> I always had flagship Androids before my switch to a 12 mini.

And I had budget Android phones (Motorola Moto G) before my 12 mini, yet the iPhone is worse on most points besides the display and sound.

> Where do you notice it? Do you play games or use compute intensive apps?

Anywhere where there is an animation/sliding/transition. Everything feels like it's moving in molasses.

But it's very much not a Apple-specific issue, designers nowadays seems to make animations in general way too slow. Which is fine when it can be configured (like on Android) but Apple doesn't like customization (or used to at least), so we can't.

This sounds backwards, based on my experiences. I keep thinking of switching back to Android, so I keep a recent-ish Pixel in my inventory.

I do not observe this on my 12 Mini that is on iOS 16. Comparing it to my Pixel 6a with stock Android 14, I’d say the iPhone is faster/smoother and less glitchy moving around the UI.

Perhaps something is up with your 12? That would still be a ding on Apple.

I think you misunderstand the complaint. What you perceive as "smooth", they perceive as "obnoxiously slow". They don't want smooth, they want the animation to be over so they can get on with life without waiting for it.

As the other commentator is saying, it's about the speed of the animation. It's the same on every iPhone, including mine, but it's too slow for someone who doesn't want to be "amazed by cool animations/translations" every time I switch pane/panel/window/go back/go forward.

> 12 Mini that is on iOS 16. Comparing it to my Pixel 6a with stock Android 14

Enable the Developer/Debug menu on your Android phone, turn off animations inside that menu then compare the "snappiness" between the two. While the iPhone puts animations/transitions/fades between everything, the Android will immediately "jump" to what you wanted, without animations. If you try this out, I'm sure you'll notice what I mean.

This is what I want on my phone too, or at least 100x faster animations.

Have you reduced motion in the accessibility settings? Sounds very similar to the devloper settings in Android.

Yes, to no avail. Mentioned earlier here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41409580

Everything is molasses and it irritates me to the point where I am hurting myself out of stress and anger by the simple fact that I have to constantly abort my muscle movements and train of throught to let the stupid software finish rhe animation/lag/burning my computer.

It turns out most people are not bothered by this. Somehow they are still slower than those animations.

On of my biggest suffering in life.