

Android 3.0 Hardware Acceleration - shimi
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/03/android-30-hardware-acceleration.html

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pkulak
I tried out the Xoom, and the browser still felt like an Android browser. It
didn't have that super-smooth feeling you get from an iOS device. If it's not
hardware acceleration, then just what is Apple doing that Android isn't?

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Lewisham
I had the same feeling. It's not just in the browser, it's throughout the
whole experience, so the raster trick for zooming that's mentioned doesn't
explain it completely.

Google really needs to sort it out. It's a shonky user experience that really
doesn't need it to be. I was certain that it was hardware acceleration that
was missing, but obviously not. There was that bug ticket which indicated that
Google thought it was garbage-collector related, but then that was supposed to
have been modified in 2.3.

It's really pretty poor, and is certainly not helping to sell devices. Put an
iPad 2 next to a Xoom, or a Nexus One next to an iPhone 4, and you really do
see the difference. In stores like Best Buy, that's how they're setting up
displays, of the two "flagship products". And I'm sure customers are going to
go with the Apple product after trying them both.

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Pewpewarrows
Yep. That's exactly why everyone I've ever talked to or come in contact with
has an iPhone: the slightly more responsive scrolling behavior in browsers.
Total deal-breaker.

(Don't get me wrong, it's a valid criticism. But it's not even remotely close
to the reason people choose an iPhone over an Android-based phone, or vis-
versa).

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thingie
It's much more like slightly more responsive behavior everywhere, not just
browsers. I have bought cheap low-end Android handset, as I really didn't want
to pay a hefty price for the iPhone (Europe, it's very expensive even with
subscription, which is expensive as well), it was my first smartphone and I
wasn't entirely convinced that I need or even want such a thing. I do, but
overal sluggishness of the Android handset (even high-end models that I was
able to try for a while did have some lags and weren't really what I expected)
is very annoying. In fact, it's the primary reason why I'm now seriously
thinking about getting the iPhone.

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SeveredCross
This matches my experience almost exactly. I wasn't sure that I needed a
smartphone, so I got a low-end Android handset on Verizon (Droid Eris), and
it's been an absolute piece of garbage, even with custom ROM (currently
running a Gingerbread ROM based off CM7). The higher-end Android models I've
played with have been better, but even my girlfriend's HTC Desire has
boatloads of issues, and some of them are the same as the issues on my Eris
(scroll lag, menu lag, poor input responsiveness across the board).

Google really needs to focus on Android's user experience if they want to be a
serious competitor to Apple across all market segments[1]. That said, I doubt
that Google is going to place a strong focus on fixing Android's UX issues,
because it seems to me that Android is yet another platform to get more ads in
front of more eyeballs, and if shoveling OS updates and cheap handsets out is
the way to do it, then that's what they'll do.

[1]: While it's true that Android has the #1 market share right now, I doubt
that it's because of Android's UX attracting the masses--I have a feeling that
it's due to Android's low price and availability at said low prices in
emerging markets with many fresh-faced consumers (China, India come to mind).
I strongly suspect Apple still kicks Google's ass in the all-important sector
of consumers with money to spend on phones and apps.

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jjcm
Out of curiosity, why is there a flag to enable it? Why not have it on by
default? From what I understand, there's no downside to hardware acceleration
- the offload to the GPU uses less power, it's rendered faster, and it is a
better user experience. What's the edge case that requires this flag to be
off?

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zmmmmm
From TFA:

    
    
        some operations behave differently when hardware acceleration enabled
    

So they've been conservative. I kind of wish they hadn't - 3.0 is a big enough
version jump that people understand there's going to be a few glitches, and
there are almost certainly a large number of apps that don't use any of the
small number of listed APIs that change their behavior under hardware
acceleration. Those apps that do use the APIs could be autodetected I would
have thought and have hardware acceleration disabled automatically.

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lukifer
I'm planning on doing HTML5 apps for Android tablets. Any word on whether
WebView gains any benefits from hardware acceleration yet?

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afhof
Does anyone else not get a scrollbar on that site?

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SeveredCross
Known issue, they use some nasty combination of IFRAME and JavaScript for the
site that breaks in a lot of browsers.

