Month: December 2011

Why is Android Laggy? ⇥

I read Dianne Hackborn’s post yesterday which reflected on the oft-laggy Android UI. I left the post quite confused, and didn’t link to it because of that.

Andrew Munn’s post clears up a few of the problems I had with Hackborn’s original writeup. This is the epicentre of Android lag, though (emphasis his):

It’s not GC pauses. It’s not because Android runs bytecode and iOS runs native code. It’s because on iOS all UI rendering occurs in a dedicated UI thread with real-time priority. On the other hand, Android follows the traditional PC model of rendering occurring on the main thread with normal priority.

As has been noted since the first iPhone, iOS prioritises what needs to render now, always. Android likes to render everything. This becomes apparent when trying to move around large amounts of content on phones with less-than-amazing graphics and processing capabilities.

Munn also notes a number of other contributing factors, like garbage collection, rendering efficiency and a few others. Smart post.

Incongruous ⇥

Apologies in advance for the Daily Fail link.

These are some photos from the set of Mad Men, with Jon Hamm playing with his iPhone while dressed in Sixties-style apparel. It’s the same incongruous feeling I get when listening to Pull My Strings on my phone. It’s somewhat of a time warp.

This Site’s Domain is Stolen ⇥

Hey ya’ll. This is (really) Chris Coyier. I had css-tricks.com registered on GoDaddy. It recently came to my attention that the ownership of this domain has been transferred away from my ownership to PlanetDomain. For now, thankfully the nameservers still point to MediaTemple, so the site is still up. That could change at any time.

I’m going to keep track of all this.

This is an utterly fascinating read. I hope things work out for Coyier and those who (really) own sites with the same problem.

Senator Al Franken’s Letter to Carrier IQ ⇥

There are a number of questions Sen. Franken is seeking answers to, but there are a series of questions (3-8) which I am particularly keen to know about. For instance, Sen. Franken asks “[w]hat if any of this data is transmitted off of a users’ phone? When? In what form?” This is something consumers don’t yet know, but that we absolutely should.