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Android users who have a keen eye for design and detail, how is the whole stutter/lag situation? Esp. after a few years of use? (beehaw.org)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I haven't used an Android device since my last one, the Galaxy S8. Beautiful hardware, beautiful design, but it was plagued with animation stutters and dropped frames. I switched to an iPhone and an iPad around 6 years ago. And the animations were buttersmooth. It was almost unthinkable to achieve such a fluid interface on any Android phone I had ever used, flagship or otherwise.

Now I am curious about how it is now. Especially after a 2-3 years of use. Does your phone or tablet stutter when you scroll, open an app, switch to another app, start multitasking etc etc? One thing I especially remember was opening certain apps like big games or Office apps. When I'd tap on the app's icon, there would be a half a second delay. But in that infinitesimally short period of time I would question whether the phone registered the touch or not. I would then reach with my finger again but the app would launch right before my second tap. That was constant and infuriating. Does that sort of stuff still happen on Android?

Thanks (:

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Delay after starting an app is essentially not a problem anymore. Most apps now come with a splash screen, so you get at least some feedback.

Lag while scrolling is still horrid. This has to do with Android apps generally being written in Java or Kotlin, which use a Stop-The-World Garbage Collector for memory management.
So, you shouldn't expect this to be fixed any time soon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Nah, it's not GC unless lists are really poorly implemented.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Hmm, you probably mean lists shouldn't be creating new objects (/allocating new memory) while just scrolling.
Which, yeah, I remember a colleague knowledgeable about Android saying that a RecyclerView specifically re-uses allocated list elements.

And from the little bit of Android dev I saw, it also looked like all the APIs are designed to stop you from doing(/allocating) much while the user is merely scrolling. Then, I'm not sure what's causing the lag...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Yep, that's the case. Who knows what's causing lags. It still can be a poorly implemented list, it could be OS doing something else it could be something else. It would be interesting testing same app on different devices.