Yep. Totally normal. Totes Mcgoats. That's the main reason I sold my GS2 after 3 weeks. I couldn't take the stuttering/sluggishness. Especially from a "high end" smartphone.
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Moving from iOS to Android: Sluggish Apps Normal?
- Thread starter jfrancis04
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Yep. Totally normal. Totes Mcgoats. That's the main reason I sold my GS2 after 3 weeks. I couldn't take the stuttering/sluggishness. Especially from a "high end" smartphone.
Go to developer options (if you are on 4.2 look up how to enable this menu, its on by default in 4.1 and earlier) and enable force gpu acceleration. It makes a ton of third party apps much smoother including facebook and many others who for some dumb reason have chosen not to enable it by default.
This setting honestly should be enabled by default on these super high res 1080p phones. Software rendering just can't keep up with that resolution.
This setting honestly should be enabled by default on these super high res 1080p phones. Software rendering just can't keep up with that resolution.
Slower scrolling speed is not sluggish. It would be sluggish if slow scrolling was choppy and consistently dropping frames. Same with the animations. A slow animation != sluggish animation. By your definition all fast animations are not sluggish. But the problem is an animation can be faster but run at 7fps. Hopefully you see the difference.
While scrolling is faster on my Nexus 4 inside of Chrome, it does not scroll at the same fps compared to my iPhone 4S. This is why iOS devices are constantly seen as smoother.
Thanks for the tip. Does this reduce battery life or anything like that?
Forcing GPU Rendering won't really improve much of your overall experience. You likely won't even notice a difference in speed and fluidity. It takes load off the CPU and has the GPU render all the animations, windows, whatever. Theoretically, battery life should be better but the difference would likely be negligible.
Just tried it out with Facebook and did notice a difference in speed and fluidity...
Its makes a big difference on high resolution devices especially 1080p and 2560x1600 devices like the nexus 10. It even makes a huge difference on 720p phones. Trust me it makes a difference. A great app to test this with is adobe reader. Hopefully more app developers enable it by default as its a single line in the android manifest when compiling an app.
If GPU Rendering really does make that much of a difference for you, great. I enable it on all of my Android devices and I just don't feel like it really makes anything more fluid or faster. Maybe all of my apps are hardware accelerated by default...nah.
What device are you using? Does it have a 1080p screen? Does it have proper gpu drivers. I have noticed some devices have really crappy gpu drivers compared to others. The nexus phones generally have pretty good ones. The galaxy s series as well. Unfortunately ones like the Samsung stratosphere 2 and some others have horrendous ones.
I'm using a Galaxy S4 as my main device currently. Just flashed CM10 yesterday after having used AOKP for a few weeks. I used the stock kernels on both.
My experience has also been excellent. Both with my Nexus 4 and my Galaxy S4. Often threads like this one are created as a place to bash Android. The simple thought of a true iPhone challenger is too much for some iPhone devotees to deal with.
Considering I sold my iPhone 4S because of my Nexus 4, I think of myself as fairly unbias. Afterall, what iPhone fanboy would see their only iPhone for a top of the line Android device straight from Google?
But coming from an iPhone, I am also used to overall fluid operations, making me a little more critical when it comes to frame rates. I love my Nexus 4, but it is just not as smooth as my 4S was.
I don't disagree with your experience & assessment.
However the one differentiating factor is Android optimization. Once one has sufficient knowledge & experience with Android it's possible to compensate for nearly every less than ultra smooth task or operation.
Of even greater importance is the power introduced with this latest round of top of the line handsets like the Galaxy S4. That in combination with Android 4.2.2 makes everything one does on the phone, every bit as smooth and significantly faster than the same operation on an iPhone. I say that not to criticize Apple, but simply sharing the differences.
At the end of the day I still maintain one of Apples biggest oversights was to limit us to such an outdated display size. I'd like nothing better than a 5.0" display so as to have more working room. It's a touch actuated device, why limit the users working room simply because "Apple knows best"? I contend that in this case it's their ego, not their engineers that dictated clinging to such an antiquated size.
while me too am not a fan of 4 inch devices, i think many people who are accustomed to iphones and using them one handed, apple will not want to alienate these folks by introducing a 5 inch device which many people will find difficult for one handed operation and pocketability. majority of iphone people'are set in their ways and i think its impossible to unsettle them
Your point regarding display size is quite accurate. Apple has spent years programming their users to accept whatever Apple says as gospel. By convincing them that one handed operation is of greater importance than any other consideration, Apple has caused it's profit margins to skyrocket. By influencing their user base to brag about Apples wealth as though it was their own is sheer genius on Apples part.
While that may be true, that doesn't show in day to day operation of an Android device compared to an iPhone 5.
Personal experience with my current Smartphones:
1) Galaxy S4
2) HTC One
3) iPhone 5
4) Nexus 4
Reveals all four are very smooth and glitch free. There's virtually no difference other than the S4's superior speed. Each of the Android phones are every bit as fluid and intuitive as the iP5. On a day to day basis I find all four to be enjoyable to use.
YMMV.
I have no problem operating my s4 with one hand (typing this, for instance). A couple signs showing it in a few different hands holding it in a way that actually takes advantage of our fancy jointed fingers (as opposed to the stunted tyrannosaur way they show and demo it now) would solve any lingering questions or concerns.
I think that it is a given that Android is not as smooth as iOS is when you get down to compare the two. But Android has definitely improved on this regard, especially with Jelly Bean and project butter. Also the specs of the high end Android devices help a lot. Overall I don't feel any sluggishness while using my Galaxy S3 or Nexus 7 and find the overall experience quite smooth.
In my experience, if you lock down your android phone so it's doing as little as ios is at any given moment, you get an idea of why android is perceived as slower. Conversely, altering an iphone so it does as many things as an android phone does at a given time, you find that it becomes significantly slower.
It's due to Apple magic that getting frequently dumped to home screen with no messages/warning means that an app is gimpy, but an android port of an ios app or a nobody developer's freshman effort being buggy/slow, having code for things that aren't needed or present on android phones, and force closing means that Android sucks.
It's due to Apple magic that getting frequently dumped to home screen with no messages/warning means that an app is gimpy, but an android port of an ios app or a nobody developer's freshman effort being buggy/slow, having code for things that aren't needed or present on android phones, and force closing means that Android sucks.
I already said Iphone5 on whole is smoother but Android (like S3/4/nexus4) is faster. I dont know your defintion for "sluggish" but to me it equates to speed.
Scrolling/transition on Iphone is like playing a video at normal speed (which is smooth). But it can't go faster than normal speed. Whereas on Android you can pump up the speed to 2x/3x normal speed and just like video playing at 2x/3x speed it can be jerky with dropped frames. But you get to finish watching the video (i.e complete the steps) 2x/3x faster than iphone ==> i.e. iphone is sluggish/slow in this sense.
Many reviews of the GS4 have stated that it can be quite laggy at times thanks to TW. The GS4 Google Play Edition doesn't have that problem. This is a testament to the importance of OS optimization.
Maybe you should re-read my post then. I told you what I consider sluggish to be.
And if an animation is played faster yet with a lower fps, that is sluggish. That is telling you the OS and hardware can't keep up with the animations it wants to do. And if the phone can't keep up with what it is supposed to do, that it sluggish.
Yes, iOS animations are slower. But it has already been shown, on the MR site as well, that there are some hidden options to speed up and slow down animations in iOS 7. And even after adjusting those attributes, you still don't drop frames.
So ultimately, both Android and iOS are capable of faster animations. It is just more prominent on Android. But lower frame rates are also more prominent on Android, making it more sluggish.
To me, fluidity and "sluggishness" are related. The more fluid, the less sluggish. If you watch a video playback at 5 fps, regardless of how fast objects are moving by, it will feel sluggish because the motion is not smooth.
Animation speeds are completely irrelevant.
I don't care (not like some ifans) that much about "smoothness" of UI. I only want the lowest time it takes me from point A to B. I dont want to WASTE TIME to marvel at how "smooth" the (irrelevant) text is slowly moving while scrolling or looking at how nice the slow window transition. That is why Iphone emphasize on dressing at the expense of productivity.
Good for you if you dont care about the fluidity as long as its faster, thats not what the op was asking about.
In a perfect world we would get both, very fast and fluid animations getting us from point a to point b as fast as possible at a consistant smooth framerate.