I know, I was just making a point about the general inferiority of Android devices.
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iPhone 5 Touch Screen Twice as Fast as Android Touch Screen
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I know, I was just making a point about the general inferiority of Android devices.
This is a very good example if "UI lag" that has been dogging the now dead virtual reality and now reincarnated augmented reality markets for almost twenty years. This is also why game controllers have kept with buttons, paddles and joysticks for so long. With a touch surface, you are scanning around a thousand points to determine a location for OS input. With game controllers, you have at most a dozen points to scan for input.
Microsoft has some very smart and capable engineers. I've had the pleasure of speaking with some who were working on the Surface, back when it was a table. The problem is Microsoft's management, who listen only to marketing. Microsoft has all kinds of cool tech that may never see the light of day because Microsoft can't figure out how to include it in their business model. So, while it's nice knowing that Microsoft's engineers are aware of touch latency as a major factor in user interface, the question really is does management care?
It's OK to talk specs as long as the specs actually mean a better experience. This directly affects how the phone responds to a user. Boasting that a quad core phone is "faster" than a dual core phone, when the quad core actually does real world tasks more slowly, is being a "specwhore".
Granted, I'm totally biased and use nothing but apple products. But I do appreciate all technology and love tough competition. But every single flagship android phone I try, lags. Every single one. And even though on some it's subtle, it's annoying and obvious. And If u believe otherwise, you're either in denial or ur in the same category as people who don't see a difference between regular tv and blu-ray.
I already noticed how touch responsiveness was better on iOS devices than Android/Windows phone devices. Apple did sort of bring capacitive touchscreen technology into the limelight, so it's understandable that they'd do a good job with it.
The thing to keep in mind though is that while this is a good thing for iOS devices, it's not a knock against Android or Windows Phone devices. I use my Nexus 4 because of many reasons other than touchscreen responsiveness. Yes, iOS devices feel nice to use, but I personally think that Android is more convenient for me. If I was a blundering buffoon who thought how fast the screen responds to my finger was the only thing that mattered, then yeah, maybe I would've stayed with my old iPhone... but... I care about what I think are more substantial and less superficial things.
The thing to keep in mind though is that while this is a good thing for iOS devices, it's not a knock against Android or Windows Phone devices. I use my Nexus 4 because of many reasons other than touchscreen responsiveness. Yes, iOS devices feel nice to use, but I personally think that Android is more convenient for me. If I was a blundering buffoon who thought how fast the screen responds to my finger was the only thing that mattered, then yeah, maybe I would've stayed with my old iPhone... but... I care about what I think are more substantial and less superficial things.
Specs matter when they actually impact the user experience.
If one device is faster in some regard but it has to be to cut through the bloat of an overall slower OS, resulting in an overall equal or worse user experience, then specs don't matter. If one device has four cores but it doesn't speed up mostly single-threaded programs but hurts battery life, then specs don't matter. If a screen is twice as responsive to touch making typing and scrolling snappier, that does matter.
This isn't specs this is results (which by the way isn't only dependent on specs)
Watch the video from Microsoft Research that very neatly explains just one aspect where touch responsiveness of even 50 ms is still rather slow. For that matter, go read up on latency work being done by Oculus VR. Humans perceive even the smallest amount of lag between what their bodies are doing and what they see. We evolved that way because hand-eye coordination is a survival skill.
Reading the Microsoft document is interesting. They say they're measuring...
"... the App Response Time (ART), which we define as the latency from the time the user feels that they’ve touched the device’s display to the time the user sees a response on the screen."
To do this, "the Touchscope measures App Response Time (ART) by capturing the time delta between activation of the Force Sensitive Resistor on the glove and the Light Sensitive Resistor positioned over the device."
So, if I read that correctly, they measure the time between
This has various sorts of test setup problems. For example:
1. What is the difference in the speed of the flood fill? Is the light sensor always held at the same place on the screen? (Apparently not from the photo of it being held by hand.)
(They did mention this point. "Theoretically we might be able to do better by only filling a small portion of the screen. However, we felt filling the full screen is more representative of a typical app use case, which might involve panning and shaders (in games) or screen transitions (in apps). We might explore the fill rate’s effect on latency in future reports.")
2. What is the touch pressure they're using? What is the difference in how close you have to be to trigger each kind of touchscreen? Why use a finger anyway? How do they control the touch angle? Why aren't they using a test probe?
Looking forward to seeing their details.
"... the App Response Time (ART), which we define as the latency from the time the user feels that they’ve touched the device’s display to the time the user sees a response on the screen."
To do this, "the Touchscope measures App Response Time (ART) by capturing the time delta between activation of the Force Sensitive Resistor on the glove and the Light Sensitive Resistor positioned over the device."
So, if I read that correctly, they measure the time between
- when a certain pressure is put on the sensor mounted on the gloved finger touching the screen, and
- when a light sensor spots a resulting full-screen white flood fill.
This has various sorts of test setup problems. For example:
1. What is the difference in the speed of the flood fill? Is the light sensor always held at the same place on the screen? (Apparently not from the photo of it being held by hand.)
(They did mention this point. "Theoretically we might be able to do better by only filling a small portion of the screen. However, we felt filling the full screen is more representative of a typical app use case, which might involve panning and shaders (in games) or screen transitions (in apps). We might explore the fill rate’s effect on latency in future reports.")
2. What is the touch pressure they're using? What is the difference in how close you have to be to trigger each kind of touchscreen? Why use a finger anyway? How do they control the touch angle? Why aren't they using a test probe?
Looking forward to seeing their details.
Yup. I notice this immediately; a lot of people don't seem to be bothered by it. To me, I equate it to having a desktop computer where the pointer doesn't quite respond to the trackpad or mouse. Interesting to see it may be as much the fault of the hardware as it is the underlying code.
I've got a 4S and an S4 and I have always found the keyboard on the S4 to feel slow by comparison. I just assumed there was something about the way they designed the keypress animations that made it feel this way, but apparently not.
I felt embarrassed by this feature. When all that someone can come up with is screen (a) is so many "milliseconds" yes that's right "milliseconds" faster than screen (b) then you know the opposition is clutching at straws and is really worried.
It is features like this that make Apple look totally ridiculous and paranoid. If it was my company I would not want this type of comparison to be drawn. It makes one look like that's all you've got in your arsenal.
LOL! This is Apple's bread and butter, making the user's experience the best it can be, because at the end of the day that's all that matters and that's what brings them back to buy again. It's the attention to detail their customers appreciate and have for decades. Other companies like Microsoft and Oculus VR recognize the importance of screen latency.
And we're talking centiseconds, here, while your brain can perceive milliseconds, easily. We're quite a ways off from screens that can respond quick enough to be meaningless. Any gain of centiseconds now makes a huge difference. By the way, all the Android devices on the list respond at over a decisecond.
Is not that people are not sensitive, is that people that don't realize the difference in lag is the people that do not own any apple device.
I don't know whether it is because I'm into music production, but I'm very sensitive to latency. It was the first thing I noticed about any Android phone, and everybody was like "What? I don't see it, it's perfectly fine".
I'm glad somebody finally measured it.
I'm glad somebody finally measured it.
And this "calibrated touchscreen" means a lot to mass perception.
Despite a relatively lower spec on iOS devices, people love using it because of a mere calibration.
Why Android OEMs are not focusing onto it better? It means everything to have great touch screen above all else, it perceives great speed and response for anything on the screen more importantly than SoC clock or quad core.
If you're used to using iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, you'll know something is wrong and clunky with your Android. It's not about clock speed or screen size, it's about how bad your Android device is responding to your touch.
Despite a relatively lower spec on iOS devices, people love using it because of a mere calibration.
Why Android OEMs are not focusing onto it better? It means everything to have great touch screen above all else, it perceives great speed and response for anything on the screen more importantly than SoC clock or quad core.
If you're used to using iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, you'll know something is wrong and clunky with your Android. It's not about clock speed or screen size, it's about how bad your Android device is responding to your touch.
With a normal display frame rate of 60 Hz, the best you can average, even with instantaneous touch processing, is about 8 mS, which is about half a frame time.
FPS gamers can easily feel when a couple frames are being dropped by the GPU, so we know that an extra 16 or 32 mS makes a difference, vastly more lag with an extra 50 mS.
These are benchmarks not specs. Also this is a 3rd party doing these benchmarks, not Apple.
There's not even any Apple Vs Android argument to be had here. The iPhone 5 clearly wins in the screen surface reaction time department quite a lot... not just on paper, but in the real world. Facts are facts. That Microsoft video was quite informative. I hope in the next few years we can achieve Microsoft's goal/hope of 1 ms touch response time. I can definitely notice the "trail" lag in drawing/painting apps, though it is getting better.
And in a few years, phones will be so fast that any of this back and forth arguing will be negligible and pointless.
Pretty much spot on. Even though Android devices have gotten considerably faster over the years, there's definitely something missing in the equation as far as the "feel" of the speed of the devices. If they focus on response times, they'll definitely be on par with the latest iOS devices.
And in a few years, phones will be so fast that any of this back and forth arguing will be negligible and pointless.