Time for Google to step up its Android game

[Dari]

Apps written for the platform are of poor quality compared to iOS. The OS stutters all the time. The WSJ and Financial Times apps forget my password every couple of days and needs to be reset. I'm forced to carry the newspapers in my bag as a backup. Both apps are also slow compared to the iPad version. The Economist app has to re-download magazines every now and then and, when it does, it crashes. I never have this problem on my wife's iPad.

Not sure what is going on between app developers and Google but Android is a much bigger market than iOS and we're getting crap. It ain't right.

 

[Bateluer]

Interesting. The prevailing thought is the opposite side of the coin. With Google and Android commanding a staggering lead in both features, app quality, and market share, they cannot rest on their laurels.

RIM rested on their laurels, and they're basically dead. Microsoft didn't get serious with a modern mobile OS until Windows Phone 7, and they've yet to recover from it. Apple pretty much stuck its head in the sand and hid from the market from 2010 to now, and they're paying for it.

The OS stutters all the time..

Don't think I've seen Android stutter itself since Honeycomb on Tegra 2 tablets. Or Gingerbread(2.3.x) on phones.

 

[Red Storm]

3rd party app is poorly made, blames Google.

 

[luv2liv]

not sure why you are having issues.
my HTC One M7 still working fine since day 1. i got the NFCring to unlock the phone instead of passcodes and its the coolest thing ever.

 

[Dari]

Interesting. The prevailing thought is the opposite side of the coin. With Google and Android commanding a staggering lead in both features, app quality, and market share, they cannot rest on their laurels.

RIM rested on their laurels, and they're basically dead. Microsoft didn't get serious with a modern mobile OS until Windows Phone 7, and they've yet to recover from it. Apple pretty much stuck its head in the sand and hid from the market from 2010 to now, and they're paying for it.



Don't think I've seen Android stutter itself since Honeycomb on Tegra 2 tablets. Or Gingerbread(2.3.x) on phones.

It does stutter, like when I'm playing a game. Or the phone will hang before deciding to do what I want. Then it does it in quick succession and messes things up.

3rd party app is poorly made, blames Google.

One app and I'll blame the developer. Multiple apps and I start to look at the policy of the OS developer.

 

[Ravynmagi]

One of the great things about Android is that it's pretty open and flexible.
One of the bad things about Android is that it's pretty open and flexible.

Phone manufactures are allowed to customize Android and add new features they like to help distinguish themselves from other phone manufacturers or come up with stuff that Google hasn't yet. Unfortunately I think in this effort to add new features (mostly gimmicky) it bloats their version of Android up a bit too much and slows it down a bit.

With newer phones this isn't too much of an issue as processors are pretty fast and some phones are coming with more RAM. There there might still be a tad of lag here and there. Sometimes you can go into settings and turn off a lot of the customizations that might be contributing to the slow down. Or just buy a Nexus phone that is stock Android or maybe a Motorola that is nearly stock Android. These phones fly.

Likewise, apps also have a lot of flexibility in what they can do on Android. And sometimes even the apps can screw over your performance if you aren't careful. Watch out for the widgets, they are neat, but it seems a lot can slow the phone down quite a bit. Other apps that need to run in the background and frequently update can be a problem too.

As for app quality. Yeah, there is still a gap. And I think that's because there is also still a gap between how much the average iPhone user spends on apps and what the average Android user spends on apps. As long as developers continue to make more money on iOS apps, that is where their focus is going to be first. Android is second. And if the summer intern has some time, maybe a Windows Phone app will be made.

 

[Bateluer]

It does stutter, like when I'm playing a game. Or the phone will hang before deciding to do what I want. Then it does it in quick succession and messes things up.

Which phone do you currently have that displays this behavior? And want apps are installed?

Moving backwards from current to past phones, my HTC One m7, Motorola Droid RAZ HD MAXX, and Verizon Galaxy Nexus did not display that behavior. The GNex would die in about 4 hours though. Even the HTC Thunderbolt I owned before the GNex was relatively smooth under Sense 2.1, and perfectly smooth under AOSP Gingerbread builds. I sold the Tbolt off before it got an ICS build though, so I can't comment on how that worked out.


So far as apps go, shrug. There's over 500K apps in the Play Store alone, not counting those in other app stores or simply posted at XDA or other sites. This means that you can have one 'dev' thats a teenager in his basement or a professional team of several dozen trained adults. If you're experiencing those glitches from profressional dev teams, its almost always because they simply ported the app directly over from iOS, changing and polishing nothing.

My Capital 360 banking app is a laggy mess; my Credit Karma app is one of the smoothest apps on my phone. The Capital 360 app uses iOS screen shots in is Play Store landing page; Credit Karma's were taken on a Nexus 5.

 

[gorcorps]

3rd party app is poorly made, blames Google.

No kidding

I don't use either of those apps, and the ones I do use don't forget passwords. Not sure what the OP expects from Google about such things.

 

[cbrunny]

Apps written for the platform are of poor quality compared to iOS. The OS stutters all the time. The WSJ and Financial Times apps forget my password every couple of days and needs to be reset. I'm forced to carry the newspapers in my bag as a backup. Both apps are also slow compared to the iPad version. The Economist app has to re-download magazines every now and then and, when it does, it crashes. I never have this problem on my wife's iPad.

Not sure what is going on between app developers and Google but Android is a much bigger market than iOS and we're getting crap. It ain't right.

Sounds like your apps suck. Google should really employ better app developers for other companies.............................................................

 

[s44]

Which phone do you currently have that displays this behavior?

I'm guessing it's a Sony.

 

[rcpratt]

News at 11, crappy HTML app ports from iOS are crappy.

 

[destrekor]

Don't think I've seen Android stutter itself since Honeycomb on Tegra 2 tablets. Or Gingerbread(2.3.x) on phones.

I'm all about loving and supporting Android, but... are you blind?

I could not honestly say that I've never seen stutter. That would be an outright lie. I've seen it in Google apps as well.

But I also use my phone, heavily. Many apps, many tabs in browsers.

The iPhone 4S I had at work last year also exhibited the same behavior, and I also managed to crash the entire phone on more than one occasion due to what I must assume is my typical usage pattern. So I would never blindly claim that iOS is beautifully smooth while Android is a stuttering mess. They are both capable of stuttering.

 

[shabby]

The WSJ and Financial Times apps forget my password every couple of days and needs to be reset. I'm forced to carry the newspapers in my bag as a backup.

 

[purbeast0]

as for the performance, the apps i wrote myself (native to both platforms)... the scrolling of table views are faster on my ip4 than my nexus 7 tablet. it's smooth as butter on the ip4 but stutters on the nexus 7. however, making a selection to go to the next screen is faster on the n7 than on the ip4.

i still find it kind of odd that something can be faster on a phone i bought back in 2011 than something i bought in 2014.

and yes, totally anecdotal.

 

[Roland00Address]

I think you did not see the same last Google I/O that I did. Two of your complaints were addressed there. Sure you can make the argument that you want it now and Android 5 is not out yet, but it is coming.

When Android 5 comes out they will be using the ART format instead of Dalvik which will have increased performance. They also rewrote the garbage collection algorithm so there will be less stutter due to garbage collection taking so long, it will also be less necessary with Android 5.

Second they have given developers new tools to create apps and certain parts of these tools will automatically implement material design with no extra work for the developer. Now this will not create good programmers from bad ones, they can still mess up, but it will be less software if the default options are not something those people have to mess with and thus mess up. Also apple has just as bad of this as Android.

Oh they also announces lots of other changes with Android 5 which is currently being called Android L.

 

[Crono]

Android is advancing much faster than iOS, and Windows Phone would be better overall, too, if not for the lack of some apps. The difference in quality Android apps and iOS apps is much smaller than it was 2 years ago. Sure, there are specific examples where iOS is better, but overall is iOS worth it? I don't think so. Not for me, anyway.

It's just a matter of developers - not just Google - switching over to prioritize Android development over iOS, as they realize there is as much (if not more) money in making sure things work well on the OS. Right now most of the companies hiring third-party developers to create their apps are still in the mindset of Apple-first development, but that will change in time. It's only a relatively recent change that Android has larger market share, and it's reasonable that there is some lag in shifting priorities to accommodate the larger user base.

 

[Dari]

Which phone do you currently have that displays this behavior? And want apps are installed?

Moving backwards from current to past phones, my HTC One m7, Motorola Droid RAZ HD MAXX, and Verizon Galaxy Nexus did not display that behavior. The GNex would die in about 4 hours though. Even the HTC Thunderbolt I owned before the GNex was relatively smooth under Sense 2.1, and perfectly smooth under AOSP Gingerbread builds. I sold the Tbolt off before it got an ICS build though, so I can't comment on how that worked out.


So far as apps go, shrug. There's over 500K apps in the Play Store alone, not counting those in other app stores or simply posted at XDA or other sites. This means that you can have one 'dev' thats a teenager in his basement or a professional team of several dozen trained adults. If you're experiencing those glitches from profressional dev teams, its almost always because they simply ported the app directly over from iOS, changing and polishing nothing.

My Capital 360 banking app is a laggy mess; my Credit Karma app is one of the smoothest apps on my phone. The Capital 360 app uses iOS screen shots in is Play Store landing page; Credit Karma's were taken on a Nexus 5.

I have an Optimus G Pro that I have these apps on. I have a Blackberry for work. On the OGP I have the aforementioned apps and Amazon Music, Hearts, My banks app, work app, RunKeeper, copblock, Hearts, and some other apps. I really only use the financial news apps and play Hearts. There is no reason these program should run so poorly.

 

[Dari]

I think you did not see the same last Google I/O that I did. Two of your complaints were addressed there. Sure you can make the argument that you want it now and Android 5 is not out yet, but it is coming.

When Android 5 comes out they will be using the ART format instead of Dalvik which will have increased performance. They also rewrote the garbage collection algorithm so there will be less stutter due to garbage collection taking so long, it will also be less necessary with Android 5.

Second they have given developers new tools to create apps and certain parts of these tools will automatically implement material design with no extra work for the developer. Now this will not create good programmers from bad ones, they can still mess up, but it will be less software if the default options are not something those people have to mess with and thus mess up. Also apple has just as bad of this as Android.

Oh they also announces lots of other changes with Android 5 which is currently being called Android L.

It can't get here fast enough. Thanks for this. I don't keep up with development news.

 

[Dari]

Also, to see how horrible a programming environment Android is, you guys should compare Google's own apps on iOS to Android. It's night and day in how superior the iOS version is, with additional features not found on the Android version. My OGP is 5.5". iPhone 6 Plus is starting to look enticing...

 

[Muadib]

Also, to see how horrible a programming environment Android is, you guys should compare Google's own apps on iOS to Android. It's night and day in how superior the iOS version is, with additional features not found on the Android version. My OGP is 5.5". iPhone 6 Plus is starting to look enticing...

What apps are you using for this comparison?

 

[LtMikePowelll]

Some app like Instagram work perfectly on my Note 3 and TabPro 8.4, but not so well on my ipad Mini retina. Facebook however work and look better on iOS compare to Android. Both platform will always have good app and bad app, and there will always have some stutter, its just depend on how each user seeing it differently

 

[Dari]

What apps are you using for this comparison?

Gmail & Hangout

 

[MrSquished]

Gmail & Hangout

Gmail? I haven't had that lag on me in ages on various phones from my HTC One M8 to my previous Nexus 5 and GS4 and more. Something is up with your phone.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

It can't get here fast enough. Thanks for this. I don't keep up with development news.

And yet you complain about how Android development is what you want.

 

[purbeast0]

Android is advancing much faster than iOS, and Windows Phone would be better overall, too, if not for the lack of some apps. The difference in quality Android apps and iOS apps is much smaller than it was 2 years ago. Sure, there are specific examples where iOS is better, but overall is iOS worth it? I don't think so. Not for me, anyway.

It's just a matter of developers - not just Google - switching over to prioritize Android development over iOS, as they realize there is as much (if not more) money in making sure things work well on the OS. Right now most of the companies hiring third-party developers to create their apps are still in the mindset of Apple-first development, but that will change in time. It's only a relatively recent change that Android has larger market share, and it's reasonable that there is some lag in shifting priorities to accommodate the larger user base.

i have a pretty niche market for the apps that i develop, and i make like 5-6 times more on ios than android. not a chance any time in the future i'd make android my main platform. everything is dev'ed on ios and ported to android.