The Reason Android is Laggy→
This is quite possibly the geekiest link that I have ever shared (and that’s saying a lot), but if you’re wondering why some people claim that Android’s UI is “laggy,” Andrew Munn has posted his explanation (but first you should really read this post by Dianne Hackborn clarifying some of the misconceptions about Android graphics):
Work on Android started before the release of the iPhone, and at the time Android was designed to be a competitor to the Blackberry. The original Android prototype wasn’t a touch screen device. Android’s rendering trade-offs make sense for a keyboard and trackball device. When the iPhone came out, the Android team rushed to release a competitor product, but unfortunately it was too late to rewrite the UI framework.
This is the same reason why Windows Mobile 6.5, Blackberry OS, and Symbian have terrible touch screen performance. Like Android, they were not designed to prioritise UI rendering. Since the iPhone’s release, RIM, Microsoft, and Nokia have abandoned their mobile OS’s and started from scratch. Android is the only mobile OS left that existed pre-iPhone.
Andrew and Dianne are both way smarter than I am, and I barely understand half of what they write, but I still found their posts interesting. What’s even more intriguing is whether the Android team ever decide to solve this problem once and for all by rewriting the rendering framework:
[Android Engineer] Romain Guy doesn’t elaborate on what the downsides are, but it’s not difficult to speculate:
- All Apps would have to be re-written to support the new framework
- Android would need a legacy support mode for old apps
- Work on other Android features would be stalled while the new framework is developed
It’s an interesting situation for the Android team. [Andrew Munn and Dianne Hackborn via Daring Fireball]
