Will android ever be as responsive as iOS?

[jhansman]

I can only compare my second-gen Nexus 7 to my AT&T SG4, and by far the Google device is more responsive. The bloatware factor has to be at play here. Next phone is definitely not going to be a Samsung/carrier-sold, unrootable device. Shoulda got a Nexus 5.....

 

[shabby]

Regardless, is there any way to modify this behavior?

Yes don't buy a low end phone, splurge on a nexus 5 at least let alone any other $700 phone.

 

[dawheat]

I can only compare my second-gen Nexus 7 to my AT&T SG4, and by far the Google device is more responsive. The bloatware factor has to be at play here. Next phone is definitely not going to be a Samsung/carrier-sold, unrootable device. Shoulda got a Nexus 5.....

Towelroot doesn't work for the S4 Active?

 

[BD2003]

Yes don't buy a low end phone, splurge on a nexus 5 at least let alone any other $700 phone.

I would consider that if I thought it would fix the problem, but if it's just a matter of the UI not having the highest priority over other tasks, what's the point? It'd be only a matter of time before it became laggy again.

Pretty funny how this all worked out...I wanted to give android another shot because I was tired of the limitations of iOS, but I ended up just jailbreaking the iphone, which pretty much solved that problem.

 

[Crono]

EDIT: Looks like in the last test I could find the M8 was the fastest in terms of screen latency.

http://phandroid.com/2014/04/08/htc-one-m8-screen-latency-scores/

LG G3 is close at 50ms:
http://www.digitalversus.com/lg-g3-5-5-ips-display-put-test-n34623.html

Disable animations in developer options and I haven't had a problem with the M8. The G3 and Note 3 look pretty good, as well.

Borrow someone's phone or use them in store and let us know if it's really Android that's the problem, or just the phone(s) you've tried on the low end.

 

[rh71]

While not all Android phones are created equal ie, Samsung's TouchWiz bloats down the phone quite a bit, most of what you're experiencing is entirely personal preference. My Galaxy Nexus was lag free, as are my One m7, and G-Pad 8.3 GPe. My Note 8, running TouchWiz, is the laggiest of the bunch, and honestly only barely.

There's a few apps I feel like I have to tap multiple times because they just start slow, Comixology comes to mind, but thats more the fault of the app than the OS. iOS has its own apps that are slow to respond or that get laggy when pushed with a heavy load.

stock Note 3 lag free here.

 

[vbuggy]

The latest Android phones are still a bit laggy, but obviously the effect is minimized with uber fast CPUs. The issue though is that Android requires uber fast CPUs just be acceptable IMO.

This is something that I said maybe 2-3 years ago. Not any more. You can in fact make more of a case for iOS being this way if one doesn't have Applezombie amnesia about how slightly older phones run a lot slower as they get updated.

And yup, OP compares bottom-end handset with iPhone and complains how slow it is.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

EDIT: Looks like in the last test I could find the M8 was the fastest in terms of screen latency.

http://phandroid.com/2014/04/08/htc-one-m8-screen-latency-scores/

LG G3 is close at 50ms:
http://www.digitalversus.com/lg-g3-5-5-ips-display-put-test-n34623.html

Disable animations in developer options and I haven't had a problem with the M8. The G3 and Note 3 look pretty good, as well.

Borrow someone's phone or use them in store and let us know if it's really Android that's the problem, or just the phone(s) you've tried on the low end.

Isn't latency highly app dependent though also? I tend to see that touch latency on Google Maps is far worse than other apps. When you throw on the non-60fps performance it seems even worse.

 

[teejee]

IIRC, I did hear something similar a while ago, that iOS puts UI updates on the highest priority (basically system interrupt?) whereas android does not. IMO it's the right way to do things - no one should tolerate an unresponsive touch UI any more than they should tolerate a mouse cursor that wasn't responsive.

Regardless, is there any way to modify this behavior?

This is not correct, it is much more complicated.

First it is java garbage collection that is the biggest remaining issue now.
Then there is not really a dedicated UI thread that alone is enough to render the updated frame, you often need updated data from the main thread.
And give a UI thread high priority is in general bad from stability point of view. It means that you could stall crucial tasks justs by bonking on the user interface.
Render a cursor is a quick and well defined operation, not comparable to an unknown UI operation.

It is not really Android that is bad but rather ios that is extremely fine tuned from the beginning to be lag free with slow hw (e g iphone 1).

But with ART that will be default on in L, the lag from garbage collection will be greatly reduced. And many other improvements have been made in 4.x.
And Android have always been a more open framework with more apps using background tasks, sometimes these background tasks collide with main task causing lag.
Especially the storage system (simple eMMC controllers) tend to lag when you write to several files at the same time. This will also improve with better eMMC controllers (e g eMMC 5.0).

 

[gorcorps]

Must be a "get used to it thing", as I don't feel like my S4 is unresponsive. It's "laggy" in certain apps and the stock launcher, but once I use better built apps it feels great. Some browsers are a dog when it comes to scrolling animations, and I assume that's just the inefficiencies of an open OS that has a LOT of different hardware to deal with.

That said, my friends are pretty much split down the middle between android and iOS so I do get some hands on time with them (I haven't had an iPhone since the 4). When I'm using them I don't feel like something is missing on my phone, so whatever it is you're feeling it must be pretty subtle.

 

[Wingznut]

Must be a "get used to it thing", as I don't feel like my S4 is unresponsive. It's "laggy" in certain apps and the stock launcher, but once I use better built apps it feels great. Some browsers are a dog when it comes to scrolling animations, and I assume that's just the inefficiencies of an open OS that has a LOT of different hardware to deal with.

That said, my friends are pretty much split down the middle between android and iOS so I do get some hands on time with them (I haven't had an iPhone since the 4). When I'm using them I don't feel like something is missing on my phone, so whatever it is you're feeling it must be pretty subtle.

My thoughts exactly.

After reading this thread, I awoke my Droid DNA (Kit Kat) and started swiping around. I'm not seeing what others are experiencing, certainly nothing particularly different than my kids' iPhone 5's... Or maybe I'm just not that picky. *shrug*

 

[dawheat]

The updates in Android L do seem promising around garbage collection and ART.

I do notice some minor and infrequent lag or delay on my Note 3 - but it's quite minor and IMO not something to influence a buying decision either way. The truth is, after using an Android phone for a couple days, you're not going to notice it.

Also, I get similar lag on an iPhone 5 running iOS7 - in fairness it's nearly a 2 year old phone now and I don't think the same happens on a 5S.

 

[cronos]

I am a daily user of HTC One M7 (4.4.2) and iPod Touch 5th gen (7.1.1, didn't take that last update yet), and the only time I'm feeling any difference is when playing a time-based online game such as QuizUp, where the Touch is always instant while the One feels there's a very slight lag until my tap is registered as an answer. It doesn't affect the game that much that it made me feel like I would have won some questions had it not lagged, but I can definitely feel the difference.

Other than this very specific case, they feel the same to me.

 

[vbuggy]

It depends on the app. But iike dawheat I don't think there's anything in it these days.

 

[sgrinavi]

Most of these smart phones go faster than me regardless of OS. I'm the bottle-neck on all three OS's that I have sitting in front of me.

 

[VashHT]

Honestly the differences seem pretty negligent to me nowadays. The moto g is probably a bad comparison to make but my nexus 4 and G2 are quite responsive. I had an iphone 5 and my Nexus 4 for a little while before I sold the iphone, and the difference in responsiveness wasn't enough to make me stick with the iphone.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Actually, the G uses a quad... of slow A7s (Apple needs to stop naming their processors the same as ARM cores). It's literally about the least powerful major-brand phone you can buy in the US.

And doesn't the current Nexus 7 have a pre-"600" quad like the DNA?

Yes, quad A7s. It's a $80 phone with a full HD display, it's still impressive.

Officially Qualcomm labeled it a Snapdragon S4 Pro. However it's not using the same Krait cores than the S4 Pro in the Nexus 4 and other S4 Pros have used. It uses the same Krait 300 cores, same Andreno graphics as the Snapdragon 800. The only difference between the SoC in the Nexus 7 2013 and a regular Snapdragon 600 is that it's clocked at 1.5GHz instead of 1.7GHz. The SoC is much more a S600 than an S4 Pro. But yes, officially S4 Pro is it's name. The Droid DNA has the normal S4 Pro with the older Krait cores, so it's different (but the same in name, confusing I agree).

 

[Bman123]

You have to compare iPhone to nexus to be fair. My wife has a iPhone 5c I have a Lg G2. I put cm11 on my phone because I need to change network settings in certain places, that's the only reason why I put cm11 on it.

With android if you put the animations to 0 everything just snaps and it's extremely smooth.

 

[Willhouse]

As another data point, my household has an HTC One M7 (mine), iPhone 5s (wife's), iPad 2 (kids mainly), and an HP Touchpad with cm11 (mine). I have not noticed consistent input lag on any of them, especially not to the point that one device was noticeably slower. Maybe the OP's fingers move faster than mine.

 

[BD2003]

Honestly the differences seem pretty negligent to me nowadays. The moto g is probably a bad comparison to make but my nexus 4 and G2 are quite responsive. I had an iphone 5 and my Nexus 4 for a little while before I sold the iphone, and the difference in responsiveness wasn't enough to make me stick with the iphone.

I don't see it as a bad comparison, considering older iPhones still have a more responsive UI than current flagship android phones. I wasn't expecting the Moto G to be as fast as the 5S in terms of app launching, web rendering, etc.

I'm def more sensitive to it than most for sure, but it's a total deal breaker for me. It just *feels* so wrong to me.

 

[Exophase]

I question that it's the processor though....my 4S has considerbly less input lag than the moto G. Technically it's the moto G 4G/LTE, with a quad core CPU.

The touch panel and associated circuitry and software plays a role. Here are some measurements:

http://appglimpse.com/blog/touchmarks-i-smart-phone-touch-screen-latencies/
http://appglimpse.com/blog/touchmarks-ii-touchscreen-latencies-in-flagship-tablets/

Apple has taken this seriously and has done what they can to drive down touch latency between iPhone models. The interesting question is, what are they doing to get better results? Is it purely a function of the OS? Or is it a matter of parts selection? And is it possible that Apple is getting special touch controllers that aren't available to anyone else, or is it just that no one else cares?

Personally I don't care mind the touch lag on my Nexus 4 for normal phone stuff, but when it comes to games that rely a lot on touch input (especially emulators w/o an external controller) it's a big problem.

 

[BD2003]

The touch panel and associated circuitry and software plays a role. Here are some measurements:

http://appglimpse.com/blog/touchmarks-i-smart-phone-touch-screen-latencies/
http://appglimpse.com/blog/touchmarks-ii-touchscreen-latencies-in-flagship-tablets/

Apple has taken this seriously and has done what they can to drive down touch latency between iPhone models. The interesting question is, what are they doing to get better results? Is it purely a function of the OS? Or is it a matter of parts selection? And is it possible that Apple is getting special touch controllers that aren't available to anyone else, or is it just that no one else cares?

Personally I don't care mind the touch lag on my Nexus 4 for normal phone stuff, but when it comes to games that rely a lot on touch input (especially emulators w/o an external controller) it's a big problem.

An iphone 4 with an single core cortex A8 based based CPU @ 800mhz is crushing a galaxy s4 with a quad A15 @ 1.6ghz in responsiveness. That's ridiculous and absurd....there's at least an order of magnitude of raw processing power between them.

If that can't bridge the gap, there's something wrong with the OS. IMO responsiveness is far more important on a touch device than any other computing device. Maybe you can get used to it...but I don't want to. What's the point of these mega specs in the flagship phones if they can't even get the basics right?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Been on my OnePlus One for over a month now and the Nexus 5 definitely feels laggier. Significantly. Gonna do a refresh today and install L.

The gap has closed significantly though in the past two years, but its taken a bit longer than I had hoped. I think we just need to step back and admit that Java and Dalvik aren't the most optimal systems to use.

 

[shabby]

An iphone 4 with an single core cortex A8 based based CPU @ 800mhz is crushing a galaxy s4 with a quad A15 @ 1.6ghz in responsiveness. That's ridiculous and absurd....there's at least an order of magnitude of raw processing power between them.

A faster cpu doesn't mean touch input will be any faster, i could of swore i read somewhere where apple has some patents on this and it gives theme a significant advantage.

 

[Exophase]

An iphone 4 with an single core cortex A8 based based CPU @ 800mhz is crushing a galaxy s4 with a quad A15 @ 1.6ghz in responsiveness. That's ridiculous and absurd....there's at least an order of magnitude of raw processing power between them.

If that can't bridge the gap, there's something wrong with the OS. IMO responsiveness is far more important on a touch device than any other computing device. Maybe you can get used to it...but I don't want to. What's the point of these mega specs in the flagship phones if they can't even get the basics right?

You can have the fastest processor in the world, but if your digitizer is slow it's slow. And there are elements of the OS regarding latency that simply won't scale with processor speed, and they're not maxing out four cores trying to bring latency down. I don't know what the touch pipeline looks like end to end, but there could be real tradeoffs for sacrificing latency in places, and not just poor engineering.