
Why Does The iPhone Still Have The Best Touchscreen In The Industry? - tcskeptic
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/15/question-why-does-the-iphone-still-have-the-best-touchscreen-in-the-industry/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
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tumult
Rather than the physical hardware of the touchscreen accuracy, nobody seems to
be commenting on the software accuracy and, more importantly, latency.

Android is much less responsive (yes, even on my Nexus One) than any iPhone
model. This is not something people tend to measure, but it matters more than
I can tell you. When your only feedback from the device consists of visual
cues, it's really important to get them to the user as fast as possible. When
the lag time between touch<->visual response is long, you end up performing
everything more slowly overall, and the feeling of 'sluggishness' of the
device increases, even if it really is doing things faster.

For example, my Nexus One can scroll and render a web page faster than my
iPhone 3GS, but in my informal tests, it lags nearly 3x over iPhone when
responding to actually moving the page with your finger (iPhone is less than
100ms, Nexus One/Android 2.1 usually over a third of a second by my crappy
measurements, don't take it as hard fact. Try it yourself!) As a result, the
Nexus One feels like more of a PITA to use, and I am subtly more frustrated
when performing any task in the OS in any app.

This stuff adds up. Google needs to pay attention. Normal users cannot even
tell you what is wrong when it comes to something like this -- a focus group
or study will not help. People cannot tell you "oh, the touch sensing was too
latent, so my actions were slowed and I was more frustrated while operating
the device." They will just be frustrated in some other way that you cannot
correlate to touch latency, or they will say nothing, because the problem is
not something they can articulate.

The first OS update for my Nexus One added a bug where the desktop wallpaper
becomes misaligned when you return to the home screen after launching an app
from anywhere but the center home screen. After doing so, when you touch to
begin swiping to another home screen, the wallpaper jumps into the correct
place by several hundred pixels. Very jarring. This happens every single time,
and it wasn't present in the version that was on the phone when I took it out
of the box. How did nobody at Google see this before they released the update?
Do they not have humans testing the software they're working on?

When you drag down the notification panel from the top of the screen, the bar
jumps by about 30-50px every time when initially pulling it out with your
finger. Every time.

I want Android to be successful. Please, Google, pay attention to this stuff.

~~~
rbrcurtis
fwiw, my nexus one is way more responsive than my wife's iphone 3g.

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dbz
I understand that the article is purely about touch screens...but...

 _"I exhort all them to get their collective shit together and make something
that doesn’t fail miserably when compared to retired hardware."_

Nexus One doesn't fail...No...It doesn't. I think the screen overall is much
better than the iPhone's. Period. Furthermore, I find almost everything else
on the Nexus One is better than almost everything on the iPhone. Meh.

 _"I laugh at AT &T issues, mock iPhone users for lacking features I have on
Android, and so on"_

So. We are down a feature. We still win overall..right?...We clearly _DO!_
have our shit together yo' !

~~~
ugh
We?!

~~~
mccon104
the royal "we"

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jrockway
I assume that this is a "comparison chart" issue. Consumers and review sites
just look for things that can be compared with a checkbox, and that's what the
hardware manufacturers pander to. "Touchscreen accuracy" is not a well-defined
measurement like "number of megapixels", "screen brightness", "has hardware
keyboard", "weight", "amount of RAM", "supported H.264 profiles", etc. When
you are trying to optimize the things people that are going to use to
determine whether or not to buy your widget, why worry about something nobody
will notice?

(Now that someone's noticed, this may change.)

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akamaka
Good question, but skip the article because the author doesn't know the
answer.

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sebastianavina
because apple didn't developed their technology in a stretch deadline, they
took their time perfectioning it... all others, just worked hard for a couple
months to take on apple's innovation...

~~~
yardie
Then they have no excuse. If apple is able to get it after years of research
they should be there with a dozen iphones, a stopwatch and measuring tape.
Apple has already done the hard part and sent the benchmark.

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natmaster
You're doing it wrong!

Way to only compare the iPhone to crappy Android based devices that are known
for their horrible touch.

The Nokia n900 has superior touch accuracy and resolution, as well as having a
stylus to give even more power. Who needs zooming when you can click on any
link? If you're too weak to put slight pressure on the screen, there's always
the Zune HD, which not only has excellent responsiveness, but has a smoother,
richer interface.

~~~
metajack
Having recently used an N900, I had to laugh at this comment. The screen was
awful. The fact that it isn't capacitive makes it feel like sad, old
technology.

Maemo is nice, and the built in XMPP support was quite good.

The screen's resolution, however, was amazing.

~~~
natmaster
I actually own an N900. Me and my iPhone wielding friends did a test where we
compared the accuracy in drawing programs, and while they usually adamantly
defend their iPhone, they easily admitted it's superior precision in touch. We
were all able to draw more accurately on the N900.

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Tichy
I think Touchscreens are probably a software issue. Not sure how they work,
but I would expect a classic machine learning problem for determining the
location of a touch.

Therefore I think they will get better with subsequent software updates. The
iPhone just has seen more time dedicated to the problem already.

Anyway I am doing fine with my Nexus. Never tried to draw a straight line,
don't expect the need to arise anytime soon.

As for straight lines, it makes me think that probably one could add all sorts
of heuristics. Not only the current touch, but also the context (what is the
user most likely trying to do).

~~~
davidedicillo
Even the 1st gen iPhone touchscreen was better then the recent Androids & Co.
ones

~~~
Tichy
Who knows how long Apple had been working on it?

~~~
vena
i'd imagine not terribly long, since they did not develop the touchscreen
hardware and the software to control one with high accuracy isn't terribly
unique in any way.

i suspect the answer to this question is quite simple - it's cheaper.

~~~
Tichy
How do you know the control software is easy? I would think a touchscreen is
primarily a software problem (determining the point of touch from a fog of
signals).

That said, I think the touchscreen of my Nexus is fine, so far I didn't have
any problems with it.

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pistoriusp
I remember a few years back when you would argue and reiterate arguments over
which browser/ OS/ gaming console was better. None of those arguments
mattered. It was just a giant waste of time (Unless you could convince someone
to switch; yeah right!)

I don't even know why I read this article - I figured it would investigate the
aspects as to why the iPhone's screen is _theoretically_ the best. Or prove
that it is the best, but with facts, not opinion.

I didn't read one fact; just saw a piocture of a unicorn with an iPhone as a
horn. What a waste of time.

What kind of facts can we look up to actually figure out if this is a hardware
or a software comparison? I think it's in the software.

~~~
nzmsv
There's a test referenced in the article. With a picture of several phones'
screens showing their response. I think that can be called a fact.

~~~
pistoriusp
You're correct. I completely missed that; I don't know how. Here's the link:

<http://labs.moto.com/diy-touchscreen-analysis/>

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rbrcurtis
I downloaded a free, crappy drawing program on my nexus one and drew lines
line they have in this article, and they weren't squiggly at all. I call
shenanigans.

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chaosmachine
See also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1128107>

