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Comment by smrtinsert | Hacker News Reader

First, the word iphone isn't even mentioned in the article, but its funny how quickly HN drops into an iphone vs. android

Second, the author points out NDK over Java as a solution which is already leveraged by some popular apis transparently from java, such as libgdx.

Finally, the ui is responsive enough. My biggest annoyance whenever I have to help my in laws or my parents with their iphones and there is no back button - I don't notice any significant difference between their iphones and my Galaxy S3, and I'm sure Samsungs phones have only gotten better.

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>>Finally, the ui is responsive enough.

I have to strongly disagree here. I'm a mobile dev, I work on Android and iOS. My main phone is an iPhone 5s, recently I tried switching OS just so that I would be more comfortable with the different OS's day to day idioms. I couldn't stand Android, it was sooo laggy feeling compared to a iPhone or even a windows 8 phone. Both Apple and Microsoft have large leads in user experience and speed. Don't get me wrong Android is certainly better than either in it's own way but performance and responsiveness are not it's strong suite. 3 apps that the difference was obvious to me are: Google Maps (the ios version feels way smoother), Evernote, and the facebook app. Also see the yahoo weather app the difference was incredible. Phones I used in testing: HTC One, Samsung S4, Nokia Lumia 1520, and iPhone 5S

Granted all of this was based upon personal experience and isn't a scientific study but to me the difference was absolutely clear. Perhaps if I had only used an Android device I wouldn't have noticed the difference as much but having been a long term iOS user I could not stand it.

> Granted all of this was based upon personal experience and isn't a scientific study but to me the difference was absolutely clear.

Thanks for including that line, because my personal experience is the exact opposite. I have a four year old android phone and I dread any time I need to use my wife's one year old ipod. I find the lag on the ipod slow to the point of almost being unusable. Every time I use it, there's at least one point where I'll put down the iPod to go do something else while I wait for it to catch up with me.

It's amazing how much personal experiences can differ.

Edit: updated possibly relevant details

Worth pointing out that there is a pretty big drop in spec from an iPhone 5 to an iPod 5, the SoC is two full generations behind.

This. Also, a year ago Apple was still selling some models of the 4th gen iPod Touches, which are the equivalent of a three year old iPhone 4 but with half the ram.

I have found Android nice to use only on Nexus devices. For whatever reason the other devices always feel slow and have random issues.

I don't know what other devices you've used but Samsung uses its own keyboard on some (maybe all? I've only used a few) of their phones. Its not the fastest thing out there. Switching that out with the Google one can make a huge difference in perception of the phone's performance.

I've used HTC, Samsung, and currently use a Nexus5 full time. Whenever I have to use friends iPhones now they feel really dated compared to the Nexus 5. Android really turned a corner not long ago with 4.x and devices like the Nexus 5.

> Phones I used in testing: HTC One, Samsung S4, Nokia Lumia 1520, and iPhone 5S

Honestly, try a Nexus 5 if you get the chance. The hardware in the phone makes a huge difference (and it's often in places that aren't benchmarked, like the touch controller).

Both iOS and Windows 8 have native compilation only as delivery model and most likely the reason driving ART's design as Dalvik replacement.

(Equally, my biggest annoyance on Android is often the lack of an on-screen back button, and the small but annoying proportion of times when the hardware back button takes me somewhere other than I expected.)

You can get around the back button part by rooting and allowing double tap of back arrow to jump between last open application. This solved that pain point for me

People don't want to have to root a device to work around usability issues. That's why iOS devices are so popular, out of the box they just work (for the most part).

On the other hand, when you do bump into a problem, you generally can root Android devices, while iOS is getting to be pretty rough there.

I've used both extensively. When iOS screws up, which at least it does in my house regularly[1], you're SOL. We're moving to Android devices slowly (up two Moto Gs at the moment).

[1] we have three iOS devices and I'm the loveless tech support for them.

I was just suggesting this workaround personally after having been frustrated by the back button myself

Which app does that?

after you root, install Xposed framework and you can get the GravityBox module which will enable a ton of customization. Read the tutorials on XDA forums if you need help, enjoy!

The NDK is a total 'bolt-on' solution to the problem, and support within the Android dev tools is basically non-existent.

The biggest tragedy is that Google had a chance to make a better NDK experience with Android Studio, but instead they chose to ignore it completely. With Eclipse you at least had an official add-on for NDK support, but now you're expected to manage it with your Gradle files by hand. Now, even more than before, you're at the whim of solutions on Stack Overflow.

NDK support is being worked on. There are samples[1] of the API, but it's largely undocumented and still a work in progress.

There's a reason AS hasn't hit 1.0 yet: it isn't ready.

[1]: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=YW5kcm9pZC...

I think having a few ex-Sun Java guys might have influenced that decision. Since all other mobile platforms offer better native support.

This is just my personal opinion.

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