As someone who uses both devices, I really only notice this when I'm so board that dragging around a menu seems like a good way to kill time or plain old stoned. Its really surprised me how much I've seen this as a criticism of the android in the past few weeks. In the past I had always just written them off as being different, not necessarily better or worse, like a design decision to make sure that "Yes menu, it is in fact time for us to scroll" because there are many cases where the user won't have a steady finger but don't mean to activate scrolling.
But, if the menu feel is even being brought up as a valid comparison point, it is good news all around. Splitting these hairs is proof that both platforms have finally made it to the point of meeting most user's wants.
And take it for what it's worth, but the instant reaction of iOS devices isn't necessarily for everyone. My father for example thinks that it's much too sensitive. He'll accidentally graze the screen when hovering his finger over something while reading or trying to get to a UI element, and all of a sudden the app starts scrolling, making him feel lost and frustrated.
Makes me want to throw any Android device I’m using at the wall. You can’t imagine the amount of rage that creates inside me.
Why don’t they stop it?
Which is why ICS Galaxy Nexus demo units were reported to still be laggy?
Though I can imagine that being a beta build running in debug mode doesn't really help, if someone did see the occasional hiccup.
http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/18/galaxy-nexus-android-ice-...
A lot of people wonder why garbage collection is done manually in iOS/Obj C. Performance is one reason, battery life is another.
ICS will be able to run on any phone able to run Gingerbread.
Aug 24 2011: Android-targeted malware jumps 76% in Q2, McAfee says http://www.bgr.com/2011/08/24/android-targeted-malware-jumps...
Aug 01, 2011: Android Trojan records phone calls. CA security team finds more advanced Android malware http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/080111-android-trojan....
Aug 15, 2011: A malicious Android app that disguises itself as Google's new social networking platform, Google+, is capable of stealing data, and answering and recording incoming phone calls http://www.scmagazineus.com/new-android-spyware-answers-inco...
Sep 20, 2011: Android bug lets attackers install malware without warning http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/20/google_android_vulne...
Aug 4, 2011: 8 Notorious Android Malware Attacks. Nearly a third of Android users will fall prey to mobile security threats this year. http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/mobile/23130025...
I was also in the same boat about believing it was just a few millimeters, until I actually went ahead and measured it. My mind was thinking a millimeter was larger than it actually is.
Anyone here familiar with Android's source code and can figure out where this behavior takes place? I'm curious if it can be easily disabled (if only to see what it's like).
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/ViewConf...
ScrollView views use this value internally to prevent accidental scrolling when tapping elements. You can change the touch behavior by subclassing ScrollView (or ListView) and overriding onTouchEvent() to ignore slop and start scrolling immediately on a drag event.
Incidentally, I can't stand most iPhone apps because of their over-sensitivity to scrolling (and their tiny list elements). I'm glad Android has these defaults.
Only if they are targeting a pre-ICS SDK version. Applications targeting 4.0 have hardware acceleration on by default.
LOL. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
It's a marginal improvement at best on Honeycomb.
Android's performance woes are unsolvable due to fundamental design decisions in the UI layer and in the choice of a garbage collected language for a mobile device.
Sure, they might be less noticeable in your quad core monster phone, but it'll still be laggy compared to an iPhone 3GS running iOS 5.
Complaining about iOS's amazing touch responsiveness is ridiculous at best. It's a marvel of engineering prowess.
The first is that apps are laggy or jittery during scrolling or animations. This is partially due to poor coding from developers, but the main reason for its existence was the lack of hardware acceleration on Android devices. This changed with 3.0 on tablets, and now 4.0 on everything. Developers still have to opt-in with a one-line XML file change, due to compatibility issues. So in essence this has been solved across the board.
The second is what a lot of users are now referring to (and was largely masked by the presence of the former problem). And it's that there's a much larger drag distance required to "initiate" user interaction on Android than iOS. When I pick up a friend's iPhone, it seems like if a hair on my finger even grazes the screen the UI immediately (and appropriately) reacts. On every Android device that I've ever used, it takes approximately 0.5 to 1.0 centimeters before the UI will begin to react and scroll. This is what people mean when they say that it feels like you're "pulling" the UI on Android, while iOS has 1:1 natural interaction.
Is it annoying? Yes. But after moderate use I stop noticing it, until I happen to touch an iOS device again. Now that Ice Cream Sandwich has taken care of every other fault with the platform I had, this is really the last item on my list of complaints, having used Android devices for years on a near-daily basis. I don't know if it's a problem with the hardware of the screen sensors themselves or with the levels of abstraction to Java-land, but this should be their top priority for what I can only assume they'll call Jelly Bean.