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Android a total flop? — Parallax Forums

Android a total flop?

MicksterMickster Posts: 2,694
edited 2013-08-30 11:34 in General Discussion
CuriousOne wrote: »
Memory and app management in android is total flop I believe. Especially the "feature" which will kill and unload your app (even if you had unsaved data in it), if it decides that resources are needed for other app. Just imagine, say you're typing some text in ms word. You needed to prepare some illustrations, so launched photoshop. When finished with photoshop, you discover that windows unloaded your ms word executable (and ruined your data), since it thought that photoshop needed more space. Another loss of android is general slowdowns and jitter. On same hardware level (Celeron T 1.2ghz/1gb ram/32gb ssd) even windows 2000 works way faster and stable. But, as it comes out, most users don't see past Flickr, Facebook and Angry Birds....

75% of all smartphones sold in Q1 were Android based!

Android is my preferred platform after many years of developing for DOS and then Windows. My current app is ~40MB and totally stable, I never have any of the above cited problems. Can someone show me how I can reproduce them?

As for SSD with Windows, I think you will find that some embedded PC suppliers recommend against SSD due to Windows' insistence on constantly writing to the drive even if one configures for no swap file. I discovered this some years ago when my industrial PC's wore-out the SSD in short order.

Regards,

Mickster
«134

Comments

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-08-05 10:11
    Mickster,

    This is of course totally off topic for this site. Anyway...

    Clearly Android can be picked apart on various technical grounds but here we are. It does what people want and it holds the market share.

    Remember when the IBM PC was launched and everyone one immediately realized how brain damaged it''s architecture was? Never mind MS-DOS on top of that-

    Technical "correctness" has never been a requirement for success in these mass markets.

    I would be happy if my smart phone ran Debian and had a phone application configured to be the dominant interface at start up. Oh well.
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2013-08-05 10:13
    Mickster wrote: »
    Android is my preferred platform after many years of developing for DOS and then Windows.

    This is good to know. I keep thinking I'll need to get some sort of smart phone since so many people like to use them as an interface with various electronics and robotic projects.

    I value your opinion on the subject.

    Thanks,
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-08-05 10:18
    Actually the phone/tab business is interesting.

    On the one hand it is clear that phone manufacturers like Samsung and others would rather not pay for an OS from Microsoft or whoever, So they use the free Android.

    On the other hand they are still licesing their ARM processor designs from, well, ARM Holdings Ltd.

    Odd that.

    Is it so that the license fees for your processor are significantly less than whatever MS want for Windows on a phone?

    As for iOS, well, that is out of the running being Apple only.
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2013-08-05 10:24
    As flops go it's an amazingly successful one.

    I have an Android tablet which I use strictly for listening to podcasts, and gaming while I'm riding the T to work. Yes the JVM garbage collection causes occasional stutters in gaming performance, but it's much more compact than a laptop as compensation. The games are also dirt cheap and quite fun too.
  • CuriousOneCuriousOne Posts: 931
    edited 2013-08-05 11:10
    Market share means nothing.

    Most of earth's adult human population are tobacco smokers, but that does not make tobacco good for health.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-08-05 11:17
    Heater. wrote: »
    Technical "correctness" has never been a requirement for success in these mass markets.

    Sad but true. History shows that the "winner" is usually the company with the best business plan & model, not necessarily the best product.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-08-05 11:31
    CuriousOne,
    Market share means nothing.

    Actually it means a lot. It determines where investment and progress will happen.

    For example we had UNIX a long time ago, But due to market share we ended up with Windows. It is taking a long time to correct that situation.

    In recent times the World Wide Web has been pronounced as a dead end. But hey, it's everywhere so we now have web apps, and people like Google optimizing the wazzo out of JavaScript.
  • CuriousOneCuriousOne Posts: 931
    edited 2013-08-05 11:39
    You misunderstood me. Another example. Governmental media in North Korea gets best ratings. Why? - Because there is no other media available.
    Same with android, it is popular, because it is smallest set of poo from ones to step in. But it does not converts it from poo to rose.

    Actually, the problem is in Intel. If they did energy-efficient x86 CPUs, android will never gain that popularity.
  • MicksterMickster Posts: 2,694
    edited 2013-08-05 11:50
    Heater. wrote: »
    Mickster,

    This is of course totally off topic for this site. Anyway...

    Really? Because this is the Android HMI for my Prop-based machine control system:

    Rugged Tablet.jpg


    A little less off-topic than cows and artificial burgers, I would've thought.

    Regards,

    Mickster
    Rugged Tablet.jpg
    800 x 600 - 67K
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-08-05 12:16
    CuriousOne,
    You misunderstood me.
    Turns out I might have.
    Governmental media in North Korea gets best ratings.... Same with android,
    Are you seriously telling me that the whole world of people selecting phones/tabs from various suppliers, Nokia, Samsung, Apple, etc etc. from various countries, with a plethora of features and operating systems along the way is in any way like the regime in North Korea?

    If that is how you see the world we have no common ground to even start a debate on.
    Actually, the problem is in Intel. If they did energy-efficient x86 CPUs, android will never gain that popularity.
    Perhaps maybe, possibly, if Intel could make an small energy efficient processor then all the worlds phones and tabs would be running some kind of Windows.

    Luckily they could not/did not, and as a result there has been a flourishing of operating systems in the mobile space. Symbian, Android, WebOS, now FireFox OS, ChromeOS.

    I'm curious as to why you say Intel has been a problem here. Seems like a bonus to me.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-08-05 12:21
    Mickster,

    Good for you. Better to be doing that just yacking as us old guys are prone to do:)
  • CircuitsoftCircuitsoft Posts: 1,166
    edited 2013-08-05 12:34
    One thing to keep in mind about Android is that properly designed applications can be killed at any time without issue. You should split your app into UI and data, so if the UI is killed, the data service is either still running, or has everything flushed to databases so that it can be restarted later and pick up where it left off.
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2013-08-05 12:52
    Heater. wrote: »
    This is of course totally off topic for this site. Anyway...
    Mickster wrote: »
    Really? Because this is the Android HMI for my Prop-based machine control system...
    A little less off-topic than cows and artificial burgers, I would've thought.

    And my Android app is also to interface to a Prop system (via Bluetooth) to do data display.
    Heater. wrote: »
    Java does the same. You can see visible stutters in GUI apps when it hangs up to garbage collect.

    I guess this probem is less if you have huge memory space for the GC to work in.

    When my Android devices GC it typically takes them on the order of a few ms to garbage collect. I don't think that's a significant contributor to GUI stutter, at least in my application.
    CuriousOne wrote: »
    Well, for strange reasons, Windows being equipped with same "limited storage & disk space" does not unloads anything and is much more responsive, too.

    Even my old computer from the mid 90's has more disk space than a modern Android phone (40GB HDD vs 32GB Android). And I'd like to point out that the Windows system is much less responsive than any of my Android devices.
    Circuitsoft wrote: »
    One thing to keep in mind about Android is that properly designed applications can be killed at any time without issue. You should split your app into UI and data, so if the UI is killed, the data service is either still running, or has everything flushed to databases so that it can be restarted later and pick up where it left off.

    Exactly. Most poorly designed apps get around this most of the time by adding the android:configChanges parameter to the manifest, instead of taking care of configuration changes properly.
  • CuriousOneCuriousOne Posts: 931
    edited 2013-08-05 13:13
    40GB HDD -s become available in early 2000s. In mid 90s, you probably had 40MB, not GB (My AMD [EMAIL="486@133mhz"]486@133mhz[/EMAIL] had 1.2gb hdd and I bought it late 1997).
  • MicksterMickster Posts: 2,694
    edited 2013-08-05 13:17
    Circuitsoft wrote: »
    One thing to keep in mind about Android is that properly designed applications can be killed at any time without issue. You should split your app into UI and data, so if the UI is killed, the data service is either still running, or has everything flushed to databases so that it can be restarted later and pick up where it left off.

    Once data has been entered, why would you not immediately write it to non-volatile storage? In my app, I store it to internal memory and then sync with DropBox immediately. Should the Android device ever fail, all that needs to happen is the user registers the replacement device with the same Gmail address and the new device inherits the same APK (app) PLUS all of the data that the previous device had. A fresh device can be installed in less than 15 mins. Try doing that with a Windows-based system!

    Regards,

    Mickster
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-08-05 13:25
    SRLM,
    ...don't think that's a significant contributor to GUI stutter, at least in my application.

    So what on earth is my Galaxy S phone doing when it stalls for seconds on end? And I don't even have any apps installed.

    I'm not complaining. I'm still amazed that such a thing works at all.
  • MicksterMickster Posts: 2,694
    edited 2013-08-05 13:28
    Heater. wrote: »
    CuriousOne,

    Turns out I might have.

    Are you seriously telling me that the whole world of people selecting phones/tabs from various suppliers, Nokia, Samsung, Apple, etc etc. from various countries, with a plethora of features and operating systems along the way is in any way like the regime in North Korea?

    If that is how you see the world we have no common ground to even start a debate on.

    ROFL!!!

    Regards,

    Mickster
  • CircuitsoftCircuitsoft Posts: 1,166
    edited 2013-08-05 13:38
    Heater. wrote: »
    SRLM,

    So what on earth is my Galaxy S phone doing when it stalls for seconds on end? And I don't even have any apps installed.

    I'm not complaining. I'm still amazed that such a thing works at all.
    Are you running Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich? Early/poor implementations of those versions do have such stuttering, and I don't really know what they are. You can connect a USB cable, install the developer tools, and do an "adb logcat" to see what it's doing.
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2013-08-05 15:11
    CuriosOne is simply trolling. As for Windows vs. Android.. I have a 4GB laptop with Windows, given to me by the company. I no longer bring it on my travels. My Android Transformer tablet with 1GB does everything for me now. Remote development from around the world, data, video / shared desktop conferences, customer support handling, my hobby projects (serial terminal).. all of it. I don't lose data. Like old Palm apps, Android apps store state if they have to leave the building for a moment. Kill a Windows app and see what happens..
  • jazzedjazzed Posts: 11,803
    edited 2013-08-05 16:26
    I've really enjoyed my Android phone so far. I also enjoyed my Windows phone a long time. Haven't tried to write apps for either one really. That might have something to do with my satisfaction. Must confess that I've recently been tempted to write an Android app though. LOL
  • WBA ConsultingWBA Consulting Posts: 2,934
    edited 2013-08-05 21:34
    Android use has been steadily leading and pulling away from Apple and Windows based devices for the past 2+ years. I have been using Motorola Droids for 3+ years with zero issues and would never consider an iPhone nor a Windows phone, even if given to me. If Apple does recover from the recent flops with their iPhones soon, I expect the iPhone 7 to be Android based. (yep, you heard it here first people, lol)

    Operating Systems in my house:

    Windows: 4 ---- 2 Laptops, 1 HP Slate, and 1 MediaPC running 7 Ultimate
    Android: 7
    2 Nooks, 3 phones, 1 TV, 1 no-namer Tablet
    Linux: 3
    2 Routers, 1 NAS
    iOS: 0
    not allowed in my house
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-08-05 22:01
    WBA,

    So that's 10 for Linux then. Not bad.
  • CuriousOneCuriousOne Posts: 931
    edited 2013-08-06 00:25
    Windows: 5 (workstation, server, laptop, media pc)
    Android: 1 (nook hd+)
    Linux: 1 (wrt-310)
    iOs: 0
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-08-06 00:51
    In this house:

    Linux: 6 (Main workstation, Laptop, Raspberry Pi * 2, Android phone, router)
    Windows 2 (Laptop, PC - Not mine of course. Luckily I got back use of my workstation when a new Windows laptop took over Farm Vile duty)
  • ColeyColey Posts: 1,110
    edited 2013-08-06 02:56
    WBA Consulting wrote: »
    ........I expect the iPhone 7 to be Android based. (yep, you heard it here first people, lol)..............

    lol indeed.

    This will never happen as Apple's whole business model is all about locking you in.
    They aren't one of the richest companies around just by accident.....

    In our home...
    Windows : 5 - workstations (3), Laptops (2)
    Android : 11 - Phones (4), Tablets(4), Google TV(2), Game console
    Linux : 2 - Raspi (2)
    iOS - 0

    Quite shocked really how much tech we have in our home, the kids just expect it these days lol
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-08-06 04:00
    Coley,
    Quite shocked really how much tech we have in our home, the kids just expect it these days lol

    Yes...there was a time, when Neil Armstrong was stepping foot on the moon and I was just out of short trousers when there was not even a T.V. in my family home.

    When I wanted a stereo system I had to make one:Thank you Sinclair http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/audio/project60.htm

    When I wanted a calculator I had to make one. Thank you Wireless World magazine: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/advance_wireless_world.html

    Digital clock ... start with a pile of TTL chips.

    1mW red laser...thank you Maplin Electronics : Hmm... can't find that on the WEB now.

    Computer ... well you get the idea.

    Kids today....
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2013-08-06 04:11
    BTW, today's Taipei Times has an article about Android (at $150 or less per unit) has over-taken the Apple iPad. But I suspect that the real problem is the general publc has finally reached gadget saturation... sales are declining in most electronics.

    http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2013/08/06/2003569003
  • ColeyColey Posts: 1,110
    edited 2013-08-06 04:14
    Heater,

    The main theme you have there is about making things, today it's all about consumption....

    That's what worries me the most, it's harder to get kids interested these days in making things especially when you are competing with phones, tablets and PC's.

    My son is only just starting to wonder how things work instead of just accepting that they do, just as I did all those years ago.......

    Anyway sorry for OT, Android Rulez! :lol:
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-08-06 04:32
    Coley,
    The main theme you have there is about making things, today it's all about consumption....

    Exactly.

    And never mind making what about destroying?

    It's kind of instinctive for kids to rip things apart to see what's inside and what makes it tick.

    As a simple example, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on in a good old fashioned rotary telephone dial. Taking that apart can teach you a lot. Smash open your smart phone and you are none the wiser. And there is no repurposable (Is that a word?) parts inside.

    "Creation is destruction, and I want to be there", as the song goes.

    Android Rulez. I wonder if Google's own ChromeOS might usurp it some day.
  • prof_brainoprof_braino Posts: 4,313
    edited 2013-08-06 06:48
    Coley wrote: »
    This will never happen as Apple's whole business model is all about locking you in.
    They aren't one of the richest companies around just by accident.....

    Not so fast. All of Apple's software is based on free open source software. It says so in the agreement. They juast put some junk on top.

    They aren't one of the richest companies around just by accident.....
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