Can someone explain in layman's what the issue actually is, because the article, neither its comments here or on Reddit, seem to dumb it down for non audiophiles?
This is obviously an issue when doing real-time audio processing or generation: if you're using virtual instruments and the feedback to your cans is 1/10th of a second behind the interaction it's unusable.
But it's also a problem for more mundane applications: a 200ms roundtrip (100ms to move samples from the mic to the application on the talker's side, and 100ms to move them from the application to the speaker on the listener's side) is is more delay than the transmission time from somebody literally on the other side of the earth. Same with fast-paced game, audio feedback >100ms after an action is highly bothersome or even game-breaking (the sound is output several frames behind the gamestate)
The embedded graph with the U shaped figure pretty much sums up the author's search for the components in the software that are the culprits.
Not just that, if you try to play guitar with a 10ms latency from input to output, you'll find that it's impossible to keep rhythm at all. It's the same effect as a speech jammer: http://www.stutterbox.co.uk/
And I don't think many people outside the the tech audio community realize how many people have ditched their guitar amplifiers and are playing guitar purely through the iOS devices. It's a great use case for tablets, but is completely infeasible to do on Android at the moment.
I'm super interested in this question because I honestly don't know. My assumption is that among serious guitar players (defined as individuals who play in groups or in front of people at least monthly) the number is almost nil.
I'm sure the number of casual guitarists (those who rarely play, but technically own one), this number is quite high.
I'm unwilling to even concede the tubes in my amp let alone the amp itself...
Few serious guitarists would resign themselves to exclusively playing through an iOS device. Nearly all serious guitarists will do it on a regular basis though, which is the more relevant point.
Or imagine trying to listen to your own voice, but having the sound delayed by that 35ms, so it feels like someone is talking over you every time you open your mouth.