Database Users

The State of Android Apps

When I first got my EVO on launch day a year ago, I fell in love with Android (coming from an iPhone 3GS) and the EVO hardware, but the apps were complete crap; I hoped they'd get better, and to some extent, they have. A very small percentage of the apps do look and work better, but the selection is still really lackluster. The apps still aren't even close to the iOS apps I left over a year ago; they're nothing close in terms of selection or quality when compared.
Troll and flame away! Just kidding. I would actually like to conduct a half-way decent thread about the state of Android apps.

Hrshycro said:
When I first got my EVO on launch day a year ago, I fell in love with Android (coming from an iPhone 3GS) and the EVO hardware, but the apps were complete crap; I hoped they'd get better, and to some extent, they have. A very small percentage of the apps do look and work better, but the selection is still really lackluster. The apps still aren't even close to the iOS apps I left over a year ago; they're nothing close in terms of selection or quality when compared.
Troll and flame away! Just kidding. I would actually like to conduct a half-way decent thread about the state of Android apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my opinion all the apps I used are getting "more professional looking" as time moves on. Certainly since Gingerbread's release.
Are they all up to "iPhone app standards"? No. But they're getting there.

mattykinsx said:
In my opinion all the apps I used are getting "more professional looking" as time moves on. Certainly since Gingerbread's release.
Are they all up to "iPhone app standards"? No. But they're getting there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree...the 5 I use are getting better, but still a good half away from an iOS app. Still, no real selection of 'good' apps. They kind of remind me of Windows apps compared to OS X apps.

Let's keep in mind that the Android Marketplace is a full year or so younger than Apple's app store.
The platform is younger, in terms of public use, and the style is more open ended.
That is positive for some reasons and negative for others.

I can definitely agree with that. While there are certainly some amazing apps (Tasker, looking at you!) they tend to be few and far between. And the inconsistencies can be more than glaring. Even a killer app may have a horrid UI (Tasker, again, looking at you!). I suppose that so long as the job gets done, I can't really complain much.
But that is one thing I can get behind with iOS; the uniformity. Sure, worthless apps exist, but in terms of the look and feel? For the most part it's very consistent. I know that with Android you have so many people that are able to create and release an app, but that also lends to a bunch of half-ass applications that either barely get the job done or just look down right ugly. Or are just completely useless.
The multitude of choice is both good and bad. Even such things as a goofy application icon gets to me. Sure, I change my icons ... but, dayum. That's not even important, it's that it just adds to the madness at times.
There are definitely some amazing applications out there, and over time you find the ones you really need and appreciate, like a decent calendar. But that still requires some hunting and experimenting, which isn't necessarily bad unless you're trying to find a solid app that simply looks and acts the way you want.
I love the Android platform, but this is one of the things that can add to the frustrations of it. It has gotten better, and will get better. Just like Android as a whole.

I think that will change once ice cream sandwich comes out, all of the honeycomb apps have a very consistent and sexy looking UI

psych2l said:
I think that will change once ice cream sandwich comes out, all of the honeycomb apps have a very consistent and sexy looking UI
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed. I'm really banking on this next shift.

mattykinsx said:
Let's keep in mind that the Android Marketplace is a full year or so younger than Apple's app store.
The platform is younger, in terms of public use, and the style is more open ended.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
/\This.
Apple has been around for a fair amount of time now. Android Market is younger, and I think had a somewhat slow start, before taking over the smartphone market, like it has today. I would say, all things considered, it's not half bad, and yes it definitely keeps getting better. Two of my fav apps, Pageonce and PhonemyPC, have gotten exponentially better just in the short time I've been using them.

*edit* sorry this got a little longer than I had planned I got going and couldn't stop till I had made my point which as it turns out is kind of big.
I also love the platform we have BUT iPhone apps have been and will likely always be better. Think of it like art. There are plenty of painters in the world, but most are average. They would all like to hang their pictures in a gallery, but really at best .0001% are good enough to warrant this. The Apple Appstore is like a gallery. It takes only the best looking, best working, most efficient apps and rejects the rest. Therefore when you walk in, you are blown away. All you see is the best.
The Android Market is more like a city wall. Sure you could paint a masterpiece on one, but who'd notice with all the graffiti everywhere? Everyone who can use a paintbrush is painting all over everything and it's a damned clusterf**k. Just finding the good paintings is luck at best, and there is almost no incentive to paint a masterpiece there for just that reason.
The best Devs develop for iPhones. They prefer the walled garden because it helps keep their app from getting lost in the shuffle(tho the average devs hate it because it keeps rejecting their poorly coded barely functional apps). Also Devs love that when making an iPhone app, you know exactly what type of OS and Phone it will run on. There's only one iPhone. There's only one iOS. There are thousands of android phones, some with keyboards, some with touch-screens, some with Android 2.3, some with 2.3, some with 2.1, plenty with even older versions, some with one resolution, some with other resolutions, some with 3g some with 4g, some without either even. Some are smart phones some are *dumb* phones. Some are flip phones some are sliders. Some have touchwiz some have Sense. Some have Motoblur. Some have...well you get where I'm going with this.
Historically, if you look at apps for Mac computers, while few in number compared to PC apps, they were usually superior and more user friendly. And more polished. The apple and android phone conflict is not a new war, it's a mobile version of the same war that has raged since the early 80s:
On one side there is Apple, saying that "this is our Hardware and this is our OS. You can use it if you but you can't change it. Can't put it on your hardware. You can't put your own spin on it. Our stuff will "just work" because from a Devs standpoint, all variables are known, and we don't allow them access to anything important enough to make your phone stop working at any rate."
On the other side there is Android(taking the place of windows). They say "Here is our software, we don't make hardware so knock yourselves out. Make phones form $50 to $700 dollars for all we care. Also we don't mind if you change our code and make our OS your own. But beware because there will be billions of possible hardware/software combinations due to this and the truly best Devs will just make apps for Mac because it's easier by far. And those Devs who brave our water will produce apps which are buggy and largely untested on most devices... but we will allow them to do many times more with those apps than the simple, easy to use Mac software."
So in the end it will come down to exactly the same argument as had been used for the PC/MAC war for decades. If all you need to do is basic things(email phone calls texts etc) get an iphone(A Mac). If you want to be able to do more but at the expense of user-friendliness and stability, get a android(PC)."
I like to tinker, I use Android. Would NEVER get my girlfriend an android phone tho if she wanted a smartphone. Like ever. Or my parents. Or my daughter.
When all is said and done, Android will win the war for Quantity. There will be far more Android phones and apps. The cell providers love android. And due to the multiple price points and variable there is one for everybody.
But just like in the PC/Mac wars, the iPhone will still have a place. And it's apps will likely always be a cut above.

samsung galaxy 10.1 major disappointment

I have owned the samsung galaxy 10.1 for approx 2 weeks. I sold my IPAD 2 to purchase as I have always been a fan of android phones. So far, I find the galaxy to be very unpolished. For example, the screens lag when navigating and apps force close to much. When I scroll up and down on the UI, its not smooth as butter like the IPAD. When I change the screen orientation, its very choppy. The IPAD runs circles around this device. I wish it wasnt the case as I wanted to like it. Even the on screen keyboard is hard to type on. Try copying and pasting a sentence. The arrows you use to drag across the words never line up with what is being clicked. I am not sure how anybody finds this device to be a pleasant experience unless you are in denial and I am not talking about the river. Maybe Ice Cream will fix some of the issues. For now, the tablet serves as a perfect example of what happens when technology is rushed to the market without consideration of quality.
I feel better now.
Lance

Take the time to tweak your device with everything available on these forums, it becomes an entirely different device.
Sent from my Samsung Fascinate

lancer123 said:
I have owned the samsung galaxy 10.1 for approx 2 weeks. I sold my IPAD 2 to purchase as I have always been a fan of android phones. So far, I find the galaxy to be very unpolished. For example, the screens lag when navigating and apps force close to much. When I scroll up and down on the UI, its not smooth as butter like the IPAD. When I change the screen orientation, its very choppy. The IPAD runs circles around this device. I wish it wasnt the case as I wanted to like it. Even the on screen keyboard is hard to type on. Try copying and pasting a sentence. The arrows you use to drag across the words never line up with what is being clicked. I am not sure how anybody finds this device to be a pleasant experience unless you are in denial and I am not talking about the river. Maybe Ice Cream will fix some of the issues. For now, the tablet serves as a perfect example of what happens when technology is rushed to the market without consideration of quality.
I feel better now.
Lance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure if you are trolling here, but eh, I'm bored so I'll bite.
Those of us who find the Tab to be a pleasant experience must be in denial huh? Don't you think that's a pretty presumptuous and arrogant statement? How do you know what my experience with it has been? Or anyone else's for that matter?
I would usually sit here and try to help you solve your lagginess issue, maybe seeing if you have some sort of rouge process going on or if you are even on the latest firmware. Maybe point you to some of the great custom ROMs the developers here have given us. But, nope. You speak for everyone and everyone must be having the same ****ty experience as you, and if we say we don't we must be lying.
I will tell you though that my experience has been fantastic. The only time I get lag on the homescreen is when I have a live wallpaper up. I've never had any browser lag or lag anywhere else. I have a ton of widgets on my screens too. No lag. Of course though I'm totally lying, but you knew that already right?
I'm finished being sarcastic. Honestly if you aren't happy with the device, go sell it and get an Ipad again. Nobody is stopping you. The Tab is a fantastic product and I would go so far as to say it is the best tablet on the market as of this very moment. But it is not for everybody, especially for people who have no idea what they are doing.
Posting threads like this serves no purpose other than being a troll and drawing the ire of members like myself.

lancer123 said:
I have owned the samsung galaxy 10.1 for approx 2 weeks. I sold my IPAD 2 to purchase as I have always been a fan of android phones. So far, I find the galaxy to be very unpolished. For example, the screens lag when navigating and apps force close to much. When I scroll up and down on the UI, its not smooth as butter like the IPAD. When I change the screen orientation, its very choppy. The IPAD runs circles around this device. I wish it wasnt the case as I wanted to like it. Even the on screen keyboard is hard to type on. Try copying and pasting a sentence. The arrows you use to drag across the words never line up with what is being clicked. I am not sure how anybody finds this device to be a pleasant experience unless you are in denial and I am not talking about the river. Maybe Ice Cream will fix some of the issues. For now, the tablet serves as a perfect example of what happens when technology is rushed to the market without consideration of quality.
I feel better now.
Lance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bought mine a couple weeks back too, and my experiences are similar to yours. I still can't understand how a dual core device can be this laggy! I'm hoping its all due to the Samsung bloatware, so I'm going to load up a custom ROM over the weekend and see how that goes... you should try it too
I really like the additional screen space coming from a 4.2" Xperia Arc, and Honeycomb is a lot zippier now than it was back in April when I had the Xoom for a couple of weeks. I still believe its a better tablet than the iPad2 though. That thing seems so zippy because all it is is a magnified iPhone. There's almost nothing running in the background which gives it the appearance of being a lot quicker and better battery life. Load it up with widgets and lets compare them then.
My biggest problem though, is the lack of a good pdf app. I've tried tons of them and they are all really slow to load, very jerky pinch to zoom, and slow scrolling. Hope this improves with ICS
And to the poster above this, I don't get why you even bothered posting if you're going to be so incredibly unhelpful

lancer123 said:
I have owned the samsung galaxy 10.1 for approx 2 weeks... I am not sure how anybody finds this device to be a pleasant experience...
I feel better now.
Lance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lance,
I have watched my brother in law's ipad closely, and you are right. It is faster and more responsive (once tweaked) than my SGT was out of the box. However, the others are right too.
I have rooted and tweaked my SGT and it now makes my ios friends raise their eyebrows. You happily partied all over your ipad, making many changes suggested on user sites like this one. Now you need to do the same with your SGT. If you are unable or unwilling to do that, you are not an idiot or a molester of small animals, you are just one of those people that the ipad was designed for. So get another one, and enjoy it.
I prefer my Android gadgets, because they are more flexible. I am not locked into iTunes, and I have access to my 650GB music library that is not as compressed as AAC. I have a FREE SDK that works rather well, when i want to write my own apps. There are a few paid apps that I depend upon for day to day stuff, just like I would for iOs devices. For me, and many of the others in this form, that is what they want.
Sent from a distant planet with the aid of my towel.

lancer123 said:
I have owned the samsung galaxy 10.1 for approx 2 weeks. I sold my IPAD 2 to purchase as I have always been a fan of android phones. So far, I find the galaxy to be very unpolished. For example, the screens lag when navigating and apps force close to much. When I scroll up and down on the UI, its not smooth as butter like the IPAD. When I change the screen orientation, its very choppy. The IPAD runs circles around this device. I wish it wasnt the case as I wanted to like it. Even the on screen keyboard is hard to type on. Try copying and pasting a sentence. The arrows you use to drag across the words never line up with what is being clicked. I am not sure how anybody finds this device to be a pleasant experience unless you are in denial and I am not talking about the river. Maybe Ice Cream will fix some of the issues. For now, the tablet serves as a perfect example of what happens when technology is rushed to the market without consideration of quality.
I feel better now.
Lance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand how you feel, and I felt the same way when I first handled the SGT 8.9 the UI lag was horrendous .. I felt the product manager of the device should be sacked (or worse done to him) for ever allowing such a device out the door in such state. To make matters worse for me, there was an ipad close by and the UI flow was like watching man utd beat arsenal 8-2 .. I promptly returned the device.
However my opinion has since change since coming here lots of people have filled me in with some tweaks and work around which resolves most of the laggy issue. (You can check out the SGT 8.9 Q & A section its a sticky under this section for people experience with the device)
First of if you can't be bothered to root your device, try the ADW launcher ex, everyone who tried that said its greatly improves the performance and eliminates the lag issue.
You can also if you are feeling adventurous root the device. And install some of the numerous roms around.
just try and take advantage of the open nature and make it yours. Soon ipad owners would be looking at your tab and feeling the envy.
Just my 2 cents
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Please go get your ipad back dude. I have none of the issues you speak of. This thread is a total waste. I don't even believe you own a tab.

By saying "you like Android phones" I'm assuming you mean in comparison to the iPhone. Most of the same issues you’re experiencing in an Android vs. iPad tablet comparison apply to a phone comparison also so your statement's kind of confusing.
iOS is so "buttery smooth" because it's locked down like a prison with Apple exerting Orwellian control over the entire eco-system. I bought my G-Tab and paid more than an equivalent iPad because, for what I do, the collection of individual apps works better than the homogenous equivalents on the iPad. And I did that knowing the iPad had a better display and that the UI and navigation were smoother and more mature.
This forum is fascinating because of the disparity in experiences everyone has. I've had two G-Tab's (Wi-Fi and 3G) and never had a force close on either and I have over 50 apps installed. There's occasional stutter and lagginess but I'd say it appears (for me) less than 5% of the time. One huge difference between iOS and Android is that Android, with its limitless ability to be tweaked, can get hosed by people using badly written apps and the use of memory managers, task killers, battery monitors and the like. Every XDA forum I participate in has people *****ing about some function being hosed and then go on to elaborate about all the crap they've done to their device and ****ty low-rent apps they're using. And they don’t understand why their phone’s getting crappy battery life and has tons of issues no one else seems to be experiencing. I guess freedom comes at a price and it can be abused.
I've had a G-Tab in one form or another since August and have been really satisfied with it. I took my new 3G version on a trip over the weekend and it performed flawlessly and got fantastic battery life with 3G active continuously and download speeds of 8MB in TX (vs. less than 1MB for an iPad). I sat across from someone using an iPad on the flight home last night. The local video he was playing was gorgeous. Compared to mine, his WSJ app looked like crap as did Solitaire and a bunch of other stuff I saw him use. Meanwhile, I was streaming Hulu, HBOGO, and TV shows from my home server using the planes Wi-Fi. I can also play music I have stored on my home server, the Amazon cloud, or from the 2K songs I store locally using my $9.99 Rhapsody monthly subscription. All while reading magazines and newspapers using Next Issue and Press Reader. I’d gladly trade options and versatility for “buttery smooth” any day. iOS is great for a subset of device owners because of its constraints and consistency. But those restrictions are why I chose Android. Android can become smoother through s/w and h/w evolution but iOS will never become more open. Hopefully OP bought his G-Tab somewhere with a liberal return policy so he can return it.

BarryH_GEG said:
By saying "you like Android phones" I'm assuming you mean in comparison to the iPhone. Most of the same issues you’re experiencing in an Android vs. iPad tablet comparison apply to a phone comparison also so your statement's kind of confusing.
iOS is so "buttery smooth" because it's locked down like a prison with Apple exerting Orwellian control over the entire eco-system. I bought my G-Tab and paid more than an equivalent iPad because, for what I do, the collection of individual apps works better than the homogenous equivalents on the iPad. And I did that knowing the iPad had a better display and that the UI and navigation were smoother and more mature.
This forum is fascinating because of the disparity in experiences everyone has. I've had two G-Tab's (Wi-Fi and 3G) and never had a force close on either and I have over 50 apps installed. There's occasional stutter and lagginess but I'd say it appears (for me) less than 5% of the time. One huge difference between iOS and Android is that Android, with its limitless ability to be tweaked, can get hosed by people using badly written apps and the use of memory managers, task killers, battery monitors and the like. Every XDA forum I participate in has people *****ing about some function being hosed and then go on to elaborate about all the crap they've done to their device and ****ty low-rent apps they're using. And they don’t understand why their phone’s getting crappy battery life and has tons of issues no one else seems to be experiencing. I guess freedom comes at a price and it can be abused.
I've had a G-Tab in one form or another since August and have been really satisfied with it. I took my new 3G version on a trip over the weekend and it performed flawlessly and got fantastic battery life with 3G active continuously and download speeds of 8MB in TX (vs. less than 1MB for an iPad). I sat across from someone using an iPad on the flight home last night. The local video he was playing was gorgeous. Compared to mine, his WSJ app looked like crap as did Solitaire and a bunch of other stuff I saw him use. Meanwhile, I was streaming Hulu, HBOGO, and TV shows from my home server using the planes Wi-Fi. I can also play music I have stored on my home server, the Amazon cloud, or from the 2K songs I store locally using my $9.99 Rhapsody monthly subscription. All while reading magazines and newspapers using Next Issue and Press Reader. I’d gladly trade options and versatility for “buttery smooth” any day. iOS is great for a subset of device owners because of its constraints and consistency. But those restrictions are why I chose Android. Android can become smoother through s/w and h/w evolution but iOS will never become more open. Hopefully OP bought his G-Tab somewhere with a liberal return policy so he can return it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The stuff you speak of is why I have ran Linux exclusively on my PC for close to 5 years now. Yet I think the OP has a point and was just letting out steam. I too was extremely disappointed when I handled the galaxy tab (in my case it was the 8.9) right from boot the experience was horrendous and the UI lagged SOO much it was embarrassing. This first impression was a real turn off for me and I can understand the feeling of someone who gets a device with such awesome hardware only be bugged down with software. Sure you can always improve with tweaks and mods but if android is ever gonna replicate its success on mobile on tablets. Then the out of the box experience most be killer. Having and awesome out of the box experience and ability to further tweak should not be mutually exclusive. The experience I got on my galaxy s2 even with default rom was exquisite. Just breath taking. Even without Modding or installing a custom rom. That's what I expected from honeycomb. Hopefully most of this out of the box issues would be fixed with honeycomb 3.2 and ICS.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

I must agree with OP. Its a f****g ambaresment how a product can be released in the state it was when it was in the box. Now after tweaking and rooting and flashing and using it for a couple of months its useable. But it still lags, not all the time , but try installing something form market and then go to homescreen, right then its laggy as hell.
But we all know this by now, so i agree with the rest of you that we have no need for this thread. And if OP just read a little before buying he would have found this info about the tab. Anyways welcome hope you get your tab sorted.

nickwarn said:
I must agree with OP. Its a f****g ambaresment how a product can be released in the state it was when it was in the box. Now after tweaking and rooting and flashing and using it for a couple of months its useable. But it still lags, not all the time , but try installing something form market and then go to homescreen, right then its laggy as hell.
But we all know this by now, so i agree with the rest of you that we have no need for this thread. And if OP just read a little before buying he would have found this info about the tab. Anyways welcome hope you get your tab sorted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same experience here.... I've even rooted my tab and it did improve but not as much as I would of liked, this was a month ago though, so i don't know if anything better has comed out. I've thought about getting an iPad but..... I just can't if it can't play flash.... How the hell could you own a tablet and not watch a simple flash video. So if anyone can give me advice on how to make my 10.1 as smooth as some of you have said, then please do tell me how. I love my Gtab but the lag does really bother me enough to have had to remove all my widgets....
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App

shoo troll.

Klk450 said:
Same experience here.... I've even rooted my tab and it did improve but not as much as I would of liked, this was a month ago though, so i don't know if anything better has comed out. I've thought about getting an iPad but..... I just can't if it can't play flash.... How the hell could you own a tablet and not watch a simple flash video. So if anyone can give me advice on how to make my 10.1 as smooth as some of you have said, then please do tell me how. I love my Gtab but the lag does really bother me enough to have had to remove all my widgets....
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Root your tab is only the first step. You need to flash custom rom after you root your tab, then only you can feel the difference.
I just got my tab last week, wifi only version. I can say I'm really satisfied with the performance and I love my tab. The basic steps are:
1. root your tab
2. flash custom rom
That's all you need to do to feel the difference. You can ignore some of the gimmicks, for instance supercharger, overclock kernel and etc that have been mentioned if you have no freaking idea what they are about at the moment. You will pick them up along the way just like I did.
The one tip that everyone here would tell you - READ THE FORUM!
For instance, the first sticky post in the Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android Development is a good read and good resource to get you started. Here's the link if you have no idea where it is (Seriously?): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1171089

lancer123 said:
I have owned the samsung galaxy 10.1 for approx 2 weeks. I sold my IPAD 2 to purchase as I have always been a fan of android phones. So far, I find the galaxy to be very unpolished. For example, the screens lag when navigating and apps force close to much. When I scroll up and down on the UI, its not smooth as butter like the IPAD. When I change the screen orientation, its very choppy. The IPAD runs circles around this device. I wish it wasnt the case as I wanted to like it. Even the on screen keyboard is hard to type on. Try copying and pasting a sentence. The arrows you use to drag across the words never line up with what is being clicked. I am not sure how anybody finds this device to be a pleasant experience unless you are in denial and I am not talking about the river. Maybe Ice Cream will fix some of the issues. For now, the tablet serves as a perfect example of what happens when technology is rushed to the market without consideration of quality.
I feel better now.
Lance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you on most counts, except that I don't have any issues with the onscreen keyboard and don't get force closes. There are some things you can do to improve the user experience (alternate launchers, overclocking etc), however it still won't feel like the iPad.
That being said, there are things you can do with the tablet out of the box which you can't do with an iPad:
- Adobe Flash support
- Emulation apps availability (SNES, DOS, Scumm)
- File / Directory browsing
- UI customization
- Non-market / store applications installation
While I would love the overall UI performance to be on par with the iPad, given a choice between the two I would rather have the above functionality instead. There is also the possibility of Android's UI performance improving in the future with all this functionality retained. In case of Apple, apart from limited UI customization perhaps, the other stuff is just not going to be available ever.
PS: And all that's just out of the box, if you root your device there's some far more interesting stuff you can do with the tablet!
---------- Post added at 01:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:57 PM ----------
pngface said:
My biggest problem though, is the lack of a good pdf app. I've tried tons of them and they are all really slow to load, very jerky pinch to zoom, and slow scrolling. Hope this improves with ICS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have probably tried it already, but EZ PDF is pretty good. I am comparing it to GoodReader on the iPad and I don't have any issues with loading / scrolling / flipping / resizing.
Of course, this maybe dependent on the size and content of the PDFs you are using, so YMMV -- I mostly read book-sized documents, mostly text, and it works fine for me.

I recently bought a GalaxyTab and I have to confirm, it is quite laggy - In comparison to an iPad.
There are several things which can drastically improve the situation:
Use ADW Launcher EX
Custom ROM, Like Task650/Phantom Extreme Stock
Overclock (although, this didn't change a lot)
I found that the first two points are the most important. ADW Launcher makes the whole Homescreen and Applauncher absolutely smooth, just like on an iPad. And no, the stock launcher isn't.
It's great how many possibilites we have with Android, but be honest - I'd rather have ICS without any new features, but just great performance increases. Thats why I switched to Windows Phone in the first place - I don't want apple, but I want smooth scrolling, smooth transitions. And now, just because Android has much more possibilites doesn't mean it has the right to be slow and choppy. Take a look at the Windows 8 Developer Preview. My god, this isn't even an ALPHA and boy it's SO SMOOTH, I cried almost when I saw that.
The only reason I bought my Galaxy Tab is, that Microsoft still needs about a year until their first tablets are out - And I hate waiting
So please Google, get your Team together and tell them to START OPTIMIZING.
PS:
ezPDF is quite good - But the UI is horrible, and I miss the feature to insert Pages into a PDF. Mandano seems a lot more polished and faster, but misses a lot of annotation features.

I agree with the original poster. My tab is rooted, custom rom, adw, etc. My wife's ipad is a far smoother experience than this tablet. Would I switch back to the ipad prison? Not in a million years. My tablet does so much more than the ipad. If an example is needed, how about my choice of swype or thumb keyboard.

root your tab and wait for an ICS port... ICS is said to have hardware acceleration. That is the only thing Honeycomb lacks and that is why its not as smooth as the iPad...
OR
Flash a custom ROM such as Overcome 1.2.1 (didnt like 1.2.2 or 1.2.3) or w/e other one suits you and then come back edit the OP with the overall news... don't judge this book by its cover and remember its NOT iOS

A newbie when rooting is involved but i was wondering if you could give me an idea of what tweaks you have made? i'm considering rooting my device but unsure of what i could do to make it better.

Cpt Streamline said:
A newbie when rooting is involved but i was wondering if you could give me an idea of what tweaks you have made? i'm considering rooting my device but unsure of what i could do to make it better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flashing a custom ROM is the big one, will make a huge difference. I am using Task650 & Phantom's "In Paris V4". I also installed pershoot's kernel and overclocked.

The experience
I love my Galaxy Tab in comparison to my previously owned iPad but the reason is simply because I like playing with roms and hacking to get the most of my device. On my iPad, I felt too restricted and forced to use software I didn't like. Yes, some of the apps are better on the iPad and yes, the interface is a bit smoother but it's nowhere near as attractive and it's far too limiting.
A friend of mine equated the iPad experience with being put in a padded room where he can't hurt himself and everything if fluffy and safe feeling. It made me laugh but somewhat sums up the experience. Personally, I'd rather not be spoon fed the experience but would rather create my own and make it about me.
My hope is that ICS will be a significant jump. realistically, Android tablet manufacturers should be trolling these forums for employees who can tweak up their software.. Why they don't do this, one will never know.
Either way, I don't think attacks on the Op are warranted. These forums are here for people to both vent and discuss like the adults we are.

Former Google intern explains why UI lag occurs more often in Android than iOS

A former intern for Google's Android team has provided explanations for why Android experiences more touch interface lag than competing mobile operating systems from Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion.
Undergraduate software engineering student Andrew Munn posted his observations on Google+, as noted by Cult of Mac. He did disclaim, however, that he will be starting an internship with Microsoft's Windows Phone team in January, adding that any opinions from the report were his alone.
According to Munn, Android has a difficult time dealing with the touch interface because it handles rendering "on the main thread with normal priority," as opposed to iOS, which treats UI rendering with real-time priority. He cites examples of website loading and the Movies app on Android where the operating system will continue to load while registering touch input.
Munn identified several other factors that contribute to UI lag on Android. For instance, the photo gallery app in either Android 3.0 Honeycomb or 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is capped at 30 frames per second in order to prevent a noticeable "hiccup" at 60 FPS.
"Capping the frame rate at 30 fixes the hiccup problem at the expense of buttery smooth animations at all times," he said.
The author also pointed to hardware issues for Android. According to him, Nvidia's Tegra 2 chip limits Android because of its low memory bandwidth and lack of NEON instruction set support. Tablets based on Honeycomb would be "better off with a different GPU," such as the Samsung Hummingbird or Apple A4.
Munn noted that Android "has a ways to go" before achieving more efficient UI compositing, especially when compared against Apple's iOS.
"On iOS, each UI view is rendered separately and stored in memory, so many animations only require the GPU to recomposite UI views," he said. "GPUs are extremely good at this. Unfortunately, on Android, the UI hierarchy is flattened before rendering, so animations require every animating section of the screen to be redrawn."
Another reason for the lag is the limitations of Android's Dalvik virtual machine, which is "not as mature" as a desktop-class Java VM, Munn said. However, the issue with Dalvik will be offset by hardware acceleration from Ice Cream Sandwich on and improvements to Dalvik.
But, in spite of the improvements, Munn believes the Android user interface "will never be completely smooth because of the design constraints" that limit UI rendering to the main thread of an app with normal priority.
"Even with a Galaxy Nexus, or the quad-core EeePad Transformer Prime, there is no way to guarantee a smooth frame rate if these two design constraints remain true," he said. "It’s telling that it takes the power of a Galaxy Nexus to approach the smoothness of a three year old iPhone."
According to Munn, the reason behind the design change is that the original Android prototype didn't have a touchscreen, as it was meant to be a BlackBerry competitor. As such, Android's architecture is meant to support a keyboard and trackball. Munn further claimed that after the original iPhone arrived in 2007, Google rushed to complete Android, but "it was too late to rewrite the UI framework."
He cited Windows Mobile 6.5, BlackBerry OS and Symbian as examples of other older operating systems that suffered similar problems with touch performance. Microsoft, RIM and Nokia have all abandoned those OSes in order to start from scratch. "Android is the only mobile OS left that existed pre-iPhone," the report noted.
Android Software Engineer Romain Guy admitted as much when he said that choices made years ago had contributed to work the team has to do now.
"Having the UI thread handle animations is the biggest problem," he said. "We are working on other solutions to try to improve this (schedule drawing on vsync instead of block on vsync after drawing, possible use a separate rendering thread, etc.) An easy solution would of course to create a new UI toolkit but there are many downsides to this also.”
According to the report, those downsides include the fact that apps would have to be rewritten to support the new framework, Android would need legacy support for old apps and work on other Android features would be held up while the new framework was being built.
"However, I believe the rewrite must happen, despite the downsides. As an aspiring product manager, I find Android’s lagginess absolutely unacceptable. It should be priority #1 for the Android team," Munn said.
UI Lag has long been an area for which reviewers have criticized Android. One recent usability study by Jakob Nielsen on Amazon's Android-based Kindle Fire found erratic scrolling and "huge lag in response after pressing command-buttons." Nielsen suspected that "sloppy programming" was causing the issue.
The New York Times' David Pogue also took issue with the Kindle Fire. "Animations are sluggish and jerky -- even the page turns that you'd think would be the pride of the Kindle team," he said in his review. "Taps sometimes don't register. There are no progress or 'wait' indicators, so you frequently don't know if the machine has even registered your touch commands. The momentum of the animations hasn't been calculated right, so the whole thing feels ornery."
Munn himself viewed the issue as damaging to Android's image. He also saw it as a violation of Google's guiding principles, which have generally led to faster, optimized products. Finally, he mentioned that UI lag breaks the direct 1-to-1 relationship that touch screens offer.
"The device no longer feels natural. It loses the magic. The user is pulled out of their interaction and must implicitly acknowledge they are using an imperfect computer simulation. I often get “lost” in an iPad, but I cringe when a Xoom stutters between home screens," he said.
To conclude, the report ended on a more upbeat note, with Munn voicing his belief that the Android rendering framework is in the hands of a capable team. "I know they will have it eventually," he said.
___________________________________________________________________
I`m sorry o hear this .. so is there any chances that google make android on same structure as ios?
I know IOS is for only Apple devices, and because of that is feeling so smoth .. but how windows (computer windows) can be smoth for all computer configurations? and Android can`t, even quad core can`t stable android ....

This article makes me think. Let`s hope that there will be future improvement on how Google will write it`s UI code. I mean, it`s sad to have an SGS2 or an quad-core powered phone/tablet and a OS to hold back it`s power.

And more or less in reply to this came a post by Dianne Hackborn, who is part of the Android development team, explaining why most of this was either irrelevant or wrong.
https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/XAZ4CeVP6DC
Still, plenty of questions of course.

I heard that android was made for phones with buttons and because of this we have all problems ...

No way this is true.
Nope, the system is power smooth and no lag whatsoever. Nada.
The truth is IQ restricted to a few in Android. Be happy with what you got. All the user posted issues are IDIOT related, as a senior member reminded me.
/sarcasm off
Dalvik VM limitations were known and were a set back from the beginning (just like fat32). Nevertheless, they ''fixed it'' somehow, this is why Oracle is giving hard time to Google.
I can't say WP7/BBoS is smoother/better when compared to SGS2 GB...but both OS's are smoother when compared to appropriate hardware.

Student i see well that's not somebody that knows what they are talking about is it .
jje

This is false because thread priority can be assigned by the OS or even the software (in certain cases). The reason why the web browser in the iPhone is more responsive than in Android is as follows.
On the iPhone, the web browser is rendered with a tiling method, What this means is that the only things drawn in high quality are the "tile" that you see (everything on screen) as well as the immediately touching tiles. Ever notice that when you pan/scroll on iOS, it seems to only leap one page, similar to Page Down on your PC? This gives the browser time to dump tiles that are no longer adjacent while rendering the newly adjacent tiles in higher quality.
On Android, the entire page is rendered in the same quality. This is more work, so scrolling/panning/zooming fluidity suffers. This allows for a consistent but not as smooth approach. It also means that you can flick-scroll indefinitely.
On the SGS2, Samsung tried to implement the tiling approach but left in the Android scrolling limitations. This means that you can sometimes scroll faster than the page can keep up, causing a checkerboard affect (this is what Apple is hiding with their method).
On the ICS browser, Google also adopted the tiling method (finally), and managed to disguise the checkerboard affect by covering it with the webpage's default background color. The "checkerboard" is still there, but you never see or notice it. Anyway, I did a writeup with videos to illustrate this. Unfortunately, most idiots are taking the videos as fanboy fodder. They seem to think that the point was to show off how much better phone X is than phone Y, rather than to show the differences in approaches. The RAZR/Rezound will have these enhancements with their 4.x update.
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67100

Yep, pretty much accurate info here but this is only regarding browser smoothness. Responsiveness is another issue android seems to have. When you scroll in iOS the contents are almost always directly below your finger, not "lagging" behind your swipes trying to catch up as you normally see in Android. I'm no expert so I have no idea what the cause of this is.
jaykresge said:
This is false because thread priority can be
assigned by the OS or even the software (in certain cases). The reason why the web browser in the iPhone is more responsive than in Android is as follows.
On the iPhone, the web browser is rendered with a tiling method, What this means is that the only things drawn in high quality are the "tile" that you see (everything on screen) as well as the immediately touching tiles. Ever notice that when you pan/scroll on iOS, it seems to only leap one page, similar to Page Down on your PC? This gives the browser time to dump tiles that are no longer adjacent while rendering the newly adjacent tiles in higher quality.
On Android, the entire page is rendered in the same quality. This is more work, so scrolling/panning/zooming fluidity suffers. This allows for a consistent but not as smooth approach. It also means that you can flick-scroll indefinitely.
On the SGS2, Samsung tried to implement the tiling approach but left in the Android scrolling limitations. This means that you can sometimes scroll faster than the page can keep up, causing a checkerboard affect (this is what Apple is hiding with their method).
On the ICS browser, Google also adopted the tiling method (finally), and managed to disguise the checkerboard affect by covering it with the webpage's default background color. The "checkerboard" is still there, but you never see or notice it. Anyway, I did a writeup with videos to illustrate this. Unfortunately, most idiots are taking the videos as fanboy fodder. They seem to think that the point was to show off how much better phone X is than phone Y, rather than to show the differences in approaches. The RAZR/Rezound will have these enhancements with their 4.x update.
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67100
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

dinan said:
Yep, pretty much accurate info here but this is only regarding browser smoothness. Responsiveness is another issue android seems to have. When you scroll in iOS the contents are almost always directly below your finger, not "lagging" behind your swipes trying to catch up as you normally see in Android. I'm no expert so I have no idea what the cause of this is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depends on the device. This was absolutely true of my HTC Incredible on Android 2.1. With 2.2/2.3 and bloatware removed, the UI outside of the browser is more responsive than my wife's old iPhone 4, but a hair behind her new 4s (The 4 slowed down with iOS 5 due to the new notification shade). This goes back to a previous post I made in another thread where the iPhone's entire UI is GPU accelerated due to not having high requirements. Android's UI is more complex which causes OEMs to decide which elements are accelerated and which are not. In most newer phones the notification shade is always accelerated, the wallpaper is not, but the homescreens are to varying degrees. There is a fill-rate budget and the OEM has to decide what is accelerated and what isn't within this budget.
A prime example is the Nexus S vs. the Galaxy Nexus. While both use the SGX540 GPU, the Galaxy Nexus version is clocked higher and has MUCH higher performance. As such, the entire Galaxy Nexus UI is accelerated. However, for the Nexus S ICS build, only certain parts of the UI are accelerated. Google has gone on record as saying that this is due to hardware limitations.
I'd be willing to bet that this is why the Nexus One isn't getting ICS. The Adreno 200 GPU was subpar even when it came out. With the new overlays in ICS, the UI in the N1 would become laggier rather than smoother, as with previous releases. Google may have felt that the user experience of GB on the N1 is superior to that of ICS due to the new features. Even budget phones today using scaled down Snapdragon S2s or the older OMAP4 have a better GPU than what the N1 had.

sounds like a disgruntled employee speaking half truths.

Guess this guy never tried an sgs2. No lag whatsoever!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Pretty much spot on. You cnt disagree that ios is muuuuuch smoother than android and that it does lag at times. Student nailed it in my opinion. Well written. Ive always said it has a long way to go and quad core wont b much differnt to dual core phones. When i used a iphone 4s for a while.... it blew me away how slick it was. Future versions will hopefully only get better. But iphone cnt match android open source fun lol. .
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

Fizzerr said:
Guess this guy never tried an sgs2. No lag whatsoever!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since when u have your s2? Cuz on my s2.. I get lag.. and you know when? UI. When unlocking.. when i close an app it takes some time to get to UI...and so on. And I am on stock firmware.

Cristitamas said:
Since when u have your s2? Cuz on my s2.. I get lag.. and you know when? UI. When unlocking.. when i close an app it takes some time to get to UI...and so on. And I am on stock firmware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No lag whatsoever on my GSII. And on my iPhone 4S there is also no lag. Both aee extremely fluid in my opinion. Galaxy Nexus, GSII, and the 4S are the fastest phones on the market right now.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

Fizzerr said:
Guess this guy never tried an sgs2. No lag whatsoever!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In fact, when scroll in tapatalk lags, when im moving in desktop and receive a message of whats app or miyowa messenger lags too.

iNeri said:
In fact, when scroll in tapatalk lags, when im moving in desktop and receive a message of whats app or miyowa messenger lags too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It lags...period lol
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

androidkid311 said:
It lags...period lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct. So far any Android device lags. Any phone, any tablet, all of them. Sure, we are lucky to have one of the more lag-less devices but anybody who says the SGS2 doesn't lag at all either:
a) is ignorant
b) is very easy to please
c) is blinded by Android fanboyism
d) hasn't seen a true lag free device yet.
The SGS2 lags. Sometimes a little, sometimes like crazy, so be it. Don't claim otherwise.

Yes, my old xperia x10 lagged all the time. But my custom-ROM-running sgs2 doesn't lag. Yes, I've had an iPhone 4 for 8 months so I can compare them.
IMHO, lag is mostly placebo and expecting too much these days. Ugly code can cause the UI to stutter on every platform, including iOS.
# Galaxy S II w/ tapatalk

Pfeffernuss said:
The SGS2 lags. Sometimes a little, sometimes like crazy, so be it. Don't claim otherwise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL. You must have a heap of bloatware on that thing. Either that or you've flashed a dodgy ROM. I get no lag at all. I think you are getting lag confused with app loading time. If you fire up Asphalt 6 and it takes 10 seconds to load that's not lag. Have a play with a Galaxy S on one of the earlier ROM's. Then you will see lag.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Fizzerr said:
LOL. You must have a heap of bloatware on that thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No bloatware whatsoever.
Either that or you've flashed a dodgy ROM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried many many Roms, many many kernels, many many Launchers, etc. All the same thing. The phone will once in a while lag and/or show micro-stutters.
I get no lag at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None at all, really. A statement like that makes all the other things you say worthless. Every Android device will once in a while lag and/or expose micro-stutters.
I think you are getting lag confused with app loading time. If you fire up Asphalt 6 and it takes 10 seconds to load that's not lag.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know what lag is, thank you.
It's exactly the same as when people say "my screen is perfect. I have no yellow/darker left side on my panel". When you check it yourself of course the panel isn't even. Usual reply? "Well, I don't see it so it doesn't bother me". That's not the point, it's there. The fact that the phone is 100% smooth for you is nice, only it is not.
Your SGS2 also will have occasional lag/micro stutters. In all apps/all the time? No. In most apps/usually? No. In some apps/occasionally? Yes.
Is it still an amazing phone? For sure. Probably the best/smoothest Android so far? Guess so. Does it sometimes lag and/or stutter? Absolutely.

10 Reasons why ICS is better than iOS

Nice one. This sums it up really well. We can experience all these things thanks to CM9 on SGSII
http://www.thegadgetmasters.com/201...ice-cream-sandwich-is-better-than-apples-ios/

Maybe 2 reasons....not 10.
Inviato dal mio GT-I9100 usando Tapatalk

I believe people who spend their time making such lists are simply jealous of iPhone owners.

LMAO at that article, especially on the fast incoming call response point.
Jesus, we need you, again.

Some good points but other points are "trying too hard." Like the fast call response. I'm sure that comes in handy when iOS and Android go Battle WP7 in the Windows Phone challenge and they want to see who can pick up first.
Also this one:
5. Improved text input and spell-checking
The soft keyboard in Android 4.0 makes text input even faster and more accurate. To fix misspelled words more easily, Android 4.0 adds a spell-checker that locates and underlines errors and suggests replacement words. With one tap, you can choose from multiple spelling suggestions, delete a word, or add it to the dictionary. You can even tap to see replacement suggestions for words that are spelled correctly. For specialized features or additional languages, you can now download and install third-party dictionaries, spell-checkers, and other text services.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dear God. Let's not even talk about how BAD Android text input was to begin with. In 2.0/2.1 we didn't have multitouch. You can't even type fast. The spell check and autocorrection was horrendous. Gingerbread finally brought multitouch but the autocorrection was still eh at best.
ICS makes it a LOT better, but I swear the iOS keyboard knows me better. I say this as an iPod Touch and Android owner. There are other keyboards that outdo Android's ICS keyboard if you want a good typer. Smart Keyboard Pro for example is amazing. The ICS keyboard is still stupid in that I'm forced to insert a space after I pick one of their suggestions. Smart Keyboard Pro lets me customize those features and choose when to insert an auto space, etc. If it weren't for all the clunky Android stock keyboards, we wouldn't invest so much time into developing 20 billion keyboards such as Swype, SlideIT, Swiftkey, 8pen, and some other ridiculous input methods.
The iOS keyboard set a standard in terms of soft keyboard input. It took Android 2 years to figure out how to get a decent keyboard out the door, and it still pales in many ways. I'm glad we've improved, but in no way can you say the ICS keyboard is a definitive winner. There's nothing about it that kills the iOS keyboard...yet.

there are more than 10 reasons^^ but in some points the article isn't correct.
Android is much more open and it's open source.
you don't need mac to develop apps.
If you want to develop Android stuff. get the free SDK and start.
With root you can do everything.
Android: Wanna share Apps and stuff? no problem.
IOS: Wanna share Apps? jailbreak^^
tethered jailbreak? Oh my ios crashed. I have to get to my pc to reboot xDD
And IOS isn't faster than Android. If you have a 700$ Android dualcore phone, there'll be no lags.
If you like the ios interface get an iphone if you like android interface get an android device. This is a question of taste.

Missery said:
And IOS isn't faster than Android. If you have a 700$ Android dualcore phone, there'll be no lags.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry but even a latest gen dual core Android phone like SGS2 doesn't feel as fast as an old iPhone 1 did. It's because of the difference in design philosophy. Read more about it:
http://androidandme.com/2011/12/news/android-may-never-be-as-smooth-as-ios-says-ex-googler/
I don't think I'll ever return to iPhones unless they start coming pre-jailbroken, but I miss the smoothness of the UI so much.

aydc said:
Sorry but even a latest gen dual core Android phone like SGS2 doesn't feel as fast as an old iPhone 1 did. It's because of the difference in design philosophy. Read more about it:
http://androidandme.com/2011/12/news/android-may-never-be-as-smooth-as-ios-says-ex-googler/
I don't think I'll ever return to iPhones unless they start coming pre-jailbroken, but I miss the smoothness of the UI so much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, my SGS2 tweaked whether its CM7 or CM9 lags behind my friends' iPhone 4Ses. Granted that's not a dealbreaker to me, but it certainly is something that's annoyed me since Day 1. I don't know about an iPhone 2G, but my iPod Touch 4G isn't that fast once jailbroken. If unjailbroken my iPod Touch 4G definitely looks smoother than my SGS2.
Dual core is nice, and it may mean my apps launch super fast, but it doesn't take a dual core phone to activate the camera quickly (just look at Windows Phones)

Hmm well I don't really know about what lag you guys are talking, as my sgs2 with the latest cm9 build is just butter smooth.. Even when scrolling thought a 300 message long sms conversation or going thought all the contacts.. same goes for the app drawer or homescreen, so hey what lags?!
But then I don't have an iPhone to compare it directly, it just feels smooth to me..

dmo580 said:
Some good points but other points are "trying too hard." Like the fast call response. I'm sure that comes in handy when iOS and Android go Battle WP7 in the Windows Phone challenge and they want to see who can pick up first....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Think you might misunderstood that point, it was to fast reply by sms directly to caller instead of just answer or reject
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

aydc said:
Sorry but even a latest gen dual core Android phone like SGS2 doesn't feel as fast as an old iPhone 1 did. It's because of the difference in design philosophy. Read more about it:
http://androidandme.com/2011/12/news/android-may-never-be-as-smooth-as-ios-says-ex-googler/
I don't think I'll ever return to iPhones unless they start coming pre-jailbroken, but I miss the smoothness of the UI so much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So what are you doing here in SGS2 section?
Get an iPhone and jailbreak it

While I may not necessarily agree with all those listed in the article; I think it is extremely incorrect to say that the SGS2 or any other equivalent/better Android phones aren't AT LEAST as fast as an iPhone 4S.
I understand an individual may incorrectly perceive it to be slower, but it really isn't.
Run MIUI-only or a similar launcher, and you'll see why it "feels" faster..

You guys are nuts...iOS is not fast. It seems so cause of the transitions which makes it look smooth and your brain perceives it as fast. If you could turn off the transition animation, you can see it see how slow it is.
Android needs to polish its transition animations a bit better or maybe make everything hardware accelerated!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

aydc said:
I believe people who spend their time making such lists are simply jealous of iPhone owners.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not so much jealous, just they probably had iStuff forever, then jump to android and wish they had stuck with iStuff, so they try and self justify to themselves they infact had made a good choice.
It comes to taste, and what you want from a phone. They will be compared, but at the end of the day, both have there equal amount of pros and cons.
Hey, I also sent this from my Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk..

Markbaja said:
Not so much jealous, just they probably had iStuff forever, then jump to android and wish they had stuck with iStuff, so they try and self justify to themselves they infact had made a good choice.
It comes to taste, and what you want from a phone. They will be compared, but at the end of the day, both have there equal amount of pros and cons.
Hey, I also sent this from my Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well said.....

I have something to add . . . i have used both phones and playing a 1080p movie which is the size of 9GB is damn slow on the iphone 4s compared to playing it smoothly on the galaxy s2.
BTW the movie is Dark Knight.
I like the ICS.
But i am not complaining.
After all To each is own...

I think considering what andriod is running especially on our sgs2s, it handles and flows amazingly well, with ios it really is simply a structure of applications ready to launch, ok notifications push fairly reliably but not without problems and apps load smoothly and all run in a similar fluid guided designed way. If you load up ios with lots of jailbreak activities that try to get the phone closer to what android is doing for you, the iphone starts to run slower and laggier yet still doesn't bring you the freedom and choice that we have on our androids, the problem is most people want a simple hit the app and play type control and don't need the complete cuatomised world of android, for instance my wife loves her ipad and it suits her perfectly in its nice guided way, I wouldn't say ics brings anything more than gb did to android, yet perhaps it brings a little more guided ability to bridge the gap from android to ios. If all phones were the same it would be a terribly boring world, each have there strengths, if I could afford to own them all I would.

What about as compared to Windows Phone 7.5??

aydc said:
I believe people who spend their time making such lists are simply jealous of iPhone owners.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then there must be many people that are jealous of Android owners.
Sorry but even a latest gen dual core Android phone like SGS2 doesn't feel as fast as an old iPhone 1 did.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LMAO that made my day

THUDUK said:
I think considering what andriod is running especially on our sgs2s, it handles and flows amazingly well, with ios it really is simply a structure of applications ready to launch, ok notifications push fairly reliably but not without problems and apps load smoothly and all run in a similar fluid guided designed way. If you load up ios with lots of jailbreak activities that try to get the phone closer to what android is doing for you, the iphone starts to run slower and laggier yet still doesn't bring you the freedom and choice that we have on our androids, the problem is most people want a simple hit the app and play type control and don't need the complete cuatomised world of android, for instance my wife loves her ipad and it suits her perfectly in its nice guided way, I wouldn't say ics brings anything more than gb did to android, yet perhaps it brings a little more guided ability to bridge the gap from android to ios. If all phones were the same it would be a terribly boring world, each have there strengths, if I could afford to own them all I would.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You took the words out of my mouth
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

Windows Phone 8 and What it Means to the Competition

The Write Up
Windows Phone 8 has now been out about two weeks and with its eye-catching hardware, beautiful UI, and plethora of new features; has captured the hearts of more people than even I expected. Nokia's Lumia line has been consistently sold out all over the world and is still in high demand while HTC is certainly pulling out all of the stops in bringing their most beautiful device to date into the Windows Phone market. Huaweii seems to be ready to innovate for the first time in quite some time and Samsung is bringing up the rear with the same ol' stuff they've been putting out since the Samsung Behold days but there's a market for everything.
As a student developer, I try to keep a very clear mind about phones as a whole. At present I own a Tegra HTC One X, an AT&T Galaxy Note II, an iPhone 4s, and the AT&T Nokia Lumia 920. It could simply be a honeymoon period but for the past two weeks the Lumia has been my daily driver. I have also been frequenting the forums of numerous tech blogs and news articles, scouring the web for any complaints and praise for both the Note and the Lumia. As it stands, the Lumia seems to be the more sought after of the two with the Note being slightly underwhelming compared to its predecessor. The Lumia is not without its flaws though, the battery life has been subpar on a number of the devices, there is a bug in the NFC usage that causes immense battery drain, and the photos could be slightly sharper. However, for every shortcoming, most of which Nokia says will be repaired with a software update, there are more than enough selling points to justify it. After two weeks, I finally felt it was just to do a review comparing Windows Phone, iOS, and Android.
User Interface
First, I'll start with what you see upon powering on, the UI. The common complaint with Windows Phone, is the lack of a dedicated notification center like the ones you would see on Android or now, iOS. I was truly concerned on coming from using the One X as my daily driver and HTC's amazing Friendstream that the Lumia's activity simply would not be enough. Let me be the first to tell you that not only does the live tile system work, it's removed so many swypes and taps from my typical use that I'm probably saving an hour of battery life a day on that alone. Unlock the screen, swype down, check anything I want, done. It's very simple and very straightforward. I believe Windows Phone's initial marketing statement was, "Get in, get out, get on with your life." It's simple to do just that however it's also easy to get immersed in the live tiles. The customization available despite the lack of backgrounds is quite amazing and sometimes I'll spend half an hour deciding on a particular tile layout that suits me and my present color scheme. The OS is simply aesthetically pleasing, plain and simple. You might be able to download a dozen apps to kick your android UI into gear or Dreamboard your phone but in terms of usability I would have to give the cake to Windows Phone. That said, Android's notification system is right on par with Windows Phone and is certainly no slacker. iOS simply lags behind.
User Interface:
Android: 6
iOS: 7
Windows Phone: 9
Notifications:
Android: 9
iOS: 4
Windows Phone: 8
Camera
With our phones being an extension of our arms, it's only viable that it replace that big clunky camera on a laniard that we were once forced to tote around if we wanted to capture the moment. Now, it's as easy as pulling your phone out and snapping a picture. Windows Phone tried simplifying this further by allowing access to the camera directly from a sleeping phone, a feature imitated and executed well by the competition but born of Windows Phone and the original still seems to execute it best. Each OS aside from iOS has a variation of cameras on a variation of different phones and each have their strengths and weaknesses. My personal preference, hardware aside, is Windows Phone strictly because of the requirement of a hardware camera button. Each OS has it's own photo editing options as well, iOS being the birthing place of instagram, a photo-social network. Android having a ton of applications with filters and editors, and at least Nokia's Windows Phones implementing lenses with work amazingly well. If you haven't gotten to toy around with cinemagraphs then you simply haven't gotten to enjoy a camera on a phone. Overall, I'd say it's safe to give tens across the board on software alone as the hardware preference is just that, a preference.
Camera
Android: 10
iOS: 10
Windows Phone: 10
Hardware Choices
Your general consumer has an idea of what they want but will not be particularly picky. It has to be eye-catching but practical, it has to have screen real-estate but be pocketable. Your phone has to fit you better than you fit it. iOS in this area, is awful. You get one device that most recently has rendered a lot of games ugly due to the screen's aspect ratio shifting drastically. Overall, the iPhone 5 may be the worst in the series despite slightly improved hardware. Android of course has the broadest range of specs, 600 mhz processors making up the low-end of the spectrum and pushing into the quad-core monsters at the higher end. Until Android's most recent iteration, it suffered from a discernible lag that, while not a deal breaker, certainly offered a bit of a low-end feel. However, android is now about up to par with the competition and is finally, "Buttery smooth." on all different kinds of hardware.
Windows Phone devices are also found on a variety of hardware, however what sets it apart and really makes it pull ahead is the availability of many color options. No other OS before it has offered such an array of high end devices in such a wide variety of colors. The Lumia 920 alone comes in five different colors, 3 of which are rare to find on any other quality device. Due to the color variations, I'd have to give this one to Windows Phone as it's proven time and again that it doesn't need the ridiculous hardware to run as fluid as the competition.
Hardware
Android: 9
iOS: 2
Windows Phone: 10
Social
What are our phones for if not communication? Sure, they all make calls with varying quality, they all connect to Facebook, they all send texts and picture messages, they all get the job done. However, who gets it done best? For this comparison, I'm using stock Android. Had I chosen to use HTC's Sense then it likely would've been more favorable for Android but, spoiler alert, stock android doesn't fare too well.
iOS basicaly reinvented the smartphone and have thus created an immeasurable ecosystem spanning across millions of users. Due to this, they are able to have their own video chat that doesn't work with other devices, their own messenger client that only works on their devices, even their own social networks of sorts. They have an ecosystem, but what about the rest of us? Both iOS and Android sync your facebook contacts as well as contacts from other email clients and social networks without much fail and with the installation of third party applications have no issue notifying you of your facebook notifications. However, this isn't about the applications, just the OS itself and aside from what's mentioned, neither have a whole lot to offer. With Windows Phone, I have felt no need to install a facebook application as everything I need is built into the OS. I have facebook chat that sends me all my messages through the same messaging system that my texts come through, I can update my status from my Me tile on a number of different social networks simutaneously, I can take a picture and have it on facebook faster than any other OS, shown clearly in the Smoked by Windows Phone videos and I can do it all without installing anything additional. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn being baked into the OS has accelerated my social networking to a whole new degree.
The most important aspect of a social network though, the keyboard. I mean sure you can Speech to Text everything but that seldom works out as well as you want it to. android has an excellent keyboard layout by default but the response time on it is notably slower than either other and the predicted text never quite gets me to where I want. It seems as though it doesn't know higher English and any bigger words I use are quickly transformed into two or more little words. iOS is again, a joke. The keyboard layout forces you to go to a separate page to use a period, the auto-correct has spawned numerous sites about how terrible it is, and it's very ill responsive. The first thing you notice about using a Windows Phone is the tactile responsiveness, it seems as though the button is hit maybe even a millisecond before you touch the screen it's so fast and the words are only corrected when it's actually needed. Overall, in terms of the general social networking, I have to give it to Windows Phone here as everything is so deliciously baked in. I should mention though that Android has a plethora of keyboards better than the default at your disposal.
Networking
Android: 5
iOS: 6
Windows Phone: 10
Keyboard
Android: 6
iOS: 4
Windows Phone: 8
Apps and Software and Features, Oh My!
Well, it's not all rainbows and butterflies in the Windows Phone world. The application store isn't 1/10th of the competition yet and the games we do get are often crippled versions of their Android and iOS counterparts. Not only that, we often pay more strictly for the fact that we can get Xbox Live gamer points. However, Xbox live on the phone is amazing and a selling point in itself, it still doesn't justify the sometimes ridiculous price of our games and apps.
iOS is the clear winner as far as games and apps go. Sure, Android has more games and applications but they are never as polished as those on iOS and oftentimes won't work on a good portion of the devices due to fragmentation. Both trump Windows Phone with their high def, 3D games and form fitting applications.
Android and Windows Phone now utilize NFC, iOS's only real shortcoming in this area. Windows Phone has pushed it a step further offering wireless charging on most of their higher end devices which, while gimmicky, is one hell of a gimmick. If you pick up the JBL Charging Speakers then your Nokia will absolutely blow you away.
I would like to clarify, of the 40 or so apps that are must haves on my phones, I can easily find an alternative to 36-38 of them on Windows Phone but those 2-4 apps I can't find really do seem to jump out at me a lot of the time and are a thorn in the side of WP8. That said, with access to native code this will hopefully change.
Goodies
Android: 8
iOS: 9
Windows Phone: 5
Wrap-up
Well, after owning my first long term Windows Phone device I can say that this is as unbiased as I can get aside from a possible honeymoon phase with this pretty little device. This is of course from a basic user standpoint and not a developer standpoint as so many of us like to brag about having. The final score tallied up is:
Android: 53/70
iOS: 42/70
Windows Phone: 60/70
None of the OS's are bad and each could certainly suit you and will vary with your needs. As far as the most generic needs go, Windows Phone pulled out just ahead of Android with iOS trailing behind, left in the dust. If you haven't picked up a Windows Phone and have only gone off of the rumors, I suggest you at least give it a try. Thank you for reading and I hope you all have a happy Turkey Day.
-Poecifer

Thanks for sharing! One thing that interests me about the Windows Phone is editing Microsoft Office files on the go. Currently I have many formatting and compatibility issues trying to do this with my Android device. Have you experimented much with this yet?
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buffjam9011 said:
Thanks for sharing! One thing that interests me about the Windows Phone is editing Microsoft Office files on the go. Currently I have many formatting and compatibility issues trying to do this with my Android device. Have you experimented much with this yet?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app
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Mainly just wordpad documents, I'll look more into the others and get back to you afterwards. Word files are epic though.

Strangely enough I agree with almost quite everything you say, but your scoring seems to be a little wonky. Your user interface scores were as follows:
Android: 6
iOS: 7
Windows Phone: 9
Very subjective if you ask me. You could ask ten different people what they believe that order should proceed in, and I'm willing to bet their answers will vary greatly. I don't understand how IOS could possibly have a higher interface score than Android if its simply a grid of icons with a horrendous notification system. If you wanted to replicate that on Android you very well could with a launcher, MIUI, etc. Android essentially IS iOS with flexibility; customizable grids on the homescreen, widgets, more intuitive lockscreens, etc. Giving iOS a higher score doesn't seem to make sense to me.
Hardware
Android: 9
iOS: 2
Windows Phone: 10
I'd like to think the massive range of Android phones would overcome the simple fact that Windows phones come in several new colors. I think it's fair to say Android should hold top dog in this regard.
Android: 5
iOS: 6
Windows Phone: 10
Above are the scores for social networking on each mobile OS. Again, if Android by default has every third party application installed automatically integrated, how can you justify giving it not only that low of a score, but below iOS? (While iOS only has facebook/twitter integration).
Also, I'm curious as to which keyboard you used for Android.
But great write up, honestly I don't mean to try and dismantle everything you said, I just don't entirely agree with the scoring. But good work, I gave ya a thanks )

MultiLockOn said:
Strangely enough I agree with almost quite everything you say, but your scoring seems to be a little wonky. Your user interface scores were as follows:
Android: 6
iOS: 7
Windows Phone: 9
Very subjective if you ask me. You could ask ten different people what they believe that order should proceed in, and I'm willing to bet their answers will vary greatly. I don't understand how IOS could possibly have a higher interface score than Android if its simply a grid of icons with a horrendous notification system. If you wanted to replicate that on Android you very well could with a launcher, MIUI, etc. Android essentially IS iOS with flexibility; customizable grids on the homescreen, widgets, more intuitive lockscreens, etc. Giving iOS a higher score doesn't seem to make sense to me.
Hardware
Android: 9
iOS: 2
Windows Phone: 10
I'd like to think the massive range of Android phones would overcome the simple fact that Windows phones come in several new colors. I think it's fair to say Android should hold top dog in this regard.
Android: 5
iOS: 6
Windows Phone: 10
Above are the scores for social networking on each mobile OS. Again, if Android by default has every third party application installed automatically integrated, how can you justify giving it not only that low of a score, but below iOS? (While iOS only has facebook/twitter integration).
Also, I'm curious as to which keyboard you used for Android.
But great write up, honestly I don't mean to try and dismantle everything you said, I just don't entirely agree with the scoring. But good work, I gave ya a thanks )
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Not a problem at all, friend. I love criticism regardless and constructive is my favorite flavor. I gave UI to iOS over android because I'm trying to use vanilla android opposed to sense or touchwiz and sadly it still suffers from minute hickups. Had I been reviewing Sense, android and Windows Phone would have certainly been neck and neck.
As far as my hardware statement, as much as the hardware for android differentiates under the hood, they do little to differentiate themselves cosmetically and that seldom makes for a beautiful device even when the power under the hood is insane. It's often left looking like a bunch of generic Samsung phones.
In social networking, I ignored the existence of third party applications and only gave the bonus point to iOS for the ease of setup as both are essentially the same in that regard.
When I use android, I've been using swype since the HTC Dream days and don't feel a need to switch. Swiftkey isn't terrible though.
Again, there may be some bias as I'm still in the honeymoon phase but I made an attempt to be unbiased that at least beats out what you'll get at cNet.

Poecifer said:
Not a problem at all, friend. I love criticism regardless and constructive is my favorite flavor. I gave UI to iOS over android because I'm trying to use vanilla android opposed to sense or touchwiz and sadly it still suffers from minute hickups. Had I been reviewing Sense, android and Windows Phone would have certainly been neck and neck.
As far as my hardware statement, as much as the hardware for android differentiates under the hood, they do little to differentiate themselves cosmetically and that seldom makes for a beautiful device even when the power under the hood is insane. It's often left looking like a bunch of generic Samsung phones.
In social networking, I ignored the existence of third party applications and only gave the bonus point to iOS for the ease of setup as both are essentially the same in that regard.
When I use android, I've been using swype since the HTC Dream days and don't feel a need to switch. Swiftkey isn't terrible though.
Again, there may be some bias as I'm still in the honeymoon phase but I made an attempt to be unbiased that at least beats out what you'll get at cNet.
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Most definitely ahaha, cnet is one of the most Apple centric tech sites I've ever seen. And I really do appreciate this write up, I always told myself if I had to move to a locked down OS Windows 8 looked like a viable choice, and now it seems I have a third party to back it up reasonably. It's sad really, most people glance at Windows phone and ate immediately turned away because of how strange the ui is initially. I think it's a beautiful design personally, and they're innovating in their own way.
One thing however. Do you really find sense more appealing then stock android? I've found the last three versions on android (4.0 - 4.2) to be wonderful. Honestly, everything from the notification bar to gapps with the blue tint looks great. I always thought sense was overrated, but more now than ever it seems to be riding on the tailcoat of its gb days. Maybe then I might've thought it sleek and edgy but lately sense hasn't seem to have changed at all, it looks dated. Everything from the app drawer to the notification panel is rather stale looking, I'd go as far to say that the touchwiz nature ux is much preferable, but that's just me.
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MultiLockOn said:
Most definitely ahaha, cnet is one of the most Apple centric tech sites I've ever seen. And I really do appreciate this write up, I always told myself if I had to move to a locked down OS Windows 8 looked like a viable choice, and now it seems I have a third party to back it up reasonably. It's sad really, most people glance at Windows phone and ate immediately turned away because of how strange the ui is initially. I think it's a beautiful design personally, and they're innovating in their own way.
One thing however. Do you really find sense more appealing then stock android? I've found the last three versions on android (4.0 - 4.2) to be wonderful. Honestly, everything from the notification bar to gapps with the blue tint looks great. I always thought sense was overrated, but more now than ever it seems to be riding on the tailcoat of its gb days. Maybe then I might've thought it sleek and edgy but lately sense hasn't seem to have changed at all, it looks dated. Everything from the app drawer to the notification panel is rather stale looking, I'd go as far to say that the touchwiz nature ux is much preferable, but that's just me.
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From a purely aesthetic perspective, I completely agree. Sense looks stale. However, it brings to the table a plethora of built in apps and widgets that I find more useful than anyone else's offerings and for that I will choose Sense over Touchwiz or stock any day. I liked the way Sony was going, too bad they can't quite get their software right.

I think you overreacted when you said iphone has score 2 as far as hardware is concerned. Just because they do not take the route android does (make up for poor software with overkill hardware) doesn't mean their hardware ain't good. They basically do just like Windows Phone: pick up a nice platform, then base everything on that so it can be optimized.

mcosmin222 said:
I think you overreacted when you said iphone has score 2 as far as hardware is concerned. Just because they do not take the route android does (make up for poor software with overkill hardware) doesn't mean their hardware ain't good. They basically do just like Windows Phone: pick up a nice platform, then base everything on that so it can be optimized.
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They still only release one device a year with severely dated hardware and ridiculous fragility. They often have next to no real selling point aside from habit. I'd say it was justified.

dont agree with you about the keyboard. check out swiftkey.... i miss it so hard on wp8 :S

Love the write up, and I agree with most of what was said. I can support the lower hardware score for iOS because it is a gradual improvement of an existing design, as opposed to every year the hardware is cutting edge. That does have something to do with the fact that the OS doesn't require such boundary pushing hardware...
That's why I gave up on iOS. After a while you really get tired of the apps as the only attraction. Heck, jail breaking took off merely for the fact that it was a way to unlock the phone for usage on other carriers. Based on the hardware limitations, once you started to add the custom add-ons to change the looks and performance of the phone, iOS starts to lag. I'm sure things have improved with the iPhone 5, but I've got no interest in trying Apple.
It still boils down to taste. I do enjoy using WP7, and so far WP8 is a nice upgrade. As far as Android goes, I prefer stock over any other skin other there. Yes, stock used to be atrocious and not as friendly visually, but 4.0 has changed much of that. Still, I like Sense as the best skin out there, even though it has gotten bloated. sense 4 is a right step, but I won't use anything HTC Android wise until Sense gets much lighter (that's why my Galaxy Nexus will back up my Lumia 810 for the foreseeable future).
I like the WP idea of letting some customization in the form of apps and amps and hardware tweaks. But the consistent UI is my biggest draw to the platform. Now, if only MSFT can make Windowsphone.com easier to use and add a few more apps and tweaks...
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Poecifer said:
They still only release one device a year with severely dated hardware and ridiculous fragility. They often have next to no real selling point aside from habit. I'd say it was justified.
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You're not talking about Apple are you? If so, this just ruins everything you typed Severely dated hardware? Seriously ?
Don't get me wrong, everyone is entitled to their opinion; but dated hardware? ?
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vetvito said:
You're not talking about Apple are you? If so, this just ruins everything you typed Severely dated hardware? Seriously ?
Don't get me wrong, everyone is entitled to their opinion; but dated hardware? ?
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1.3 GHz processor, underwhelming screen, no NFC, no wireless charging, nothing that sets them apart hardware-wise. At what point as of late have they innovated?

Poecifer said:
1.3 GHz processor, underwhelming screen, no NFC, no wireless charging, nothing that sets them apart hardware-wise. At what point as of late have they innovated?
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You said severely dated hardware, didn't you? Name one phone that beats the iPhone 5 in graphics and performance? Underwhelming screen? Do people even legitimately know what the iPhone is clocked at?
NFC? Seriously, what is windows phone doing with it now besides pairing speakers?
Wireless charging, now thats palm pre innovation. Wow.
I know you can come with something better than that.
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vetvito said:
You said severely dated hardware, didn't you? Name one phone that beats the iPhone 5 in graphics and performance? Underwhelming screen? Do people even legitimately know what the iPhone is clocked at?
NFC? Seriously, what is windows phone doing with it now besides pairing speakers?
Wireless charging, now thats palm pre innovation. Wow.
I know you can come with something better than that.
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Graphics is a matter of the software and developer interest, neither of which have been called into question. The screen was cool when it was introduced 2-3 years ago, now it's certainly not top tier. The iPhone 5 is clocked at 1.3 GHz which does prove we don't need ridiculous specs with optimized software. It simply hasn't been top of the line in a long while.

^ but no other chip is beating the iPhone 5 in graphics or performance right now. Not even the S4 Pro(quad core). If that isn't top of the line, then I don't know what is.
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Poecifer said:
Graphics is a matter of the software and developer interest, neither of which have been called into question. The screen was cool when it was introduced 2-3 years ago, now it's certainly not top tier. The iPhone 5 is clocked at 1.3 GHz which does prove we don't need ridiculous specs with optimized software. It simply hasn't been top of the line in a long while.
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Genuine question, where do you find a graphics test that ignores the OS software as a whole? I want to know for personal testing.

Poecifer said:
Genuine question, where do you find a graphics test that ignores the OS software as a whole? I want to know for personal testing.
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You don't really. Every test in SOME way is going to be more optimized for one gpu then another; you can't say "well this game runs smother on this phone thus making this gpu better". Benchmarking isn't realistic at all. To be honest I'm not sure of a great way to judge graphics card performance other then a long term
Overview of how it handles games. I could be wrong though, if someone wants to correct me feel free
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"hardware choices"
you gave more credit to one _software_platform_ (your definitions of competitors) for choice of colors....
yes, that makes sense.

ohgood said:
"hardware choices"
you gave more credit to one _software_platform_ (your definitions of competitors) for choice of colors....
yes, that makes sense.
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Average consumer perspective. How much do cores matter to your mom or dad?