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Android Lag - Nonsense or Fact?
- Thread starter mib1800
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Before I came on boards like these I had never heard of lag on a phone never mind notice it, I never bothered about battery life because it lasted all day without me scrutinising and trying to second guess it every other minute, I found apps on whatever store I went to and didn't even know about updates, fragmentation? Never heard or wondered what it was, I just thought my phone was great. Now? I just try to find it's deficiencies.
Come to think of it, my phone of five years ago never had lag, bad battery, had great apps, was updated all the time and was never fragmented and cost me a couple o quid. FFS, its better than the phone I have now.
Come to think of it, my phone of five years ago never had lag, bad battery, had great apps, was updated all the time and was never fragmented and cost me a couple o quid. FFS, its better than the phone I have now.
If the lockdown means a better experience, I'd rather it be locked down. I like the fact I don't have to completely exit from apps to not worry about battery drain or performance hits. When I'm using my iPad or am done with it, I never have to think about the apps that I had opened. On my Nexus 7, I'm constantly going into the switcher and removing apps I'm not using to make sure they won't drain the battery or slow down the device.
I may be in the minority here but I prefer iOS's way of handling multitasking by suspending apps. Makes more sense in the context of a portable device with very limited cpu power and battery life, and push notifications eliminates the need for apps being "live" in the background in almost all cases.
It's rare that I worry about an app. Only one I can think of that I make sure to close out is any torrent app.
None of them comes close to backgrounder in functionality as it worked in iOS 4 and 5 on iPhone 4 AFAIK.
The rest are more like extensions of current multi-tasking paradigm, not a complete override like backgrounder was.
Thought the app switcher just listed last used apps? for me removing from their doesn't affect the app at all, just can't quickly switch back to it, but it is still running
My preference is the Android way, as with iOS I have to constantly remove things from the multitasking tray so I don't get lag/app crashes
These app lags and crashes don't happen with the latest iPhone. If you compare an android phone of the same age to the iPhone 4 and 4S, would it perform any better when updated to the latest android release? If I judged the latest android devices on my luke warm experiences of last year, I think that would be unfair to the present.
That sucks. I just updated my iPad2 to iOS6. I didn't set it up or jailbreak yet. Is backgrounder broken on iOS6 or just the lastest iDevices?
It won't work. I might work on your ipad 2, not sure. But the dev is long gone and not developing it or updating it which means YMMV.
Both function in the same way in that they display apps lasted opened, with one difference. On iOS, the apps are suspended so do not use any CPU at all nor drain the battery (with the exception of certain apps that need to remain "live" like music apps, VOIP apps when being used), while on Android all opened apps continue running in the background.
And you are right that in some cases, on Android, closing out of the app doesn't actually stop it from running. Not all of them do this, but I've noticed that Skype and Facebook don't actually shut down even when you swipe them away. Why this is the case, I don't know... but I find it to be counterintuitive. I do like the swiping gesture to remove the apps in Android (which I also have on iOS thanks to Auxo). Hope this gets implemented in the next iOS.
There is no need to close out any apps in iOS for the sake of performance. The only performance hit you get is when your device runs out of RAM and needs to close out on apps to free up RAM for other apps. You may notice slight lag temporarily until this is completed but that's about it. On older devices with limited RAM though, this may happen too frequently or result in crashes due to RAM not freeing up fast enough due to their slow CPUs so it may be useful to do so, but not necessary on newer devices with A5 chips or better. I've never had to shut down an app on my iPhone 5 nor my iPad mini ever. The process of freeing RAM happens so seamlessly you don't even notice.
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So we should just look at devices released in the last 9 months or so?
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I will admit I only know the basics about how the apps run in the background
From what I can see, yes they do constantly run in the background, but most don't do anything, check in the battery part of settings for an app, the CPU time is usually low
I used the Audible app last night (20 hours ago for me)
If I look at the battery status for the app it has used the CPU for 15 mins
If this is constantly running, would that not be higher?
I agree on your last point about RAM
Both Android and iOS lag, the lag free device is not here yet... Maybe in a year or two? Anyone who said they have a lag free device is full of crap.
I have the S3, recently upgraded to new firmware with Premium Suite and the lag is very minimal. The multi-windows feature is awesome.
I have the S3, recently upgraded to new firmware with Premium Suite and the lag is very minimal. The multi-windows feature is awesome.
The process of automatic closing of apps and freeing up RAM is done by the CPU (as well as the flash storage as it has to write the RAM contents back to storage to save the app's current state), so older devices do tend to bog down or be slow at doing it.
As apps gets more complex today as well, RAM usage tends to be higher and therefore the process takes even longer to complete. That's why you can see apps crash from low RAM on older iPhones because the OS can't clear the RAM fast enough. That's why back when the iPhone 4 came out you never felt the need to close out on apps, but today it's become a necessity.
It's running but just like with computers, if the app isn't doing anything it shouldn't be using any CPU power. When you open up your task manager on your computer, you'll see all the apps running and most are using 0% cpu. That's up to the developer of the app to ensure their app, when idling, isn't using the CPU for nothing. If an app is poorly written though, it may use CPU even when it's not being used due to a runaway process that keeps using CPU for God know's what. By suspending apps when you exit them, you ensure that even in such scenarios such a thing can never happen.
One fundamental difference with Android/iOS when it comes to CPU cycles in the background though is with apps that need to be "always on" such as with messaging and VOIP apps. If I keep running Skype or Whatsapp in the background in iOS, the apps themselves are suspended and push notifications are used to inform of any calls or messages coming in. I can keep them running in the background forever with 0 drain on the battery.
On Android, those apps continue actively running and handle the notifications themselves by remaining connected to their servers. So a slight amount of CPU (and in consequence battery drain) is constantly being used by these apps if left running in the background.
Both Android and iOS lag, the lag free device is not here yet... Maybe in a year or two? Anyone who said they have a lag free device is full of crap.
I have the S3, recently upgraded to new firmware with Premium Suite and the lag is very minimal. The multi-windows feature is awesome.
True, but browsing Safari on iOS on my iPhone 5 is tons smoother than using Chrome on my Nexus 4 or GS3. Granted their are other browsers are smoother than Chrome, such as Opera. But none of them are near as fluid as iOS. It isn't terrible on Android, it's just smoother on iOS.
I agree, the windowed mode is pretty sick.
Both Android and iOS lag, the lag free device is not here yet... Maybe in a year or two? Anyone who said they have a lag free device is full of crap.
Have you tried the HTC One. I have a lag free device here, whether you like to believe it or not, and for the record.. no I'm not full of crap. My bowel movements are very regular thanks for asking.
Thanks for the explanation
I still prefer the way as it is on a computer, if I leave something running then I want it to run, if not I will close it, not a fan of things being suspended even if it saves a bit on battery
Appreciate the response to this though, interesting read
To make a general statement about an OS being laggy and crashing I think so yes. If that is the case now with iOS on later models I think it would be an issue but the problems stated are not an issue on the iPhone 5. If I was to say I don't use Android because it lags, and app crashes are daily, I would be asked what phone I was using, how old it was and so forth. As it happened my HTC was terrible after a couple of updates, and my S3 lagged after a while, but there are many others who haven't encountered this problem. I wouldn't suggest Android is a bad choice because of it.
Not sure what point you are trying to make and why you are getting so defensive
I made a statement that for me iOS lags just as much as Android does
Have you tried the HTC One. I have a lag free device here, whether you like to believe it or not, and for the record.. no I'm not full of crap. My bowel movements are very regular thanks for asking.
LOL.
Wait until you add more apps, push services,... to the phone then we'll see. My phone was very smooth too with a fresh cooked ROM until I restored everything back using Titanium Backup.
Btw, the HTC One is on my wife's wish list.
Hah, you're welcome.
One thing I forgot to add was that the impact on CPU and battery is cumulative with "always on" apps in Android. While having only Skype or Whatsapp running in the background might use only a tiny amount of CPU, imagine having a bunch of them such as Facebook Messenger, Skype, Hangouts, Whatsapp, Viber and a few others, all left running in the background and each of them using a few CPU cycles. The impact on battery and performance becomes a lot more noticeable.
To each their own of course. I prefer not having to worry about it and being forced to micromanage what apps to keep running and which I should close out of to ensure my battery and performance don't take a big hit.
LOL.
Wait until you add more apps, push services,... to the phone then we'll see. My phone was very smooth too with a fresh cooked ROM until I restored everything back using Titanium Backup.
Btw, the HTC One is on my wife's wish list.
But I have 72 apps installed already and with 2 emails on 15 minute fetch and 1 on push ;-) Seriously HTC have done an amazing job optimising Sense 5 and likewise memory management on the device. If it was going to slow down the OS - HTC has seen 'sense' and done away with it on Sense 5. The fact they went back to the drawing board and pretty much redid it all from scratch has paid dividends performance wise.
Something Samsung should have done with Touchwiz on the S4 - I'm sure the Google Edition of the S4 will be very smooth though.
That is fine I was just making the point most of the latest models don't carry the problems you and I have both had in the past with older models.
On that basis Android is not for me because Facebook crashes every second or third time I use it and the phones I have owned shut themselves down at least once a week and lag terribly.
I'll move away now, sorry. I'm getting frustrated with this place and need to find a decent discussion site for the iPhone. I was told one the other day but have forgotten it.