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GPU support!! WHY NOT???????

Let me start by saying I love Android. I love Google. Not only is Android an extremely powerful OS with a wonderful interface but I love the whole open ethos behind it, led by Google, the good guys.
But I just can't for the life of my understand why GPU support is not being introduced, or at least acknowledged that it's missing and it's coming.
I'm running Froyo, and whilst it may well be 500 gazillion times faster crunching numbers and performing data intensive tasks and whatever, it doesn't feel it as I use the phone next to an iphone 3gs.
Manipulating every single screen, every single swipe, window, everything including menus and web browsing just doesn't feel as good as on the iphone. Even if it is is technically faster, what good is it when the thing just doesn't feel as good? It might as well be slower, because how something feels has the bigger impact on people's perceptions.
I understand it's not as easy to accomplish as apple did it being as they only have one phone etc, but surely there's got to be some way?
Why is this issue not bigger within the Android community? Everybody knows the iphone is more fluid to use no matter how much we might want to deny it to ourselves.

It's easy to be smoother when you can't do more than one thing at a time.

Apple moves basically a wallpaper with icons, which is just a picture.
Android moves widgets and live wallpaper. Tons of CPU used for that. Turn off your live wallpaper, disable widgets - get the same scrolling as iPhone.
GPU is there and has nothing to do with it.
Search would have helped avoiding useless complaints in capital letters with tons of "?"s.
If the visuals are so important to you - get an iPhone. System limitations - there's only so much that can be done between battery life, multitasking and graphics. iPhone uses graphics at the expense of multitasking, Android does otherwise.

shrub said:
Let me start by saying I love Android. I love Google. Not only is Android an extremely powerful OS with a wonderful interface but I love the whole open ethos behind it, led by Google, the good guys.
But I just can't for the life of my understand why GPU support is not being introduced, or at least acknowledged that it's missing and it's coming.
I'm running Froyo, and whilst it may well be 500 gazillion times faster crunching numbers and performing data intensive tasks and whatever, it doesn't feel it as I use the phone next to an iphone 3gs.
Manipulating every single screen, every single swipe, window, everything including menus and web browsing just doesn't feel as good as on the iphone. Even if it is is technically faster, what good is it when the thing just doesn't feel as good? It might as well be slower, because how something feels has the bigger impact on people's perceptions.
I understand it's not as easy to accomplish as apple did it being as they only have one phone etc, but surely there's got to be some way?
Why is this issue not bigger within the Android community? Everybody knows the iphone is more fluid to use no matter how much we might want to deny it to ourselves.
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I am the most unbiased person I've ever met and I will honestly tell you that the response on my phone is as fast and smooth as I have ever seen on any phone. I don't think it can get better. I do not like the grid popping in the Nexus Launcher though. I wish it would just scroll like the old versions.
You don't have a real question in all honesty. Your question is, why is it not like the iPhone and why is it not "smooth" to you personally. That's just the way one person feels. I like the way the N1 feels across the entire OS. They're two different OS's and Phones so they're never going to be the same. I think you really just prefer one over the other in your own opinion. Neither of them can be called better outside of an opinion so nothing will change.

I will sacrifice fluidity any day for functionality.
Also, do you have any idea of what Android has come from, in the sense of versioning? I am certain that this is almost identical the iPhone OS/Hardware Saga from version 1 and up.

I have a question. Why is there so much comparison to iphone. I think android Smashes them but why post topic after topic about that... where's that one mod. He should delete this.

temperbad said:
I have a question. Why is there so much comparison to iphone. I think android Smashes them but why post topic after topic about that... where's that one mod. He should delete this.
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There is always a comparison of the top two of anything. Android and iPhone are very similar and they're they top devices so they're going to get compared. 99.999% of the comparisons are biased in some way but the fact is that neither of them are factually better than the other. They both have amazing features that the other doesn't and the word "better" and your decision come down to your personal preferences. I don't like iTunes, I think widgets are a MUST for me and I enjoy modding my phone without going through hell to do it or getting the cops called on me so I chose Android. Also I have been behind everything Google has done for many years and I will continue to love the company but biased attitudes are something I try to avoid. Not only do you not learn anything but you look foolish acting that way [I'm not talking about you personally I'm speaking in general].

Wow, I'm surprised to see that I'm one of the only people who completely agree with the original poster.
This isn't limited to the launcher. As the OP stated, literally every on screen motion is smoother on the iPhone.
This isn't because of the lack of multitasking on the iPhone because iOS 4 looks just as smooth.
It is either a consequence of the threading used in gui programs and/or better use of the GPU for animations and scrolling. It seems to me on my Nexus that in most cases scrolling and animations are slower when the CPU is processing something where as on an iPhone the scrolling seems smooth regardless of the processes involved.
One of my complaints along these lines is scrolling in the Android web browser isn't nearly as nice as even the slower iPhone 3G, much less an iPhone 3GS.

dalingrin said:
Wow, I'm surprised to see that I'm one of the only people who completely agree with the original poster.
This isn't limited to the launcher. As the OP stated, literally every on screen motion is smoother on the iPhone.
This isn't because of the lack of multitasking on the iPhone because iOS 4 looks just as smooth.
It is either a consequence of the threading used in gui programs and/or better use of the GPU for animations and scrolling. It seems to me on my Nexus that in most cases scrolling and animations are slower when the CPU is processing something where as on an iPhone the scrolling seems smooth regardless of the processes involved.
One of my complaints along these lines is scrolling in the Android web browser isn't nearly as nice as even the slower iPhone 3G, much less an iPhone 3GS.
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Agreed, Ill take Android's greater capabilities over Iphone's fluidity any day but both would be sweet.

DMaverick50 said:
Agreed, Ill take Android's greater capabilities over Iphone's fluidity any day but both would be sweet.
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Without a doubt. I'm just not convinced the two are mutually exclusive.

Paul22000 said:
It's easy to be smoother when you can't do more than one thing at a time.
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Once I saw this post I knew I didn't have to look at the rest of the thread since this answered it all

I disable screen animations. I have no need for worthless eye-candy. Just give me whatever I tapped on as fast as possible.
Love it.

mortzz said:
I disable screen animations. I have no need for worthless eye-candy. Just give me whatever I tapped on as fast as possible.
Love it.
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I either turn the animations off or turn their speed up. IMO scrolling is more of an issue than animations.
Example:
Goto www.androidcentral.com or www.anandtech.com on a Nexus One and with the page zoomed all the way out try scrolling. At the top of the page my frame rate is <15.
Now do the same on a wee iPhone(even first gen) and see how smooth the scrolling is.
Is it end of the world? No, of course not. I am very satisfied with my phone compared to my previous iPhone 3GS and 3G. That said, considering my main use of my phone(beyond being a phone) is web browsing, I would still love to have the scrolling of my "crap" iPhone.

Its a genuine complaint.
The lack of smooth visuals is getting silly. I think Google bringing in the guy from Palm/Danger is an ackowledgment of this.
Its not cpu , its not ram, its not multitasking. Its Apple that has some if not the best UI guys in the business in terms of visuals. Id say WebOS guys were the tops but they were mostly old Apple guys so go figure.
Apple spends a ton of time and offort making sure everything looks fluid across the entire experience. Android does not. Its simply not something theyve taken seriously until 2.1. They are the best engineers in the world..not GUI designers. The fact the Gallery still has 16 bit depth is a tell tale sign they arent emphasizing visuals.
Anyways the GPU is underused. UI , Games , Codecs theres a alot of room for improvement. Androids UI is "better"...but lets not kid ourselves..the animations and fluidity are heavily in Apples corner. Loks are important; otherwise go date a fat hairy girl.

I thought I was quite picky but I don't notice any problems with my nexus
Maybe I haven't spent that much time playing with iPhones but when I have seen people using them they press something and have to wait for it to load, they get a grey checker pattern when they scroll too fast in the browser. Sometimes their swipes didn't register either.

xManMythLegend said:
Its a genuine complaint.
The lack of smooth visuals is getting silly. I think Google bringing in the guy from Palm/Danger is an ackowledgment of this.
Its not cpu , its not ram, its not multitasking. Its Apple that has some if not the best UI guys in the business in terms of visuals. Id say WebOS guys were the tops but they were mostly old Apple guys so go figure.
Apple spends a ton of time and offort making sure everything looks fluid across the entire experience. Android does not. Its simply not something theyve taken seriously until 2.1. They are the best engineers in the world..not GUI designers. The fact the Gallery still has 16 bit depth is a tell tale sign they arent emphasizing visuals.
Anyways the GPU is underused. UI , Games , Codecs theres a alot of room for improvement. Androids UI is "better"...but lets not kid ourselves..the animations and fluidity are heavily in Apples corner. Loks are important; otherwise go date a fat hairy girl.
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I agree with this wholeheartedly. Android really just isn't the most aesthetically pleasing user interface around, I've never owned an iPhone - and don't plan to, but Apple simply knows their stuff when it comes graphic design..

There's been some info on this issue on the android-platform groups and the skia rendering engine group (Skia acutally has an experimental OpenGL rendering branch).
From what I understand, hardware acceleration can't be implemented in older devices (ex: G1) because they only support one OpenGL instance at a time, meaning the launcher could be in conflit with apps. It also seems as if the stuttering we feel is actually caused by Android's garbage colletor because it blocks the UI thread when it kicks in and not because the phone's cpu cant keep up with scrolling. If you watched some of the Google I/O 2010 videos, they said they know of the issues with the garbage collector and they are working on it.
My guess is that hardware acceleration will come sooner or later (specially with the Tegra 2 chips and tablet format ) but if you want to make things move a bit you can always go to code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914 and star the issue (consider it a vote ).
New here btw, hello all

dalingrin said:
I either turn the animations off or turn their speed up. IMO scrolling is more of an issue than animations.
Example:
Goto www.androidcentral.com or www.anandtech.com on a Nexus One and with the page zoomed all the way out try scrolling. At the top of the page my frame rate is <15.
Now do the same on a wee iPhone(even first gen) and see how smooth the scrolling is.
Is it end of the world? No, of course not. I am very satisfied with my phone compared to my previous iPhone 3GS and 3G. That said, considering my main use of my phone(beyond being a phone) is web browsing, I would still love to have the scrolling of my "crap" iPhone.
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I just tested anandtech.com on my N1 using Dolphin HD and have Froyo installed. The page was pretty much butter smooth except the top which had a flash banner ad and a flash "news reel". Of course the iPhone is going to be smoother at the top of that page since it doesn't show any flash elements. Not to say I don't want smoother scrolling when there are flash elements, but I'd rather have them showing with a little choppy frame rate than not at all.

RE: GPU Support
It's a common misconception that Android is slow changing windows and stuff- just go to Spare Parts and turn the window animations off.

my nexus next to the iphone, the nexus is just as smooth and fast to my eyes. the nexus is actually buttery smooth. using launcher pro. maybe that is what makes the difference i bet.

Wow..IPhone 4S explodes past SGS2 on all benchmarks!

Who'da thunk it? (Wink)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/iphone-4s-preliminary-benchmarks-800mhz-a5-slightly-slower-gpu-than-ipad-2

i think once Android introduces hardware acceleration (ICS??) that from a benchmarking standpoint it should improve. From what i understand of Android and iOS, iOS i think has potential to do better in benchmarking due to being pretty much on the metal where as android is "virtual" to account for all the different hardware sets. Some one smarter feel free to straighten me out!! That said, i don't think you have any one said that the ET4G feels slow!

Depends on iPhone graphics chip too... Not sure how good it is...
Sent from my PG86100 using xda premium

it's very difficult to compare devices that run different platforms because there can be a lot of variables involved.
android still has a long way to go in terms of fluidity and refinement.
plus, this is what happens when software is designed for only ONE device made by ONE manufacturer as opposed to open-source and multiple devices manufacturers.
still, I don't dislike Apple by any means but nothing could make me get an iPhone 4s....

The iPhone is basically an app drawer.

Nexus Prime comes out soon. That will inevitably put the 4S to shame. As for hardware, I think the 4S is the greatest anticlimax of the year. They've changed a small number of things on the iPhone 4 and put a £400+ price tag on it.
Not to discredit Apple. It's a phenomenal phone but it's only just been released and will very quickly be sunk (again) by Android devices.
Just my two cents of course...
Sent from my GT-S5830 using xda premium

AvatarOfFrost said:
it's very difficult to compare devices that run different platforms because there can be a lot of variables involved.
android still has a long way to go in terms of fluidity and refinement.
plus, this is what happens when software is designed for only ONE device made by ONE manufacturer as opposed to open-source and multiple devices manufacturers.
still, I don't dislike Apple by any means but nothing could make me get an iPhone 4s....
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Agreed!
Sent from my GT-S5830 using xda premium

Yes I'm very impressive
Edit not impressed
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

I could care less. I don't even run those on my phone as they don't mean anything to me.

rockky said:
Who'da thunk it? (Wink)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/iphone-4s-preliminary-benchmarks-800mhz-a5-slightly-slower-gpu-than-ipad-2
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Sorry, but did you mistakenly post this trash here in the Epic 4G Touch section? Cause I don't seen anything about your post that relates to this phone.
Damn you guys make me pissy, why can't you keep your crapple stuff where it belongs?
On a side note, it is funny how the image of his thumbs take up 50% of the screen.

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but is that not because of the hardware acceleration (From gpu.. If i make any sense here) because the Galaxy Tab has very high scores, Higher than the reast and close to the iphone in all of them, Honeycomb, unlike gingerbread has Hardware acceleration, so hopefully for ICS those scores will boost

I'm not surprised since iOS is optimized to the max, while Android is still crappy on most hardware. But i guess ICS will fix this.
Btw, the 4S' GPU is the same that will sit in the Nexus Prime (according to rumours).
But whether we like it or not, the 4S is a powerful gadget, and that's great for the iPhone users.

rockky said:
Who'da thunk it? (Wink)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/...rks-800mhz-a5-slightly-slower-gpu-than-ipad-2
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I thunk it...when I saw the benchmarks I posted about in a different thread.
Apple never does anything frivolously. They may seem to be frivolous at times, but they always have valid reasons for what they do. It's why they prosper. And why they will continue to prosper.

I get a 3600 score on mt htc desire hd with ccm7 rom, overclocked....iphone couldn't even half that....BUT, i returned to a custom sense rom and clocked processor back down to standard speed and i noticed absolutely ZERO difference, it was still 100% as smooth and zero lag etc....BUT, my benchmark was only 1841...a lot less on Quadrant.
Quadrant scores, IMHO (or other benchmark tools) mean F**K ALL!!
my phone is 100% smooth
ZERO lag whatsoever
very fast
reliable
so i really couldn't care if it said (on quadrant benchmark) 100 or 5,000,000!
Matt

I've gotten over 5800 on quadrant on my Nexus S, Simms22 has even broken 6000 (same device) quadrants are debatable. iOS will again be playing catch up to Android in the very near future.
Pipsqueak approved this message.

Anandtech Nexus 4 performance preview, Chrome is bad!

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6425/google-nexus-4-and-nexus-10-review
Google if you want to use Chrome as the stock browser, then develop it to be fast and smooth and not an insult, stock AOSP browser would be so much faster.

Turbotab said:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6425/google-nexus-4-and-nexus-10-review
Google if you want to use Chrome as the stock browser, then develop to fast and smooth and not an insult, stock AOSP browser would be so much faster.
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Wow, the Optimus G did so much better than the N4 when they are basically the same phone.

sh0td0wn said:
Wow, the Optimus G did so much better than the N4 when they are basically the same phone.
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Nexus 4 use Chrome as stock browser, but they haven't updated it faster enough, especially in terms of performance.

Yeh I'm disappointed by the performance, it's so mediocre and gets owned by the iPhone 5 in everything.
How they hell can a Quad core 1.5ghrz CPU and Adreno 320 get owned so badly? Even by the Optimus G which is the same hardware.

Read the article. Apparently there's some overheating problems with the Nexus 4.

I guess (or at least hopes) that they didn't use the final device...
Anyway, this will be awesome device. The GNex runs every game out there, so there shouldn't be any problem

red12355 said:
Read the article. Apparently there's some overheating problems with the Nexus 4.
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Yeah I read somewhere that the Nexus 4 required throttling which made performance of the 320 worse than the 225... Wonder if it's the glass back making it heat up that much.

itll be fine, someone showed the when anandtech reviews the inital gs2, it came below the tegra 2, now it smashes it... drivers and release models,
---------- Post added at 04:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:13 PM ----------
also Chrome does suck, it sucks on everything except the PC, iv got it on my Nexus , My ipod touch 5G, and my laptop, and the laptop is the only one i can use it on... even on ios its crap

italia0101 said:
[/COLOR]also Chrome does suck, it sucks on everything except the PC, iv got it on my Nexus , My ipod touch 5G, and my laptop, and the laptop is the only one i can use it on... even on ios its crap
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Couldn't agree more, Chrome for Android has been out for 9 month and is still a resource hungry piece of crap, the stock browser is so much faster and smoother.

italia0101 said:
itll be fine, someone showed the when anandtech reviews the inital gs2, it came below the tegra 2, now it smashes it... drivers and release models,
---------- Post added at 04:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:13 PM ----------
also Chrome does suck, it sucks on everything except the PC, iv got it on my Nexus , My ipod touch 5G, and my laptop, and the laptop is the only one i can use it on... even on ios its crap
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The iOS version is using Apple's webview because Apple doesn't allow anything else, meaning it doesn't even come with the accelerated JS that comes in Safari, nor V8.
I personally still prefer the AOSP Browser due to Flash, but i switch to Chrome in some cases because it handles mobile browsing not necessarily the fastest, but atleast better. (Due to sync, better handling of webpages/downloads/downloadsites and a much better handling of the viewing experience)

italia0101 said:
itll be fine, someone showed the when anandtech reviews the inital gs2, it came below the tegra 2, now it smashes it... drivers and release models,
---------- Post added at 04:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:13 PM ----------
also Chrome does suck, it sucks on everything except the PC, iv got it on my Nexus , My ipod touch 5G, and my laptop, and the laptop is the only one i can use it on... even on ios its crap
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I think chrome is fine on my nexus 7.
I agree it is slow as hell on everything else I've tried though :thumbdown:
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium

I mean im sure they will sort it out eventually, its just annoying when they release a phone with great hardware like the s4 pro, and it scores smiles behind the iphone 5, when it just shouldnt ..

Wow, the thermal throttling is pretty worrying. Wish Google had just stuck with dual core Krait.
Some of the performance issues will hopefully get ironed out with software optimization. But maybe I won't be hitting the pre-order button quite as quickly as I had planned.

I was gonna order on first day now I am gonna wait

The biggest problems in chrome are the lack of smooth scrolling and the hiccups when you load heavy sites like the verge

Chrome is godawful on every device I have used, including my Nexus 7. It's so choppy when scrolling.
I hear there is a big update coming soon improving this though, so Google is probably optimistic about that, which is why they made it default!

i will wait till christmas instead first day, because THAT is really dissappoiting hopefully android 5.0 have Project Fast ^^

jaju123 said:
Chrome is godawful on every device I have used, including my Nexus 7. It's so choppy when scrolling.
I hear there is a big update coming soon improving this though, so Google is probably optimistic about that, which is why they made it default!
Click to expand...
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Source?

I understand why there is no pre-order now:laugh:
This is the daily workload of the Google engineer in charge of optimizing Chrome on Android 4.2
Wake at 10am, already late, goes back to bed
In the office for 12
12 to 15:00 Lunch
15 to 17:00 GPU tessellation workshop (Playing Battlefield lan party)
17:00 Hrs - Drink pint of Vodka, tests Nexus 4 vs Galaxy Nexus in browser benchmarks, weeps as Galaxy Nexus on 4.1 beats Nexus 4, leaves office to buy iPhone 5

drpepe said:
I think chrome is fine on my nexus 7.
I agree it is slow as hell on everything else I've tried though :thumbdown:
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I bailed on Chrome on my N7 just this week. I was getting frustrated with laggy scrolling, then the last straw was that my ancient SGS with JB AOSP browser was much better!
Admittedly I like to use desktop versions of sites, but come on with a quad core I should be able to do that and with Dolphin browser it can (I haven't even rooted it so can't try AOSP browser).
It's a shame that Google would take this screaming chip and throw a huge Chrome boat anchor on its performance.

[Q] About to switch from iOS to HTC One and Android...

Let me start off by saying I am a huge HTC fan and have owned the HTC Hero and EVO 4G before switching to the iPhone 4S. I've always loved the open system of android but many things about the platform frustrated me. However, I am super intrigued by the HTC One and think now is the right time to make the switch back. Before doing so, I wanted to get a check with the community on whether these issues with android have been resolved...
1. Quality and consistency of apps - Two years ago Android apps were a [email protected] reincarnation of their iOS form. Developers made terrible ports and there were a lot of UI inconsistencies. While I still strongly believe it will be years before the Play store meet or surpass that of iOS, how is the quality of apps? In particular, the thing that bothered me most about Android years ago was how a lot of the apps weren't optimized for all the display resolutions out there, so the app images were blurry on certain hardware/resolution.
2. Battery life - I'll be honest, the HTC Hero and EVO 4G had terrible battery life. For my particular usage style, the iPhone 4S performed marginally better. Understanding that battery life varies from user to user, I am asking those who has owned an iPhone 4S or 5 to share their experience so far.
3. Overall UI Experience - Probably the most important thing for me. My EVO 4G stuttered and felt jerky all the time; whether it was scrolling, typing, etc. Even worse was that for every iteration of Android people proclaim, "It's fixed! Android is now as smooth as iOS." However, the experience is still no where close to that of iOS. The last device I tried was Galaxy S3. Scrolling isn't as smooth as iOS and the touch keyboard didn't seem as responsive. Where does the HTC ONE stand in this regard?
Closing comments: This post is not intended to troll on Android. I've tried going to BB to try out the HTC One and it was absolutely pointless. They disabled wifi and it had no internet connection. So I couldn't test out anything. With that said, I am looking for an unbiased opinion from someone who has had experience on both platforms.
Just to balance my comments a bit, I will share a few reasons why I want to ditch iOS: Stale interface, overly restrictive OS, iFanboys, and uninspiring iPhone 5 hardware design.

The UI experience whilst the best I have had on android still isnt as smooth as iOS. Especially in 3rd party apps. Ones like facebook stutter a lot when scrolling. The battery life for me has been fantastic. Far better than my iPhone 5 and the app selection is great. Some optimisation for 1080p needed. But the black bar that appears at the bottom of some apps may bother you. Id go into a spring store and try a demo model to compare. Use some of the 3rd party apps and see if it does satisfy you.

h3nG said:
Let me start off by saying I am a huge HTC fan and have owned the HTC Hero and EVO 4G before switching to the iPhone 4S. I've always loved the open system of android but many things about the platform frustrated me. However, I am super intrigued by the HTC One and think now is the right time to make the switch back. Before doing so, I wanted to get a check with the community on whether these issues with android have been resolved...
1. Quality and consistency of apps - Two years ago Android apps were a [email protected] reincarnation of their iOS form. Developers made terrible ports and there were a lot of UI inconsistencies. While I still strongly believe it will be years before the Play store meet or surpass that of iOS, how is the quality of apps? In particular, the thing that bothered me most about Android years ago was how a lot of the apps weren't optimized for all the display resolutions out there, so the app images were blurry on certain hardware/resolution.
This has been mostly resolved. Their are so many different resolutions now that android 4.0 streamlined that for devs as I understand it. Most things are high res I am sure you can still find some low res ones. I recently used a iPhone for the first time ever after years of android and while I felt there was slightly more selection in IOS it's only that slightly I missed all my android could do
2. Battery life - I'll be honest, the HTC Hero and EVO 4G had terrible battery life. For my particular usage style, the iPhone 4S performed marginally better. Understanding that battery life varies from user to user, I am asking those who has owned an iPhone 4S or 5 to share their experience so far.
This one is so hard for me as IOS wouldn't tell me how long my screen was on!!! I always felt the iphone 5 had great battery but without that it means nothing to me. The one seems to preform in a similar fashion to the iphone 5 no battery drain at night amazing standby and somewhere around 3-5 hours of screen time on in 24-30 hours.
3. Overall UI Experience - Probably the most important thing for me. My EVO 4G stuttered and felt jerky all the time; whether it was scrolling, typing, etc. Even worse was that for every iteration of Android people proclaim, "It's fixed! Android is now as smooth as iOS." However, the experience is still no where close to that of iOS. The last device I tried was Galaxy S3. Scrolling isn't as smooth as iOS and the touch keyboard didn't seem as responsive. Where does the HTC ONE stand in this regard?
There is no question the HTC One is as close to iphone UI smoothness that any android phone has ever come. I'm not going to say the keyboard is as good or it's as smooth but it's so close I don't notice (iphone has better keyboard animations) and nothing andriod wise is on the level of Sense 5
Closing comments: This post is not intended to troll on Android. I've tried going to BB to try out the HTC One and it was absolutely pointless. They disabled wifi and it had no internet connection. So I couldn't test out anything. With that said, I am looking for an unbiased opinion from someone who has had experience on both platforms.
Just to balance my comments a bit, I will share a few reasons why I want to ditch iOS: Stale interface, overly restrictive OS, iFanboys, and uninspiring iPhone 5 hardware design.
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Answered your questions above in the quote in bold. As I said i recently used a iPhone 5 first iPhone ever I used it for about 4 months two periods of 2 months. That is a really long time for me to use a phone.

Many apps that are available on both platforms look and perform the exact same for the most part. Games like temple run or apps like tunein radio won't feel different if you are using the same conditions (same service provider). There are unfortunately a few notable offenders, and they are big guys: twitter and facebook are generally awful and better used on their mobile sites. I feel like android apps are generally more useful or productive, ios stuff can be as well but it seems more entertainment focused.
Battery life has hit a plateau, all new phones get roughly the same battery life (expect the iphone5/5s to get the same battery life as the one/s4). They will generally get you through a normal day. I find that my One still needs a quick charge in the car if I'm going to have a long night to make it.
UI by itself is great, when you have 9 other apps open at the same time it can bog down. It's just the nature of android, it does proper multitasking at the cost of 100% UI smoothness. Under normal use however, the One is powerful enough to handle your typical apps all being open without a sweat.

arikah said:
Many apps that are available on both platforms look and perform the exact same for the most part. Games like temple run or apps like tunein radio won't feel different if you are using the same conditions (same service provider). There are unfortunately a few notable offenders, and they are big guys: twitter and facebook are generally awful and better used on their mobile sites. I feel like android apps are generally more useful or productive, ios stuff can be as well but it seems more entertainment focused.
Battery life has hit a plateau, all new phones get roughly the same battery life (expect the iphone5/5s to get the same battery life as the one/s4). They will generally get you through a normal day. I find that my One still needs a quick charge in the car if I'm going to have a long night to make it.
UI by itself is great, when you have 9 other apps open at the same time it can bog down. It's just the nature of android, it does proper multitasking at the cost of 100% UI smoothness. Under normal use however, the One is powerful enough to handle your typical apps all being open without a sweat.
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This is the best Android I have ever owned. Tried the iPhone 5 for a couple weeks but missed Android. Have not had any lag issues at all !! Great device, screen is awesome. Get it, you won't regret it!
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

I switched to the iPhone 4S when I was having service problems with my HTC Inspire at work. I will admit that once I had the iPhone on hand for a lengthy amount of time I was thoroughly impressed.
The major difference you'll notice is the keyboard. The stock keyboard is horrendous. I use Jelly Bean Keyboard found on the Play Store for free and it is marvelous for me.
The scrolling within the UI and apps themselves is by far the smoothest I've ever experienced on an Android device, let alone one that's running Sense. My prior experiences with Sense were horrible. I've always loved plain old AOSP and MIUI, but Sense is pretty remarkable this go around, even with all of it's flaws.
My battery life varies, because my day to day usage is never the same, but my shortest cycle thus far was 16 hours and that was a lot of Pandora, a lot of music that I've pushed to my device, and constant data connection the whole cycle.
All in all I'm pretty happy. Happier than I expected to be, to be quite honest.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

It's great it's as smooth as you can expect, when scrolling through a bunch of texts it lags when it loads(iOS stops at the top and asks you if you want to load more)
Most of the big name apps are there, and there's a ton of apps that just make things work better for you.
Battery life... why does everyone ask that, these days you can expect to make it through a day with a flagship smartphone.
Personally I left iOS 2 years ago and never looked back, until I held an iPhone 5 and wanted a metal phone.

Honestly I don't feel a lack in smoothness at all when it comes to anything. Even when I have a large amount of apps open with power saver on its as smooth as can be. Not even my iphone could do that. Couldn't multitask at all and still was laggy after a while. I think that most apps actually look better on android. Like the twitter app for example. I think that Web 2.0 style of UI bars are hideous. I don't like it at all and having nearly every apo like that it's just ugly. Just didn't like the style either. All the tabs on the bottom just doesn't seem as nice. Same with the dropbox app. Much better experience to me with most apps with no lag. Also battery life for me has been way better. I had to charge my iphone twice a day. My One usually lasts all day depending on my usage. Also school tends to kill my battery since many parts of the school signal is either edge or nothing so the phone drains a lot from trying to get a signal.
Sent from my HTC One TrickDroid 5.3.0 using XDA Premium
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I had the Hero > Evo 4G > Nexus S > iPhone 4S > Galaxy S3 (hated it) back to the 4S > iPhone 5 > HTC One. So I think I have some middle of the road experience. Really the only thing the iPhone has on the One is that it's smooth and every thing works. What it doesn't have is everything Apple does not want you to have. At this point in time Apple would have to blow me away to switch back. The HTC One is an amazing phone I enjoyed my previous HTC phones and glad I made the switch back.
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium

HTC One for me is as others have also said, the closest thing to smooth and lag free as I believe you'll get. It always seems perfectly smooth to me.
Ui and apps are excellent, I honestly have never seen what others see in iphone apps though and they have always looked god awful to me so can't comment more than I think the apps on the one look great. Although I must say, I believe apps are overrated, as I never install more than 10 or 15 that I use regularly anyway.
Battery life is very good, around 5 or 6 hours screen on, and 24 hours standby ish. Comparable to S3, but with none of the lag of the S3 (and s4 for that matter).

Facebook app is terrible. Rest is as smooth as it can get.
Battery life goes quite a lot for me, I got my mobile internet and/or wi-fi all day. Automatic brightness, I play some games time to time. Very good overall.

My One hasn't arrived yet, but I think I can still give an idea of what to expect.
I am coming from the One X. The One X might not be the One, but it did work very well in my experience. I can only imagine, and is confirmed by reviewers, that the One is an improvement across all fronts. I switched from being a long time iOS user to an Android user with the One X. The only things I did not really like about that phone was the battery life and the camera bump on the back. With a custom kernel and Rom, I was able to address the battery issue. With the One, the battery is larger, the processor is more battery friendly, and there is no camera bump. So the two things I did not like were addressed straight from the factory.
As for app selection, I did not notice any problems switching operating systems. Android had about 90% of the apps I used on iOS, and the ones that were missing were more or less covered by a similar app. Most apps looked good, with a few free apps having frustrating menus.
The UI on the One X was great. I liked Sense for most of the time I used it. I never had a complaint about smoothness, but when I started using Nova Prime I noticed it was quite a bit faster. Had I not started using a separate launcher, or a custom Rom, I would still consider Sense to be fast (especially after Jelly bean). From what I've read, Sense 5 is quite a bit better than 4+. So if Sense 4+ was already fast and smooth, and Sense 5 is even faster, you should be confident that you will have a good experience with the One.
The default HTC keyboard was pretty frustrating when the One X first launched. The autocorrect/prediction wasn't so good, and the space bar was so small; I often miss typed. With Sense 4+, the keyboard was improved with a larger space bar. With the options in the Play Store, however, I don't see a need for anyone to be using stock keyboards. There are Developers out there that focus only on making keyboards. These keyboards, such as SwiftKey, are so much better than anything you will get stock from HTC or Apple.
So in summary, I'd say your concerns were almost all covered by the previous generation's flagship HTC phone. With the current generation's flagship phone, the One, your concerns have been fully addressed.

jdh10475 said:
Really the only thing the iPhone has on the One is that it's smooth and every thing works.
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agree.
android still doesnt really come close in polish to ios.
ios apps just look nicer i feel, android still feels a bit clunky.
if apple allowed default apps and nitro java across every app out of the box, the iphone would be pretty unbeatable.
as it stands the one makes a pretty good iphone replacement. quality of materials feel just as nice as the iphone.

I just recently switched from iPhone 5 to the One after having been a iPhone user and fanboy for 5 years. On the whole I am very happy with the One and don't regret my decision. I love the customizability and being able to do all the cool stuff Apple wouldn't let me do.
But there are some things I miss and where I think android still falls behind ios.
The UI is just not as smooth. In a lot of apps (looking at you facebook) there is a lot of lag and others a lot of micro stuttering which some people woukdnt notice but I do.
Quite a few apps seem to have been ported from ios as an afterthought and just aren't as polished. There are some really great android apps to be fair.
I miss the centralised notification centre on ios where you can control all notfications in one place. I also miss ios lock screen notifications. Please don't say you can use the notification shade on the lock screen because you can't if you use lock screen pin.
Sent from my HTC One using xda-developers app

I would go as far as say that Google Play now looks far better than app store has more apps and much more free apps too.
I can't stand the actual look of iPhone, it hasn't changed in years and is plain boring.
Battery life on this phone is superb for me personally.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

This phone is ridiculous. You won't be disappointed.

I have been through my share of smartphones blackberry 9700, HTC mytouch slide, mytouch 4g, mytouch slide 4g, Samsung vibrant, galaxy 4g, Droid razr maxx , iPhone 5, galaxy note 2. I gave up the note 2 for the HTC one. The only reason I got the note was first, they didn't have the one in stock and the salesperson assured me that the note was high end Samsung and it wouldn't lag like galaxy phones of yore. Guess what, the first day with the note 2 I tried to text and the keyboard froze. Happened several times, and this I can't forgive. I hate laggy phones, which is why I tried iPhone 5, but the screen was too small for my taste. Finally got a call from tmobile saying the one was in, left work picked it up, and haven't looked back.
This is the most awesome phone I have had to date! Smooth, no lag, super fast.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app

Finally got the N5 to lag

As the title says....I wasn't trying to overload the phone, but while playing TD5 I actually got it to lag. Normally, the game doesn't use much battery, but anyone familiar with the game after level 80 or so it gets pretty intense. I put the game on fast forward mode too and it got pretty laggy. Would be pretty interesting to use this game as a benchmark. Here's a screenshot: http://imgur.com/b2qrQpn
It might be hard to tell, but there was A LOT of frame droppings. Which doesn't really surprise me. Anyway, just thought I would share.

PsychDrummer said:
As the title says....I wasn't trying to overload the phone, but while playing TD5 I actually got it to lag. Normally, the game doesn't use much battery, but anyone familiar with the game after level 80 or so it gets pretty intense. I put the game on fast forward mode too and it got pretty laggy. Would be pretty interesting to use this game as a benchmark. Here's a screenshot: http://imgur.com/b2qrQpn
It might be hard to tell, but there was A LOT of frame droppings. Which doesn't really surprise me. Anyway, just thought I would share.
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interesting. have you used other devices with this game? how does it compare? you'd think that the nexus 5 with it's cpu/gpu being pretty top of the line would not have problems with anything. but that is a lot going on at once.

efan3719 said:
interesting. have you used other devices with this game? how does it compare? you'd think that the nexus 5 with it's cpu/gpu being pretty top of the line would not have problems with anything. but that is a lot going on at once.
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Asphalt 8 lags no problem.. Though it could be the engine. While the game looks pretty I get the feeling the game's engine isn't properly optimized.

mbazdell said:
Asphalt 8 lags no problem.. Though it could be the engine. While the game looks pretty I get the feeling the game's engine isn't properly optimized.
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i've yet to try any graphic intense games on my Nexus 5. i would hope that any serious lag would come down to the app coding and not the device.

I'm pretty sure all this lag is due to the aggressive thermal throttling from lg.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

ethantarheels123 said:
I'm pretty sure all this lag is due to the aggressive thermal throttling from lg.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app
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but i thought the throttling was way less than what was found on the Nexus 4. i guess we can use an app to see what happens during the lag.
found an article about throttling on the Nexus 5 in case anyone was interested. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/11/when-benchmarks-arent-enough-cpu-performance-in-the-nexus-5/

efan3719 said:
interesting. have you used other devices with this game? how does it compare? you'd think that the nexus 5 with it's cpu/gpu being pretty top of the line would not have problems with anything. but that is a lot going on at once.
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The only other device that I have tried this with is the 2013 Nexus 7. I don't think I've gotten to this part but whenever I do I will let you know. I can't recall if it lagged before.

mbazdell said:
Asphalt 8 lags no problem.. Though it could be the engine. While the game looks pretty I get the feeling the game's engine isn't properly optimized.
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Click to collapse
Yeah, Asphalt 8 runs for me with no problem either. I agree with the optimization. I'm going to try to get to this point on my Nexus 7 2013. Although the specs on that are lower.

Ive gotten the nexus 5 to lag substantially while playing FIFA 14, both on Stock and with a Custom ROM and trinity kernel.
The lag was less on the custom ROM and trinity kernel then it was on stock...
why do u guys think there is a lag on the nexus 5, ive played fifa so many times on the iphone 5 and never had a single stutter from it.
Edit: BTW the game becomes really choppy when there is rain in the game, you pretty much cant play the game it gets that bad.

It lags a ton as well on the later levels in survivor mode on PvZ2. Anything after level 10 or so and the amount of zombies kills the fps. The phone also gets uncomfortably hot.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using xda app-developers app

fruitsalt said:
Ive gotten the nexus 5 to lag substantially while playing FIFA 14, both on Stock and with a Custom ROM and trinity kernel.
The lag was less on the custom ROM and trinity kernel then it was on stock...
why do u guys think there is a lag on the nexus 5, ive played fifa so many times on the iphone 5 and never had a single stutter from it.
Edit: BTW the game becomes really choppy when there is rain in the game, you pretty much cant play the game it gets that bad.
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iOS users expect a good experience.
I get the feel they didn't even try on Android for FIFA.

rancur3p1c said:
iOS users expect a good experience.
I get the feel they didn't even try on Android for FIFA.
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Isn't iPhone the current benchmark to beat. I understand lack of functionality and customization features compared to android but every phone company wants to best the iPhone user experience and fluidity
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

fruitsalt said:
Isn't iPhone the current benchmark to beat. I understand lack of functionality and customization features compared to android but every phone company wants to best the iPhone user experience and fluidity
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
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Lately Apple has gone downhill. I've got myself the latest iPad mini which uses the same A7 processor found in the iPad Air.
There is lag and plenty of it. I've tried Dead Trigger 2 and Bastion and both of the them suffer from lag and the odd stutter every now and then.
And what's even more funny is now theres plenty of fragmentation on iOS. Read the reviews on some of the graphic intensive games. Bugs and crashes galore on some of the slightly older hardware. Plus on the description you will have big captions like " DO NOT BUY IF YOU HAVE THE...." And " DOES NOT WORK ON THE..."
Apple is no longer the benchmark when it comes to games now.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

avocco said:
Lately Apple has gone downhill. I've got myself the latest iPad mini which uses the same A7 processor found in the iPad Air.
There is lag and plenty of it. I've tried Dead Trigger 2 and Bastion and both of the them suffer from lag and the odd stutter every now and then.
And what's even more funny is now theres plenty of fragmentation on iOS. Read the reviews on some of the graphic intensive games. Bugs and crashes galore on some of the slightly older hardware. Plus on the description you will have big captions like " DO NOT BUY IF YOU HAVE THE...." And " DOES NOT WORK ON THE..."
Apple is no longer the benchmark when it comes to games now.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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I kinda agree with your post about apple going downhill. But it still is the benchmark device to beat, its wobbling but hasnt been dethroned just yet. Ios7 is buggy and all the apps have not been optimized for it yet. Same can be said about optimization on KitKat.
The games that iPhone can play with minimum to no stutter are not even playable or are not even available for android.
Fragmentation wise, iPhone has gotten a bit fragmented but you also have to realize the os and the new games are very graphic intensive. Older hardware can not possibly run them properly such as games for ps4 won't ever run on the ps1 or even the ps2, we can't expect current games and os to run on devices older then 2 years. People give android a bad name for fragmentation but it really isn't that bad when u take into account the requirements for the latest software. I do not expect the same software to run perfectly on my nexus 5 and galaxy nexus. True a two year old device is not that old but in technological terms 2 years is more then a decade.
I love android and iOS the same, each has its advantages and disadvantages. My personal device is iOS and work is android, each serves its purpose perfectly.
My only qualm with android is as follows: a device such as the nexus 5 with almost twice the processing power as an iPhone 5, double the number of cores, and twice the memory still can't keep up with the iPhone.
Thats like having a ferrari but still not being able to keep up with a bmw or in this case it would more be like android is a tuned import with all the latest and greatest updates but still cant come close to a stock luxury exotic ( i know the price difference between the two this is just an example). Google and android oems need to work on making android work faster and more fluid on lower specs then just putting in the most ram and the fastest processor, what's the point of having those if it still gets beat by a device with half its specs. if apple introduces a 2.3Ghz quad core phone with 2gb of ram that would be game over.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

I have to disagree with the iPhone being the phone to beat.... Samsung has beaten apple and LG with the nexus 5 and G2 put out two amazing devices that are beyond apples latest and greatest. I am sorry but the iPhone 5s and other iPhones and including the iPads have some pretty noticeable lag and stutters. As for android the improvement has been amazingly awesome android used to be the extremely laggy and stuttered for everything. Now it's pretty much ios fluid. I just switched from the iPhone 5s to the note 3 after a test run to see if I would like ios again and ios7 stutters a lot. To me the note 3 feels more fluid and yes touchwiz is very heavy and hard to run

The lag is a software limitation, not at all hardware related.

Well my experience with bloons TD5 is quite good on N5. I get to about lvl 100 after that it starts to lag a bit more and more with following levels. But in my opinion this is game itself. My friend with galaxy S3 gets to lvl 115-120 before becomes almost unplayable, other folks with N4 gets to 120-125 lvl before it gets unplayable. I get to about lvl 130 before it gets the same as S3 or N4 performance (0.5-2 FPS)
All in all it's bloons TD5 fault, not hardware, game engine itself is at fault.

fruitsalt said:
Isn't iPhone the current benchmark to beat. I understand lack of functionality and customization features compared to android but every phone company wants to best the iPhone user experience and fluidity
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
this is EA we're talking about. EA doesn't care about "user experience" only "will it sell" and "is it 90% functional"

rancur3p1c said:
this is EA we're talking about. EA doesn't care about "user experience" only "will it sell" and "is it 90% functional"
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90%? lol I think you're overestimating EA...I'm pretty sure they're satisfied with 60%, judging by every EA produced or sponsored game I've played in the past 5 years. It's a horrible company that needs to be shut down.

skyyrocket said:
I have to disagree with the iPhone being the phone to beat.... Samsung has beaten apple and LG with the nexus 5 and G2 put out two amazing devices that are beyond apples latest and greatest. I am sorry but the iPhone 5s and other iPhones and including the iPads have some pretty noticeable lag and stutters. As for android the improvement has been amazingly awesome android used to be the extremely laggy and stuttered for everything. Now it's pretty much ios fluid. I just switched from the iPhone 5s to the note 3 after a test run to see if I would like ios again and ios7 stutters a lot. To me the note 3 feels more fluid and yes touchwiz is very heavy and hard to run
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I know Samsung and LG have introduced amazing devices but thats still on paper. I'm not comparing them based on reviews or watching videos online, I own both the nexus 5 and the iphone 5s. Android has gotten a lot better from its laggy days and is one hell of a responsive OS with functionality to boot. That being said I can still see the nexus 5 lag and havent been able to make the iphone 5s lag at all, i have had a few apps just crash on me randomly but thats about it.
Everything on the iphone is more fluid then on android. Most of it has to do with apps installed, most developers dont really put in as much time into android as they do on IOS. The specs on the new android devices are amazing running quad core cpus with 2 gb of RAM but in the end what use is all that power when the phone still lags. For instance just a few minutes ago i got a call on the nexus and when the call ended the phone just got stuck on the call screen unresponsive for 30-40 seconds.
If we compare just the hardware then there really is no competition for current android phones, apple has not put out anything with those kinda specs. But if we want to see which OS runs better shouldnt it be on the same kind of hardware. The iphone 5 runs a Dual-Core processor and for me it handles iOS7 perfectly without a lag, i would like to see how a galaxy s2 with a Dual-Core processor would handle kitkat. That would be comparing similar hardware on the latest OS's by each company.
I know you would say why not the s3 and the s4, because they run on quad-core processors. I know this kinda got winded but what im trying to say is that an iphone 5 with half the specs of a current android device performs on par and at times better then those devices then how would android fare if iphone gets a quad-core processor, there is a lot to be said about each OS's optimization based on just the specs.