By Google+ user Andrew Munn claims to be a former intern of Google’s and a soon to be intern of Microsoft’s. He reportedly worked on Android for a short time and will be doing his work at Microsoft on Windows Phone 7 in a short time – just a small disclaimer before we move on.
Yesterday, we reported on a Google+ post by Dianne Hackborn who sought to set the record straight on hardware acceleration, stating that while full hardware acceleration didn’t get introduced until Android 3.0 and was further pushed in Android 4.0, they have always been using some form of hardware acceleration for drawing certain UI elements. She also admits that hardware acceleration isn’t as rosy as we’d like.
The aforementioned engineer Munn wants to tell you exactly why hardware acceleration in Android doesn’t, and may never, make for a very smooth experience up against iOS and Windows Phone 7, citing inefficient design frameworks in Android that keep it from using the CPU/GPU power necessary to ensure a 100% smooth experience. Take it with a grain of salt. It’s a good read if nothing else. [Google+, thanks phantomash]
Challenge Accepted.
Looks like someone is a sour ex employee
If you cant made it with goolge u cant make it anywhere
He was just unsatisfied with Google, and moved on to a better one for a better experience.
Better? You mean Mango? That’s like saying DOS is better than Windows because it’s faster… /snicker
He didn’t make it past ‘intern’.
So an ex-student teacher of mine wrote an article on why students will never fully show their potential and always work at a mediocre level.
This guy is prob. 10x smarter than i am, but come on… “First, I am a 3rd year undergraduate software engineering student. I interned on the Android team, and +Romain Guy who was responsible for much of the hardware acceleration work in Honeycomb, reviewed some of my code, but I was not on the framework team and I never read the Android rendering source code. I do not have any authoritative Android knowledge and I cannot guarantee what I say here is necessarily 100% accurate”
In other words, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’ll say it anyway because that will make me look good in the eyes of the draconian Microsoft culture.
Exactly!
You lost me when you mentioned he is now employed with a competitor. The whole article after that statement makes any argument given subject to major credibility issues. Oh and for the record, I never had a problem with the Droid Incredible no lag or anything. I guess the companies making the phones are avoiding whatever issues he’s referring to. The only problem I see with any android phone right now is outdated battery technology available to run the damn things. It appears apple’s iphone is starting to feel that burn too.
There is a reason he is an intern.
ha, exactly! never? thats obviously not true. with multicore tech and hardware acceleration most likely becoming the standard app writing procedure… i think android will be very smooth, very soon… although I would argue the gnex is quite smooth now.
ICS is a step in right direction for Android. First time it has been that the performance of an Android phone (apart from the GSII) has been consistent. This is why The Verge gave it a 10/10 in performance.
The problem with people’s perception about smartphones is they fail to see the obvious structural differences between Android, iOS and WP7. With iOS, you have a pre-defined hardware for the OS to run on with Apple’s own drivers that have been coded to work with iPhone only. Apple’s strategy has always been to provide consistent user experience, even if they have to sacrifice the usability/functionality for it. They introduced multitasking after so long in iOS4, which is very limited even in its current form. In iOS, the UI rendering is prioritized compared to multitasking/background processes and the UI has been the same/simple since 2007. Not to mention the closed environment of apps and strict developer guidelines. This is how they’ve achieved a consistently fluid UI. Same case is with WP7. That being said, iOS5 does lag on the iPod Touch and the 3GS at times.
With Android, Google’s approach has been different, i,e, to provide maximum functionality and as close as a PC OS type experience. You have full multitasking, numerous background processes,unrestricted apps, apps that can auto start after rebooting the phone, Widgets, Live Wallpapers, browser with Flash, etc. Android runs fine on a mid-ranged phone, but the problem lies in maintaining the consistency in frame-rates. I’m glad to see ICS addressing most such problems.
Android devs have also some things to sort out to make the garbage collection more efficient and prioritize the UI thread in the OS. The Galaxy SII is a perfect example of a well tweaked Android build running on a phone which rivals the iPhone in UI fluidity. Samsung took the effort of hardware accelerating the Browser+Flash and all the elements of the TouchWiz UI in GSII to make the experience great.
Android is not that laggy or inefficient that trolls call it, it’s just that in some cases, the performance is not consistent. Google need to sort that out and while most of the work is already been done with ICS, there is a room for improvement still. :)
If you think hardware acceleration will fix this, you’ve not read the article properly.
I assure you that my SGSII wasn’t perfect, and my Galaxy Nexus is even more laggy.
Sticking your head in the sand won’t get Google to pull their finger out. Letting them know that you want better will.
Read my comment again. I said there’s still a room for performance improvement in ICS. The UI thread in the system processes needs to be given the highest priority, just like how iOS does. Google also needs to improve the garbage collection a lot and figure out a way to multitask even more efficiently.
ICS is definitely a solid step in the right direction for Android, but it still needs to be optimized further to match the fluidity of iOS.
In my opinion, ICS is close, but just not there yet, for now.
There is a reason you are here posting on this crap website instead of working for google and microsoft… intelligence
and you?…
probably a sandwich artist.
No no he’s ‘creative’ which in iTard world means he is a barista
Large companies often hire interns to work on projects. My cousin was an intern when he started work on the cell processor in the PS3 and when he graduated went right to work for IBM as a senior engineer.
That is your response to what might be very valid points by an obviously knowledgeable engineer? I am thankful for both the posts by Diane and Andrew.
On topic. On my recent trip to Verizon to maybe get the Razr or Resound, I compared the iPhone to all the hot new Android phones. The Razr was the only one that seemed flow as smoothly as the iPhone. And before anyone starts talking about components, LTE, Quad core etc, This is a discussion about the UI responsiveness. Currently it takes the top of the line Android device to match the UI response of the iPhone WITH its’ inferior components. Most people walking in Verizon to get a first smart phone feel the difference, and to them the hype then seems well founded. And no matter what we think, they are a much larger market.
If you’re going to pay for an iPhone, then you might as well get a top of the line Android phone. First time smart phone buyers only buy the iPhone BECAUSE of the hype. Most also do not need what android offers and like the locked down simplicity that is iOS. These facts are also changing quickly due to android phones offering better UI enhancements and larger screens (GSII). The iPhone will always be a competitor to android, but in the end, android will win the race due to its adaptability.
Its Macintosh VS Microsoft all over again. We all know who got crushed there…..
It’s apples and androids. Comparisons like you make are not useful since iphone is a product as opposed to Android which is a platform
Except Android is winning the numbers game.
Yep. It’s all about perceivable responsiveness. I accept that my Galaxy Nexus gets the job done quicker than an iPhone, but if it becomes unresponsive whilst it’s doing it, it’s not won.
“intern”
despite the fact is is an ex employee now working for competition i must agree with some of what he says. Android isn’t as lag-free as other os’s.
After owning these phones: Moto Droid HTC Hero HTC Desire Samsung Galaxy S Motorola Defy LG Optimus One LG Optimus 2X Samsung Galaxy S2. The only one that even feels lag-free is the Galaxy S2 despite custom roms with over clocking and lag mods on every other phone. I hope Android 5 is a major update and fixes these problems.
No worries. To offset lack of smoothness in design framework, Android will ram your phones as usual with with multi-cores and car batteries to stay for days.
If the issue of smoothness was thread priority, this would have been fixed years ago, and devs would have made changes to increase system priority as well. And that isn’t a “framework” issue either. what an idiot.
First sentence of this article sums it up nicely.
How smoother can my device get. I think this is a lie cause my phone barely has any lag
My smooth-as-hell, fast-as-hell Galaxy Nexus says hi. :-)
So does my smooth as hell 2 year old (rooted) HTC Incredible.
Same here. My rooted (CyanogenMod) DINC is incredibly smooth, fast and consistent. However, I am definitely upgrading to the Galaxy Nexus when it comes out.
My GS2 skyrocket says what’s up..
As does my 1 year old Evo running MIUI and the ICS port.:)
Don’t knock the level of the person involved. I have worked with many interns that are 10x smarter than 30 year engineers. None of us should kid ourselves and I am no phanboi. Apple’s one single differentiator is their control of the OS. It is and probably will be the most user friendly and optimized OS.
At the end of the day, you can argue Apple vs Android. Spec wise, Android phones are dwarfing Apple. However, none of the hardware updates are making significant progress against Apple’s performance. On an 800MHz processor, iPhone 4S will still be on par with the Galaxy Nexus.
I just hate Apple.
Really? Your are reporting on statements made by an intern? I work for a tech company and I can tell you firsthand that interns work on the most insignificant items. Usually, they did testing. Sometimes, they worked on internal applications. If they ever worked on a product, it was some insignificant feature that would cause the least amount of damage.
This guy sounds like someone who is full of himself and thinks he knows everything walking in the door. He probably got pissed at Google for not realizing how intelligent he was and how he would have designed the perfect framework.
I read the article by Dianne Hackborn (great name for an engineer, by the way). What she said about turning off hardware acceleration in certain code of the Nexus S devices is nothing new. Software design is always about compromise when trying to support older devices. I find it ironic that he’s now an intern for Microsoft. Windows is the perfect example of how compromises between software design and hardware can effect performance.
He’s working for Google you dumbshit. He’s not an intern at your small time tech company
read the article he posted. he’s an intern and in his 3rd year of undergrad. imo i think he has a point but get your facts before railing someone else.
you are a freakin moron,oh my god!!!if you think he isnt working oh the back end,you are sadly mistaken fool.i would know more so than you.i wont say how but i do..you short bus rider.
Not anymore. He will interning for Microsoft. Can’t you read? Before calling someone a dumbshit, maybe you should say “you dumbshit” while looking in the mirror.
At our company, we get the good interns back. Perhaps Google didn’t ask him back. I just question giving too much credibility to an intern. They typically aren’t privy to too much information.
people have been telling me my ANDROIDs have been inferior since i got my G-1 in sept. 2008.
i still don’t think so.
I haven’t used an iPhone/iPad/iPod extensively enough to see if there is any lag compared to Android. The OS is as boring as watching daytime television.
No, actually. It’s not a good read.
VZW Fascinate – MIUI – Glitch V13 kernel – No OC.
No lag. None. Zero. Hell, I can *underclock* it to 800 and it *still* runs smooth as butter.
…and this is on a GB Rom.
Mr. Munn is apparently starting his Microsoft Evangelism already. Pure FUD.
It’s smooth to you. My android-using friends say the same thing. “It’s smooth!” But I (and many others) see if differently.
I would bet cold hard cash you’ve never touched a Fascinate, much less seen one configured as described above…
So I suppose by “see it differently”, you mean if you had to guess, based entirely on what you’ve imagined?
Um…
Thanks?
its runs smooth for me..oh my gosh who to believe?yikes!..ive used many devices,its device to device…eye of the beholder as well.
“VZW Fascinate – MIUI – Glitch V13 kernel – No OC. No lag. None. Zero.”
Because everyone buy’s a new product and then must go outside the manufacturer to make it work better. ROMs are not the the answer to lag, a phone that has NO lag out of the box is. Further, the people insulting Mr. Munn here seem to have missed his disclaimer at the start of his post where he accepts he may be wrong for all the reasons listed.
I’m always amazed at the level of venom spouted by posters on this site for what they perceive as the tiniest slight to their brand loyalty. Even more amazing, when I had my POS Blackberry Storm, the comments about it on Crackberry could be substituted for those here. Just swap out the OS names.
Wow.
Let me sum up:
Munn says, “It’s not possible for Android to do “this”. I respond with my *exact* set-up that *does* just that.
I get one guy basically calling me a lair, and you. Honestly, I don’t even know what to make of you…
What version or Android I am using makes no difference as an argument against Munn’s assertion. It is Android. That is *all* it needs to be.
…and because he admits he may be wrong…we’re not allowed to point out *why* he is wrong?? Seriously?? You’re going to go with that?
In what bizarro world does that even make the tiniest bit of sense???
Please show examples of this “venom” you are speaking of, because I haven’t even begun to get agitated….so you must be talking about someone else?
Its time for an official comment from Google on this matter. If 4.0 and the Nexus did not create an iOS WP7 like smooth experience then I’m inclined to believe that it may not happen even next year.
I am going to have to buy a 2.5Ghz Quad-Core phone with 2GB of ram and an XBOX 360 GPU in order to accomplish what a 4 year old phone can do? I know iOS is has way less features to get in the way but c’mon. Is it possible or NOT?
Smoothness of the menus is over hyped. What really matters is the time you wait (for the next screen to show up). I couldn’t care less if the transition animation runs at 1 fps.
First of all, this guy goes to MIT. How many of you even had the chance to get in? Thought so.
Secondly, getting an internship at Google and now Microsoft is no joke. I guarantee that he is more educated than all of the people knocking him for being an ‘just an intern’.
So before you think you know more about android because you flashed MIUI, ask yourself if you even know what multithreading and synchronization are. If not, then shut up, go to college, and come back when you have a quarter of the credentials Andrew Munn has achieved
I don’t know more about android. But I have nothing to gain by saying that my bionic has zero lag.
Follow the money, genius.
Lag is in the eye of the beholder. You can read through Hackborn’s
article comments on how 30fps often times appears “smoother” than 40 or 50fps.
I’m an Android enthusiast as much as you are, but the biggest knock on Android to date has been the choppy UI experience. I’m happy you’re happy.
LOL at your elitism. Last I checked lots of pioneers in the field don’t even have a college degree.
Go get 10 people at random without college degrees.
Get 10 people at random with college degrees.
Compare and contrast.
i wouldnt have a problem with that..you seem like a moron..elitest?
I never claimed he was a pioneer, but simply that there is no grounds to question is credibility just because he’s an intern.
And yes, the likes of Zuckerberg were dropouts. But Marky got into Harvard, which is no easy feat, and a clear testament to his genius.
And the Jobs, Wozniaks, etc? Sure they didn’t get the Ivy name, but they loved computing and worked hard to overachieve. They didn’t sit around flashing some other developers custom ROM then claim that just because THEY didn’t experience lag everybody else must be crazy or stupid.
There’s no reason to bash on Andrew just because he was an “intern” and writes unfavorably about the Android framework.
I read some of the comments. I’m not a software engineer, but I get the feeling that his assessment of the situation seems superficial at best compared to the comments he got on his post. You can bash someone for just being an intern because education is one thing but experience is a whole another ball game. You put an industry veteran with a degree from a well respected public school and a MIT undergrad intern. You take the opinion of the industry veteran over the intern regardless of the disparity in their education.
Ha! I love how going to MIT makes someone’s opinion unquestionable. Are you Munn’s dad or boyfriend or something?
Read through my post. I didn’t say he was unquestionable. I said that the basis of questioning him shouldn’t be because he’s “just an intern”.
I’d expect a more mature response from a physics student at NYU, really.
People seem to be making more of your responses than needs be, especially with the personal attacks. That said, you make a pretty big assumption by calling everyone out for the ‘just an intern’ comment. I judge his comments differently knowing he is an intern, not because I don’t think he has the education or intelligence to back it up, but as an intern he wouldn’t have nearly as much access to the development process as a full time engineer. Every company varies on the level of responsibility they give their interns but even the best internships don’t get nearly the same inside look as would a real employee.
Still, everyone needs to stop making it sound like you’re some elitist prick just because you make an argument against them.
I actually know what multithreading and synchronization are.
Since I am not american, I don’t know if I am talented enough to go to MIT but I could not care less and I don’t think that coming from some renowned college should affect how what you write is seen (but sadly it does).
He is probably good for an undergraduate but that does not mean that he knows what he is talking about. And he doesn’t know what he is talking about.
An interesting post explaining why he is wrong : https://plus.google.com/100952146715427669835/posts/MWAJ73cT4t7
I agree, people are too quick to think because someone comes from the ivy league they are talented. I would like to point to our recent banking and financial failures.. Seems like all those ivy league people should hold their education up as the reason for their failures :)
The banking and financial failures are more complicated than simply the misguided ways of Ivy Leaguers. Borrowers were greedy too, as were governmental ideals of increasing home ownership.
But we both digress. This guy is a tech-y, not the 1%
It may be a trivial point, but the Ivy League schools are: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale. MIT isn’t on the list, though it is a fine school.
MIT isn’t part of the Ivy league.
I’m not claiming that he’s untouchable because he goes to MIT, I’m saying that most of the people attacking him have no right to denounce his credibility on the subject merely because he’s an intern or an undergraduate.
I’ve been through every comment of Hackborn and Munn’s post.
This guy, if I’m understanding correctly, basically points out the details of Munn’s post. But it’s interesting that he counters Android’s ‘fundamental laggyness’ by explaining the different way the DEVELOPER can choose how draw elements to the View, whereas iOS forces you to draw into a bitmap.
A lot of developers wouldn’t know. In fact, if you go through simple Android tutorials, many books barely show how to programmatically draw elements. 2 of the 4 books I read didn’t even explain AsyncTask, let alone how it affects UI performance or how to implement a custom (abstract) adapter for it.
So what happens is a lot of apps on the market don’t take advantage of what Android has to offer, or it may just be too complicated for them to understand how to implement their apps to prioritize a lag-free experience. iOS has a very strict way of rendering UI elements because it prioritizes fluidity, and thus most apps offer a fluid experience. My Android experience isn’t usually hampered by the System apks or Google apps, but by 3rd party ones.
If you try to contact a webservice without using AsynTask, the compiler will insult you, forcing you to read the documentation and learn how to do it right.
But I do not think that everything can be solved by providing easy to implement classes that address the different issues (AsyncTask for exemple is nothing that can not be written by any competent dev). Most devs are just too lazy to make the effort to write applications “the right way”, if you do not force them to enforce a certain standard, they will just produce shitty code that works but is far from being the maximum the OS can produce.
I think that there are some possibles solutions to that problem, and some are already in place :
-give better tool to the devs
-Provide google apps that set the bar. If you look closely at the evolution of the google apps during the last 2 years, the progress has been tremendous.
-Use more powerful levers on the devs : if Google started capping the score of Android apps that do not attain a certain standard to 2 or 3 *, laziness would rapidly disappear.
I will not reexplain why Munn post is irrelevant, it has already been done by people that are way more qualified than me (I graduated 3 months ago), the link i mentionned in the last post is in fact a pretty good explanation. It is not a good thing to propagate informations that are just false.
Andrew munn does NOT go to MIT. Can’t even get your facts straight…
Yep, I go to Waterloo! Still a pretty decent CS school.
It’s also worth pointing out that Google treats it’s interns very much like full time employees, and that I had complete access to everything. However, everything in my post is based on public information. Anybody could have written it.Lastly, I love Android and I want it to be the best OS out there. It already is in a bunch of respects!
Basically, the root cause is how Android prioritizes processing threads. I’ve known this for a good while by just using iOS and Android devices.
As a developer all I can do is laugh. Compared to Windows, Android is running better than my quad core PC in less space with less expensive hardware. Microsoft should take a long hard look at its fat bloated OS before tossing a stone at anything.
Genius? He can pass tests but being a good coder has nothing to do with tests. His word should have the same weight as any wet behind the ears intern. NONE
I don’t understand this obsession with “smooth” that everyone is looking for. If you want a truly smooth interface and nothing else, buy iOS. If you want a phone that can do a whole lot more (or the ability to do whatever you want to it) and just a hint of lag at times, buy android. Plain and simple. I had a OG Droid and the only bad lag that happened was trying to run GB at stock MHz or when the screens had to refresh when the memory was full. The Bionic that I have now is very smooth with only some instances of a slight lag but not enough to notice or really care about. Its not like we are talking about PCs lag when you try to open an application and it takes 5 min to load. Now that is lag. “Oh my….my phone has a slight judder when I have 6 apps paused in the background and I am scrolling through my screens as fast as I can…” Give me, and the rest of us, a break. Go buy and iPhone that can only run 2 apps at a time.
lol…I love how your way of justifying your android’s lag is that it can run 6 apps at the same time…the funny thing is that iOS easily does the same thing…just without the judder that people(not you) complain about…are the people’s comment offending you are something?…also, when android users use the term smooth…its highly subjective…
hahahahaahhahaaa idiot
I know right…people need to be more educated about stuff overall…
I was being factitious. Its just stupid how people complain about something that is relatively non-existent on today’s dual core phones and has no baring on actual operations. People just love to complain on these sites about things that really don’t matter to the average consumer.
You might be shocked at the annoyances iPhone users have after switching to android…its not because android is that bad…its just that compared to iOS, there’s a significant difference…iOS lags once in a while too…its just different with android…ask a lot of people who’ve gone back and forth between OSes…
I have played with iOS and it is buttery smooth. But it also doesn’t offer up the features that android does. I just don’t see why there is such call to have it exactly like iOS in the smooth department. Smooth has nothing to do with overall performance, except in the older phone cases.
Why would I have a device with two cores of processing power acting like something from the 40s…an exaggeration, but still, why?? Since the very first iPhone, iOS has been a smooth joy to everyone…those who never found it enough would have jailbroken to yield what they wanted…those who were impatient jumped ship to android…I expect those who don’t hate apple to change flags pretty soon…
Won’t let me reply to your comment below so I will just say this…..if you like iOS so much, why did you leave? If you want smoothness like iOS, go back where you came from.
I never left…I’m still with iOS…I’ve watched a few of my friends go back and forth and its always funny watching the way we would sometimes argue about these topics…So I’m still where I came from…no reason to send me back anywhere…I will stop talking though if it makes you feel better…
I guess this is a phandroid/disque error when comments go too deep in the tree.
So let me get this straight, you are an iOS person trolling on android sites?? Do you seriously have nothing better to do?? I have plenty of work that you could assist with if you are that bored… :P
I was sent here from redmondpie..lol…I just commented on here without realising where I was at…I expect the flame wars to come on, but I’m not expecting to burn any significant time here…
iOS cannot run 6 apps at the same time. I challenge you to show us. launch 6 games and switch back and forth between them without having to restart the game.
I don’t think this is a challenge for any device..running 6 apps at once isn’t a deal…if running 6 forms of solitaire from the app store simultaneously is a big deal, it isn’t…I just did .it..6 infinity blades though…nah…plus, there’s just one form of infinity blade…I digress…running 6 apps at once isn’t a challenge for iOS at all…6 amazingly good games, maybe…android can’t do this either…the only good title I’ve seen is riptide, and if my feeds are right, that’s been on the app store for a while now…
http://www.droid-life.com/2011/12/05/googler-sets-the-record-straight-on-androids-hardware-acceleration/
Well my galaxy s2 is super smooth..so I don’t know what they are talking about.
Insightful but hardly definitive.
So he claims to have been a Google intern and says how horrible Android is, so hes reportedly working for Microsoft on the Windows phone because its better. Why is Phandroid paying this douche any mind ? he is obviously a Winphone 7 fanboy trying to stir the pot with BS….As for smoothness, the first Android phone , the G1 was super smooth….who ever said it wasnt smooth ?
Really, we’re going to cite someone who was a possible ex-intern as a credible source…
Never burn bridges when you left a company…it’s a small tech world…
DOS is probably the most responsive OS out there. There will always be a need for more powerful hardware when your OS can multi-task and render 3d objects.
Of course he’s bashing Android now since he will start to work on WP7 duh. But he should chose his words carefully if he pisses Google off too much he might be spending all his hard earned money with Microsoft in court for slandering.
I doubt it matters if Android will ever get as smooth as iOS, it’s smooth enough and no one seems to be bothered by it, the comScore results speak for itself, WP7 loosing more market share.
I use both ios and android devices. I will never understand fools who get so polarized over something like a phone OS and act like dogmatic rabid idiots, as if one OS was plain dogshit as opposed to another. The point is, take an iPhone and an android phone place them side by side. Run your finger back and forth across the screen of each. There is a noticeable lag on an android phone which is not apparent on the iPhone. It is a very simple test and illustrates the results plain and simple.
Dianne just posted a reply to this guy’s article:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/105051985738280261832/posts/XAZ4CeVP6DC
i dont see any lag with my SG2. lol windows goodluck with your stupid tiles