to use it... You know where I'm going to.
I also like the silent toggle on the left size, very convenient but I would have preferred a visual notification on status bar, that is on, like on android.
As for widgets and stuff, on my android I initially did all sort of customizations and widgets but in the end I started to install more apps, drag shortcuts around and it became a mess. Basically I ended up with a grid of icons, just as the iOS launcher is. So for me, the lack of widgets is not a negative point
I don't like the dialer, seems so... I don't know... limited. No contacts photos on Recents/Contacts list makes it look boring. I also have like a 1-2 seconds delay between the moment I pick up and the moment the caller hears me, that is annoying and does not happen with same SIM on other phones
Unfortunately after 4 months of usage my iPhone's camera started to fail. Sometimes it worked sometimes it just shown black screen. After a few more days I have realized that the screen glass on top of the phone was raised 1-2 milliliters above the frame. I went to a service center (since no warranty) and they glued it somehow back, and now the screen is ok, but the camera still does not work. One nice addition was discovering that I can disable the whole camera feature, so I did and it disappeared from apps and Control Center. I guess that is the only customization of Control center hehe.
Since the camera is not working and I don't want to put any more money on this iPhone, I don't know how long I will be using it, probably until Nexus X or Moto X+1 is released. Or why not, IPhone 6. But overall I can say that the experience with iOS was not as bad as expected. Probably it has to do with me not using so many widgets and apps. I don't remember how many times I have flashed android phones with so many custom ROMs in order to achieve a better phone. Indeed on android you get more freedom, you install custom ROMs and kernels and you squeeze some more performance but this sometimes comes with the cost of bugs and instability. This is the beauty of android, you can customize it, want a toggle of auto rotate, you have it on a custom ROM, want different screen calibration, want to hide on screen buttons, want... you get the point. On iOS you are limited, you can't customize too much and after a while I guess you just get used to it. Unfortunately Android OEM's have started to implement various techniques that will detect rooting/bootloader unlock and will void warranty. We all know the famous Knox trigger on Samsung devices, so installing a custom ROM is starting to get harder and harder without voiding warranty.
Another point I'd like the mention is updates. On android things are starting to catch up, but still with updates through carriers and all the delays, after an android version is released you need to wait for 3-6-never months for an update. Of course this is not available for nexus line. The updates are primarily for flagship devices as previous year devices will take even longer to receive an update. This really forces me to look for a nexus when I get an android device and I sure hope they will get it right this time and not make cuts on screen quality or battery size as on previous models. Motorola seems to be doing quite a good job on updates and I hope they will continue to do so in the future. Android L seems like a really big change and I think it will start to catch up on next year's flagships, so mostly on Q2 2014 but given the skinning of frameworks like TouchWiz/Optimus/and others I somehow doubt the user will see too much material changes. I hope performance will improve since I can see small lag here and there even on latest models. As for iOS8 it seems promising, the new keyboard support will allow fixing one of my major annoyances, also battery statistics will offer more info on apps battery usage. I am curious to see how widgets on Notification center will be received but seeing Apple opening is a good thing. I am also keeping an eye on their Swift language and might start learn it since ObjectiveC was never ever on my taste. I really like the swipe on screens to go back, that is implemented on some apps and I am really curious to see how on bigger screen sizes, reaching the top left of the screen for Back option will fell file. I sometimes feel the need of a Back button. I fear that on 4.7 and 5.5" iPhone one handed usage will be hurt by having hard times to reach Back within an app.
So in the end, is iOS that bad ? It depends, for me, when I use the OS for a few seconds to launch apps that I am using, it does not matter so much what OS it is, as long as its fast and reliable. I find iphone 5 to be fast and smooth and it's a device 2 years old. I bet Iphone 5s with his TouchId and 64bits would have a bigger impact on me and to be honest I am starting to see phones with screen bigger than 4"... too big. It would be interesting to find myself buying iPhone 5S as my next phone.
Thanks for reading and sorry for the long post, hope I haven't bored you too much.