What exactly puts Windows Phone so behind?

[darkewaffle]

I'm talking about raw performance though. I already have the efficient UI, what I want is instantaneous loading of whatever it is I'm trying to do. Until that time, we will continue to need performance improvements.

Past a certain point (which for most tasks, phone grade hardware is quickly approaching or bypassing) compute power has nothing to do with that and you're dealing with inherent processing/transmission latency and storage bottlenecking.

 

[Red Storm]

Past a certain point (which for most tasks, phone grade hardware is quickly approaching or bypassing) compute power has nothing to do with that and you're dealing with inherent processing/transmission latency and storage bottlenecking.

Yes, but we haven't reached that point yet. And when we do, we have to find a way around it. My point is I don't agree with ever saying "Okay this is good enough", I think we need to always be pushing for more/better/faster.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Does it have multitasking yet?

it has push notifications and certain apps can run in the background like music. honestly that's good enough.

its not like Android has full blown multitasking. If anything there's an issue with making sure apps stick in memory on Android due to the automated memory freeing of the OS.

 

[Red Storm]

Doesn't every OS have automated memory management...

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Doesn't every OS have automated memory management...

true but the fact that automated memory management kills the launcher is quite ridiculous. why is there a thread with 3.6 million views and 16k replies about a script to prevent that on XDA? It's been around since 2010 too.

 

[Red Storm]

true but the fact that automated memory management kills the launcher is quite ridiculous. why is there a thread with 3.6 million views and 16k replies about a script to prevent that on XDA? It's been around since 2010 too.

Are we talking about a stock phone, or a YMMV community ROM?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Are we talking about a stock phone, or a YMMV community ROM?

launcher redraws are an issue since day 1 on android. stock or ymmv community rom. it's the way Android works. the script I pointed to is supposed to correct google's stupidity to make sure the launcher sticks.

it's like explorer crashing and then having to reload your desktop, start menu and crap. it's not optimal.

 

[RedRooster]

Yes, but we haven't reached that point yet. And when we do, we have to find a way around it. My point is I don't agree with ever saying "Okay this is good enough", I think we need to always be pushing for more/better/faster.

In battery life.

 

[WelshBloke]

launcher redraws are an issue since day 1 on android. stock or ymmv community rom. it's the way Android works. the script I pointed to is supposed to correct google's stupidity to make sure the launcher sticks.

it's like explorer crashing and then having to reload your desktop, start menu and crap. it's not optimal.

It is if you want to keep memory for the apps that you are running.

I'd rather the launcher redraws when I re-enter it (really it only takes like 0.5 of a second) than the app I'm running crashes with an out of memory error.

 

[Yuriman]

it has push notifications and certain apps can run in the background like music. honestly that's good enough.

its not like Android has full blown multitasking. If anything there's an issue with making sure apps stick in memory on Android due to the automated memory freeing of the OS.

Is multi-window and the ability to run things in the background such as navigation or music not full-blown multitasking?

 

[Dominato3r]

No I'm sure it's much improved from WP7, but back then you had people saying "it's so smooth!" as if that is what truly mattered, not the actual speed of the phone at accomplishing tasks.

I heard that WP8 and RT/Pro do not share the same app store? I think that's a big time missed opportunity from MS.

Its just a different model. combing Tbalet + PC vs. Tablet+ Phone

 

[Conscript]

I started years ago with an iPhone, and even today I use an iPhone5 for work. For personal use, the last 2 years I used android, a Samsung captivate, and then a Galaxy S2...recently moved to a wp8...and honestly, its my favorite phone/os. Its hard to separate the hardware from the OS, but I am amble to do everything I could do with my android, but with a slicker, more stable OS.

Sent from my Lumia 810 using Board Express

 

[shortylickens]

Only if you are just dicking around in the OS. As soon as you launch any app that needs some horsepower things are going to bog down horribly.

OK, seriously, this is why you guys need to see the Playbook.

 

[TuxDave]

I thought Apple pulled the YouTube app on iOS6, similar to what they did with Google Maps?
Google must have released the YouTube app pretty quick, then. Didn't know that there was one already.

Yeah, as someone already mentioned, it was out really fast. As in day #1 of iOS6 release. It was the first app I reinstalled after updating. In the grand scheme of things, this should be seen as a plus from all sides.

1) The new Youtube app is great
2) One less default app that you can't uninstall

Win-Win for anyone that uses Youtube or doesn't.

 

[ponyo]

Yeah, as someone already mentioned, it was out really fast. As in day #1 of iOS6 release. It was the first app I reinstalled after updating. In the grand scheme of things, this should be seen as a plus from all sides.

1) The new Youtube app is great
2) One less default app that you can't uninstall

Win-Win for anyone that uses Youtube or doesn't.

Only for the iPhone. iPad Youtube app was missing and only very recently available. It's the same situation with Google Maps now.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

It is if you want to keep memory for the apps that you are running.

I'd rather the launcher redraws when I re-enter it (really it only takes like 0.5 of a second) than the app I'm running crashes with an out of memory error.

It depends on the # of widgets. It can easily be seconds on a slower phone. No app on a phone takes that much memory that you have to purge the launcher. The only case would be 256mb phones and we all know those are out of date. There are plenty of other processes that can get axed in order for your foreground app to run without crashing.

There is really no excuse for the launcher redrawing still in this day and age. I can understand the 256mb phones, but pretty much after that it should've been fixed. The issue is that Google's not putting the launcher in the right memory priority, and it requires a build.prop edit and framework fix or whatever according to that script. Basically the fact that they haven't fixed this yet today is a huge derp on their part.

Is multi-window and the ability to run things in the background such as navigation or music not full-blown multitasking?

Multi window is brand new. Navigation and music are capable of running on iOS in the background too. It's not the same full blown multitasking on Symbian and WebOS. Only certain apps will stay open, but not everything keeps running. The example I used back in 2010 is if you play Angry Birds, and you shoot off a bird and switch out in the middle, does the bird continue to fly and hit its target? You want full blown multitasking? Then compare to what happens when you switch windows while playing Angry Birds on your PC.

You guys bash iOS and Windows Phone for lacking multitasking or whatever, but it's not like Android has true multitasking either. The apps that stay open are up to the OS and not up to you completely. There isn't an exit button because it's up to Google's memory management to handle. So some apps might save state and relaunch. Others might take you back to the main menu. It's not fully under your control.

But seriously, my point in the end is that you don't need full blown multitasking on a phone, so what iOS and Windows Phone have done is fine in that sense. I don't get why people champion Android as some multitasking model when other OSes have already implemented that (granted they're dead now, but it's been implemented LONG time ago).

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Yes, but we haven't reached that point yet. And when we do, we have to find a way around it. My point is I don't agree with ever saying "Okay this is good enough", I think we need to always be pushing for more/better/faster.

I don't think we need to stagnate, but in the past years, the need for a faster CPU was there with Android. It was less so with iOS and Windows Phone. At the time of the release of the next phones, there really wasn't a lagfest on the previous generation phones. The 3GS -> 4 wasn't like "omg my 3gs is so slow I have to get a 4." Nor was that the case with the 4S launch or the 5. The difference in basic operations was so noticeable going from a Droid 1 -> 1ghz Nexus S -> SGS2 -> Nexus 4. And given how Android handles the UI animations, we know that it is imperative to have crazy fast hardware.

Project butter and the upgraded Facebook app today shows you what software optimizations bring to the table. You don't need the fastest CPU to run things smoothly. Other platforms have shown that already.

I think I once said in my iPhone 5 review that pretty much all my points would stand if I had a 4S. The phone is already damn fast, and the only thing I benefit from is faster app load times and maybe more intensive 3D games. But for those of us that just email, social network, play casual games, you don't NEED that raw CPU power.

 

[TuxDave]

Only for the iPhone. iPad Youtube app was missing and only very recently available. It's the same situation with Google Maps now.

Very true although I would argue missing Youtube is far worse than Google Maps for the typical iPad user.

 

[pantsaregood]

To make the hardware argument a bit more clear:

As I said, I went from an HD7 to a Titan. That's a 50% increase in clock speed; the core itself may be faster per-clock, as well. The Adreno 205 GPU is certainly better than the Adreno 200, but I'm not sure of exactly how much so. Despite this, I've never been left thinking "damn, my HD7 was slow." Apps do load faster, but actually using apps isn't really different.

The only case I can think of the newer hardware leading to dramatically superior performance was the case of early emulators. Originally, first generation WP7 devices choked on NES emulators, but second generation devices had no real issues. This was fixed with software optimization, however.

Similarly, the Lumia 920, despite being a fantastic device, doesn't make me look at my Titan and say "damn, this is slow." Apps load faster, but the phone isn't actually more responsive or usable.

As I said before, this "moar k0rez" mentality is going to hit the same roadblock it hit on desktop platforms. Many programs don't run in parallel; many programs CAN'T run in parallel. In those cases, extra cores aren't really of any use. I'm not speaking against progress in hardware. I firmly believe we should always push forward, but I also see that hardware isn't really of use when software isn't demanding of it.

Android, for example, has come a long way. Running Gingerbread on a 1 GHz Snapdragon/Adreno 200 could turn into a laggy nightmare pretty easily. Jelly Bean, in its hardware accelerated glory, is smooth on my roommate's LG Phoenix. That's a 600 MHz CPU. The browser can choke it, but it runs well otherwise.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

To make the hardware argument a bit more clear:

As I said, I went from an HD7 to a Titan. That's a 50% increase in clock speed; the core itself may be faster per-clock, as well. The Adreno 205 GPU is certainly better than the Adreno 200, but I'm not sure of exactly how much so. Despite this, I've never been left thinking "damn, my HD7 was slow." Apps do load faster, but actually using apps isn't really different.

The only case I can think of the newer hardware leading to dramatically superior performance was the case of early emulators. Originally, first generation WP7 devices choked on NES emulators, but second generation devices had no real issues. This was fixed with software optimization, however.

Similarly, the Lumia 920, despite being a fantastic device, doesn't make me look at my Titan and say "damn, this is slow." Apps load faster, but the phone isn't actually more responsive or usable.

As I said before, this "moar k0rez" mentality is going to hit the same roadblock it hit on desktop platforms. Many programs don't run in parallel; many programs CAN'T run in parallel. In those cases, extra cores aren't really of any use. I'm not speaking against progress in hardware. I firmly believe we should always push forward, but I also see that hardware isn't really of use when software isn't demanding of it.

Android, for example, has come a long way. Running Gingerbread on a 1 GHz Snapdragon/Adreno 200 could turn into a laggy nightmare pretty easily. Jelly Bean, in its hardware accelerated glory, is smooth on my roommate's LG Phoenix. That's a 600 MHz CPU. The browser can choke it, but it runs well otherwise.

This is what bugs me. The Android camp has basically turned smartphones into this whole CPU race/video card race. That's not what phones were about.

Back when the US was stuck in the stone age with cell phones, I was on HowardForums a lot. We always talked about feature X, Y, Z. Front facing cameras, rear facing cameras with flash, larger screen, FM radio support, etc. Instead of focusing on these features, we're obsessing over CPU speed. The fact is phones should be built to run well on hardware. While there are those of us who obsess over CPUs and Video cards (I was once there), does it honestly make a big difference in doing normal tasks in the OS? I shouldn't feel outdated by next year's CPU. Maybe in 3-5 years my new desktop will feel slow, but I shouldn't be dependent on the next upgrade to make a night or day difference. Unfortunately, Android isn't built that way that's fine. It needs brute force CPU power to make things happen.

That doesn't mean that the same applies for iOS and Windows Phone. While it's nice to have new CPUs, it's not always critical for bleeding edge hardware if the phone can operate with features.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

This is what bugs me. The Android camp has basically turned smartphones into this whole CPU race/video card race. That's not what phones were about.

Back when the US was stuck in the stone age with cell phones, I was on HowardForums a lot. We always talked about feature X, Y, Z. Front facing cameras, rear facing cameras with flash, larger screen, FM radio support, etc. Instead of focusing on these features, we're obsessing over CPU speed. The fact is phones should be built to run well on hardware. While there are those of us who obsess over CPUs and Video cards (I was once there), does it honestly make a big difference in doing normal tasks in the OS? I shouldn't feel outdated by next year's CPU. Maybe in 3-5 years my new desktop will feel slow, but I shouldn't be dependent on the next upgrade to make a night or day difference. Unfortunately, Android isn't built that way that's fine. It needs brute force CPU power to make things happen.

That doesn't mean that the same applies for iOS and Windows Phone. While it's nice to have new CPUs, it's not always critical for bleeding edge hardware if the phone can operate with features.

I wouldn't use the pre iPhone cellphone market as an example of how things should be, everyone admits most if not all of those devices sucked. I'm extremely glad it got turned into a specs race.

The SoC used for a phone is absolutely critical, you may want to think of phones as some mysterious box but the fact is everything about the device is directly influenced by the underlying hardware.

 

[Red Storm]

This is what bugs me. The Android camp has basically turned smartphones into this whole CPU race/video card race. That's not what phones were about.

I seem to recall iPhone benchmark figures being posted here just as much as Android. Both sides do it, it's not one camp. And the other features continue to get plenty of discussion as well. This has never changed, not sure what you're talking about.

I personally consider myself an enthusiast yet I've never once given a damn about smartphone benchmarks. I don't even bother reading those sections in reviews.

 

[WelshBloke]

It depends on the # of widgets. It can easily be seconds on a slower phone. No app on a phone takes that much memory that you have to purge the launcher. The only case would be 256mb phones and we all know those are out of date. There are plenty of other processes that can get axed in order for your foreground app to run without crashing.


...

But then you'd be bitching about those being closed.

The launcher redrawing doesnt involve a lot. If they axe other processes it may involve a loss of data or needing to redownload stuff.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

But then you'd be bitching about those being closed.

The launcher redrawing doesnt involve a lot. If they axe other processes it may involve a loss of data or needing to redownload stuff.

Oh come on. Look at the fix made by XDA devs. There are certain priorities they can assign to the launcher so that it doesn't get killed easily, or is next to impossible to get killed.

It's a launcher. Keeping the launcher open doesn't sacrifice many apps. It sacrifices 1 app at most. With some smart memory management they can resolve this. Look at HTC One X's memory killing debacle. The only solution isn't to load up a device with 16gb of RAM. Android can work fine with 512mb of RAM if they optimize these things.

The fact is launcher redraws are unacceptable, and you're now just making excuses as to why it's still a problem. I don't get why Android defenders need to make an excuse for every single deficiency. Google can't launch a phone properly? It's because they're no Amazon? Come on.

 

[WelshBloke]

Oh come on. Look at the fix made by XDA devs. There are certain priorities they can assign to the launcher so that it doesn't get killed easily, or is next to impossible to get killed.

It's a launcher. Keeping the launcher open doesn't sacrifice many apps. It sacrifices 1 app at most. With some smart memory management they can resolve this. Look at HTC One X's memory killing debacle. The only solution isn't to load up a device with 16gb of RAM. Android can work fine with 512mb of RAM if they optimize these things.

The fact is launcher redraws are unacceptable, and you're now just making excuses as to why it's still a problem. I don't get why Android defenders need to make an excuse for every single deficiency. Google can't launch a phone properly? It's because they're no Amazon? Come on.

The bolded is purely your opinion, you're entitled to it but it doesn't make it fact.

In the list of concerns I have with my phones the odd launcher redraw is way, way down near the bottom of the list.