The ART of KitKat

[Ddyracer]

The pinch to zoom thing is a chrome issue. Prior to 4.4 when the aosp browser had its own rendering engine and didn't use chromes pinching was butter smooth.

nah its in every android app

 

[OhHaiThere]

nah its in every android app

No it's not.. go try Firefox. I was playing with a Kindle Fire HDX (or whatever those things are) and it was on par with Windows & iOS.

I looked into why this was the case a long time ago, but unfortunately I forgot. I think it had something to do with just avoiding legal action from Apple.

 

[Ddyracer]

No it's not.. go try Firefox. I was playing with a Kindle Fire HDX (or whatever those things are) and it was on par with Windows & iOS.

I looked into why this was the case a long time ago, but unfortunately I forgot. I think it had something to do with just avoiding legal action from Apple.

yes firefox is very smooth but thats just one app

 

[OhHaiThere]

yes firefox is very smooth but thats just one app

I just went into my Gallery, no problems there too...

Whatever it is, I'm about 99% sure it's thanks to some patent that Apple or Microsoft hold. When I used the original Surface RT last year their pinch to zoom was PERFECT on incredibly inferior hardware. Google engineers aren't dummies... they could do the same - except they're probably trying to avoid law suits.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/30/3279628/apple-pinch-to-zoom-patent-myth

Besides, this is one of those things that you can definitely see side by side and you can say how terrible it is in Android, but in the grand scheme of things, outside of the "mine is better than yours" debates... it's somewhat irrelevant.

This is just an opinion, but hey if it's that much of a problem, iOS and Windows are available for those who don't like it.

 

[OhHaiThere]

You know what? I was reading the forum on my N5 (posting with it) and it's friggin fast at punching and zooming. There is that slight delay that feels like the page isn't attached to your fingers, but it's like a few millisecond difference and unless I'm trying to recreate this phenomenon it's not a biggie day to day though.

There's no stuttering, dropped frames or perceived lag of any kind though.

I have bigger issues, like where is my damn 4.4.1 update?

 

[OhHaiThere]

Those of you who haven't moved to ART due to Whatapp can breathe a sigh of relief. Looks like Google's latest 4.4.1 patch introduced fixes for ART as well...

The Camera app on the Nexus 5 has sped up considerably post the update.
The low volume output from the Nexus 5 speaker in certain apps has also been fixed.
The haptic feedback has been tweaked on the Nexus 5.
There are some bug-fixes related to ART as well. This allows Whatsapp to work with the ART runtime.
The default email client in Nexus 5 not syncing with an exchange server bug has also been fixed.
Immersive mode breaking while adjusting the volume level bug has been fixed.
The new ‘Photos’ app is now the default Gallery app.
There is a slight improvement in benchmark performance on the Nexus 5.
The transparent status bar sometimes turning opaque issue on the Nexus 5 has also been fixed.
The navigation bar is now transparent on the lock screen in the Nexus 4.
The Settings icon in Quick tiles has also been changed.
The Miracast setting has been renamed to Cast settings.

Source: http://www.androidbeat.com/2013/12/android-4-4-1-features/

 

[Ddyracer]

I just went into my Gallery, no problems there too...

Whatever it is, I'm about 99% sure it's thanks to some patent that Apple or Microsoft hold. When I used the original Surface RT last year their pinch to zoom was PERFECT on incredibly inferior hardware. Google engineers aren't dummies... they could do the same - except they're probably trying to avoid law suits.

I doubt it. I think Google has yet to get around to it. I hope they will eventually. my nexus 7 after the kikat update is better than the day i got it. after one of the updates it was crap but now its great again. 3 more hours of battery life, (around 10) faster with art, a lot lot less freezing and sticky freezes, some crashing but thats due to apps not updated for kitkat and not the gapps which was the case before for months.

 

[cullen43]

Having read all the previous posts, I decided to enable ART on my new Nexus 7 2013.

It was fast and smooth before using ART so I was interested to see what would happen.

Reboot time was about 10 minutes and a few apps were updated on start up. It seems to be faster at starting apps - in that they just appear now. Everything works perfectly, as far as I can tell, though battery usage will not be apparent for a few days obviously.

My thanks to the original poster for bringing this to my attention.

 

[appledes7]

Love ART on my Moto X

Have you noticed battery improvements?

 

[DeathTheKid]

I just heard about ART today. So I switched over from Dalvik. I will definitely say there is a noticeable difference in smoothness. I don't know if it is just placebo, but the difference is most noticeable on Google apps. For examples, when I hit show images at the top of a Gmail message, it goes to "Always Show Images" immediately. It used to take a second or two before it would load the images.

The only app I have noticed that is not working is Kingsoft office. It will just freeze. Not a huge deal since I don't do much document editing on my Nexus 7 anyways. However it would be nice to get that back.

Other than that all my apps work fine, even the apps for rooted devices.

 

[OhHaiThere]

I just heard about ART today. So I switched over from Dalvik. I will definitely say there is a noticeable difference in smoothness. I don't know if it is just placebo, but the difference is most noticeable on Google apps. For examples, when I hit show images at the top of a Gmail message, it goes to "Always Show Images" immediately. It used to take a second or two before it would load the images.

The only app I have noticed that is not working is Kingsoft office. It will just freeze. Not a huge deal since I don't do much document editing on my Nexus 7 anyways. However it would be nice to get that back.

Other than that all my apps work fine, even the apps for rooted devices.

Which version of KitKat? 4.4.2 has updates to fix some apps that didn't work with ART.

 

[cullen43]

I have gone back to Dalvik on my Nexus 7.

While I found a slight improvement in app loading using ART, battery life became terrible and it just wasn't worth continuing.

May try again after the next OS update. I'm on 4.4.2.

 

[nestafaria]

While I found a slight improvement in app loading using ART, battery life became terrible and it just wasn't worth continuing.

Similar experience. Standy time seems to be great. But screen on, actually using it is definitely worse for me.

 

[gotluck]

Weird, I'm very pleased with battery life all around on my GS4 GE 4.4.2 on ART

ART is a milestone for android IMO