Bleep Qualcomm right in their Qualcomm-hole

I was wrong about the media controls controls in other apps – it didn’t work when I tested it, but after further testing I’m willing to blame that on the bulky case mandated by work than on the OS itself. But I’ll point out that 1) those controls are still up to 3 swipes away rather than always 1, and 2) it’s a bespoke solution for the specific use case of playing audio, and does nothing for the general case of wanting to take an action directly from a notification without fully going into the app (preemptively dismissing an upcoming alarm, adding a recent call to a to-do list, etc.)

And yes, @Ephraim, I’m aware that I’m permitted to position four whole apps where I want them. I’d just rather have it for more than that. MRU is great for what it is, but I like the muscle-memory of being able to hit the home button and then tap a specific spot without needing to take time to look at which app is where in the MRU list.

And I do in fact use Gboard on both platforms, and the iOS version is a pale shadow of the Android version, missing a ton of customization features, like the number row and the symbols overloaded onto every key as a long-press option. Not to mention that at random intervals the keyboard randomly reverts to the stock Apple one, and I waste time trying to gesture-type a few words before realizing what happened and change it back. As I mentioned, I did care enough to look for one that did what I wanted, but came up empty. Not sure how much of that is that it’s a new feature or if there are certain customizations that just aren’t permitted for keyboard apps, but I suspect the latter given that Gboard has nothing close to feature parity across its versions.

But again, focusing on whether you share the specific niggles that have annoyed me is missing the point. I don’t hate iOS – it’s a perfectly capable OS for the most part, and there are a few things I think it does better than Android (fast security updates, quick camera in Hangouts rather than having to hand back and forth with the full camera app, and yes, processor speed). I’m sure I’d be mostly satisfied with it if there weren’t a better option available. The things I mentioned are irritating nitpicks rather than awful dealbreakers. My point is that the processor performance delta is ALSO just an irritating nitpick in real-world usage. The actual time savings is small enough that almost ANY point of friction or annoyance that you happen to encounter wipes out the time saved by the faster processor, so it’s perfectly rational to weight those friction points just as heavily as the processor speed in the decision.

Basically, we should have stopped making faster computers in 2005. That was “good enough”.

And for the record, I wouldn’t be complaining if the difference was like a measly 25% instead of 100%, 200% or even more. There was a time from 2008 to 2013 that Qualcomm’s crap was competitive with Apple. But 2014 and onward, there’s just this vast, gaping performance abyss that keeps yawning ever wider.

BTW this is usually good news – the idea that a smartphone you bought 3 years ago is 3x slower than the one you bought today means we’re back in the glory days of massively increasing yearly performance you may remember from, oh, 1984 - 2010 or so on the PC side.

This is systemic, it’s been going on for almost 5 years now, and it’s almost exclusively Qualcomm. Show me where you can buy the alternative to Qualcomm hardware on Android?

A computer from 2005 is very much “good enough” for the majority of computer users. Obviously there are those (like gamers) who demand more. I guess what everybody here is trying to tell you is that current Android performance is good enough for the vast majority of smartphone users. I have a BLU R1 HD that I paid a whopping $50 for unlocked and performance wise it does everything I want it to do even though it’s woefully outdated even compared to current Android phones.

What am I supposed to be wanting that would compel me to spend a preposterous amount of money on a new iPhone or iPad? One thing I’ve learned over the last few years is that the kind of gaming that is actually enjoyable on tablets and smartphones is the kind of gaming that does not require a tremendous amount of processing power.

If for some reason I want a device I can use in bed to play more involved games, I will be taking that $700 and I will be buying a Windows laptop so that I can actually run my catalog. I just do not see a scenario where it would make sense for me to buy an iPad or iPhone.

Right, because there’s no middle ground between “fuck processor performance” and “oh god I want to fuck my phone’s processor performance”.

I’ll tell you what – I’ll make you a deal. If Qualcomm’s board of directors calls me up tomorrow and makes me the CEO, I’ll totally put them to work on faster single-core performance. But in the meantime, the next time I buy a phone it will be one among dozens of criteria, and nowhere near the most important of them.

This thread has a few good points mixed in with the hyperbole, and this is a reasonable summary in my opinion.

Once in awhile Wumpus is right, like when my kids are doing something worth a snapshot… but I already have Google maps open and music playing and a bunch of chrome tabs, and my phone decides to stop at the toilet for a crap before giving me the option of taking a picture.

Three quarters of the time it’s fine however.

The reason to believe that they’re very near that limit is that they’re now making cores that are almost as large as those in Skylake, and getting scalar integer performance similar to a Skylake Core M.

Apple do have the benefit of designing a mobile/tablet CPU. while Intel is using a single design to cover a much larger range of power usage and frequency. So they’re not going to be perfectly optimized for this use case. But even so, if there’s still a huge amount of slack for Apple to pick up, there should have been for Intel too. If you believe that the A11 will give a 40% single core performance boost, I think you also have to believe that Apple has some magic tech.

And I bet every single one of those will be Qualcomm hardware. Therein lies the problem with your dozens of criteria. I hope you like crap!

Look at history to be your guide for future performance speculation. That is why I groan when I see early Qualcomm perf articles on the web, because I know it is going to suck. And that is why I still get excited – like the heady days of Intel in 2002 – when I see early iOS hardware perf articles on the web.

I am very, very eager to see A11 perf results later this year. If they are near the limit, that is when we will find out. My money is on “no”.

To clarify, access to media controls within apps is a setting. On by default on iPad, off on iPhone. To change it, go to Settings | Control Center | Access Within Apps.

I don’t think that is correct. I rarely touch settings on my phone and it is on by default. I never really listen to music on my phone for that matter.

Why does the iPhone 7 have a 1,334 × 750 IPS screen? That’s the same 326 DPI as a 2010 iPhone 4. Why is Apple so incompetent when the geniuses at Samsung have put a beautiful AMOLED 2960 x 1440 resolution (571 PPI) in the Galaxy S8?

Hell my old S6 crushes an iPhone 7’s PPI. Apple should be embarrassed holding back the march of technology with their stagnant displays since 2010.

ITT: wumpus reveals that he doesn’t know the meaning of “criteria”.

The iPhone 8 will finally have oled. Thank god. As for 4k on a phone, that’s critical for VR, but not many other uses.

May I suggest Nintype? The bottom row is fully configurable such that swiping the letter B downwards is a full stop. Swiping V is comma and so on.

I’ll check it out, thanks.

wish there is a Like button!

But … “Retina.”

I mean what are they going to call the next iteration? Rods and Cones? Or maybe go the other way back out of the eyeball and call it Iris.

Visual cortex

Jesus, if it was up to you guys, all progress in visual displays would have halted by 2005. Who needs to see anything clearer? It’s good enough for us, by gum! 640x480 should be enough for anyone!

I NEED THE LIKE BUTTON BACK IMMEDIATELY

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