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