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Really, really good - but not great.

MrX8503 said:
I saw that video and it just convinces me that the iPhone handles scrolling better. It is true that the Incredible loads faster, but when you look at the scrolling, the iPhone has superior physics.

The reviewer states that the Incredible scrolls faster, but if you look at the iPhone, it mimics the acceleration of your finger. I don't know what Apple did, but their coding is vastly superior than other competitors.

I do a little bit of animation, and its similar to Easy Ease. Instead of speeding up and then to a dead stop, you ease into the speed, speed up, then ease out. This creates an organic feel that makes it butter smooth.



From that video the EVO is loading faster, which is great. But what many posters are attributing the speed to is the actual scrolling.

Look at the scrolling of the iPad vs EVO. The scrolling physics is superior. I'm beginning to think this is as a result of the talented engineers that Apple has on their iPhone OS team.

As an analogy, say if I threw a baseball. The harder I throw it, the faster it accelerates, then it slows down to a stop. If we were obeying the physics that Android has on its OS, the baseball would go from zero to fast then back to zero right away. With no transitions, or "Easy ease", it creates a sudden jerkiness.

This is why the EVO is fast, but it gives an impression of stutter.

I think animators would have an easier time understanding this. Another thing is snapping and stretching, such as a rubber band or a bouncy ball. So adding even more physics superiority, the iPhone adds this to their browser as well. When you reach the end of the page, it snaps back.

I know it may seem like I'm praising the iPhone, but I can really appreciate the genius behind the engineers who were able to create this super smooth physics engine. It has nothing to do with being bias, you can see it in action/results for yourself.
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I feel the same way with my Incredible; the "smoothness" is just not there.
 
I am willing to bet apple will continue the same game with the next version. a few new features that the mac heads will salivate over and buy no matter what. 64gb yeah ok but how many actually get to filling it with that much music. Apple will continue to do what they have always done, enough to get you a little wet with excitement and then have you wait for the next version or the version after that to the a lot of the same features you get with the evo now

I loved my iphone, but im sick of waiting for them to leap ahead of the pack and not just marginally pass them. That worked 2 versions ago
 
rhg84 said:
The key, at least what I think is the key, are animations/transitions. Apple and Apple Developers incorporate a ton of SLOW animations into their apps. They look great, they provide great eye candy, and most importantly, they make the user forget they are waiting. It also provides an extra little bit of time for the phone to perform/complete whatever actions/tasks it is being asked to perform. I know they do this and it still works on me because everything seems to run smoother. Android and Android Developers typically use minimal animations or transitions.
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I believe the Nexus one tried to do similar transitions as the iPhone, but it stutters. So what HTC did was get rid of the animations altogether. So I don't quite agree with the user's assessment that Apple put in the transitions so that it has time to open an app, because Android is not capable of copying this transition smoothly itself.

So why do Android developers use less animation? People hate to hear it, but its because the animations aren't smooth. So they skip it.

rhg84 said:
Its much the same with a Mac. When you close a document, it (relatively) slowly sucks down into the icon at the bottom of the screen like a genie going into a bottle. On Windows, it closes with a very minimal animation. It doesn't look nearly as cool, and in fact, in comparison, it looks clunky and abrupt. But its just as fast or faster. The Apple Developer's Guidelines stress using animations to convey information to the user. It also provides that if your program appears idle for more than 2 seconds, the operating system will take over and perform some action on the screen to keep the user engaged. So if your program takes 5 seconds to load, and you don't provide some sort of eye-candy (albeit helpful eye-candy because it tells you the computer is working), then Apple will do it for you.
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The genie bottle thing can be turned off. I don't even think Desktop OSs have a place in this discussion as I don't see the correlation.

Bottom line, a snap dragon Android will open tasks faster, but when it comes to transitions, animations, scrolling, panning, zooming, the iPhone is better. I believe this comes down to coding of the OS and I don't think it has anything to do with masking how long it takes to do a task. Because if that was the case, Android devices wouldn't have the stutter that its experiencing.
 
Well, iPhone OS 4 will have multi tasking, so I'm not sure if you can bring that up. Whether its better or not is a matter of opinions. I would say the biggest advantage of Android is customization.

jkr4577 said:
If the best knock against the EVO is that it doesn't "scroll" as well as iPhone does then you blew it.
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Its not really just about scrolling. Its that the iPhone was released in 2007 and has superior physics, which includes scrolling AND many other things. It's now 2010 and there still hasn't been a phone on the market yet that can mimic this. I'm not a big Apple fan, but I will give them credit for that.

I haven't really used Palm WebOS myself, but from the videos it seemed to be pretty close in the smoothness of the iPhone with scrolling and whatnot.
 
The folks making up nitpicks (half of which are not even true) to make it seem like the iPhone is somehow still better overall than the Evo are really just silly. You can't just pick out one or two things that an iPhone is still better at and then claim the Evo isn't that great. Expecting perfection in order to beat an iPhone is more than just a bit unreasonable and silly I think.

That said, there has never been a cell phone in history that was perfect for everyone and I feel comfortable saying that there will NEVER be one that is perfect for everyone. You just get the one that has the most overall pieces that work great for you.

For me, overall, the Evo is obviously better than the iPhone and I was never on the fence about that or even comparing it to the next iPhone. The iPhone just doesn't do it for me and barring some miracle the Evo will also be better (for me) than what I've seen of the next iPhone.
 
I don't think anyone is saying that the iPhone is perfect, at least I didn't say that.

The thread addresses scrolling/animations specifically, I think we all already know the strengths and weaknesses of both phones.
 
The OPs comment seems reasonable and is probably the truth, but it would appear that an iPhone vs everything else discussion kind of broke out in the middle.

The point was not that anyone was saying the iPhone is perfect. It's that there isn't a phone that does everything better than every other device. Therefore, it comes down to whether you're ok with the areas that your desired phone is lacking or whether there's another device that covers more of your "must have" features. To each there own.

I personally (just for myself) would not exclude the Evo from being in the "great" class based on the few areas where it ties or does not clearly beat an iPhone. At least not the areas that have been pointed out to date.
 
The long post from the developer is spot-on. The "i" products use animations to great affect to hide loading etc. Sure, the apple products are not as FAST as android, but it does not matter. It's all about FEEL! It's about the experience.

The android platform is my favorite hands down. But it is lacking in two key areas:

1. Unified user experience. The sense UI is famous for tying together the seperate elements of the stock UI. The stock experience should not need a third party to pretty it up, but sadly it does. The Google experience is all about engineering... They need a little more design (a little more beauty to match the brains). It's about balance, android is simply is not as refined as apples OS (yet).

2. The feel. Anyone that spends time with both OS's (and has any design sensitivity) will instantly feel the refined smoothness in the iPhone experience. It is the best combination of power, touch, feel, speed... It is smooth, clean, silky - with just enough pop to keep it fresh. The android experience is fast, dynamic, energetic, powerful... But it does not have the refined user experience of the more mature Apple OS.

In conclusion, I will never buy an iPhone... But you have to give credit where credit is due.

It's android for me. Google for life!!! But there are some important areas to push the google OS forward before I will be totally happy. The feel of the experience is VERY important, and google would be wise to address it. I think we will see some good growth in these areas now that they hired the guy that developed Palms WebOS UI.

Good conversation here - don't let gadget territorialism ruin it.
 
asaberan said:
The problem I see with this is, yeah, it's running in the background, but how the hell do I get back to it without clicking on the icon again?
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The answer to this question, and many of the others asked here, is in the documentation. Then again, if people read the manual, there's be far fewer posts on forums like this one. :D
 
Wow! I don't check this thread and it just blows up hahaha

Now I understand that this is an android forum and of course was expecting was some anti iPhone responses, but this is getting out of hand. As much as some of us like Android or the iPhone OS, in reality were all gadget guys. If xyz company came out with next big thing tomorrow that would beat out Android and the iPhone wed all look at it and potentially check it out. There isnt a need for this much drama...really.

I felt like sharing a conversation I had with a friend of mine, and I wanted to see if anyone agrees with me. What I wanted to discuss was smooth scrolling, how it affects the user experience, and how I find it interesting that the iPhone still scrolls smoother on 3 year old technology. I do also want to say that those who claim "butter smooth" probably haven't used an iPhone as a primary device. When I show all my iPhone friends the EVO, they immediately notice the scrolling. They also notice the PROs of the evo. I'm not saying the iPhone is great I'm not saying the evo is great. The evo beats the iPhone in some areas, and iPhone beats Android in different areas. Anyone who doesn't believe that is crazy biased or being paid off by someone!


This isn't a "omg I hate android" or "omg I love the iPhone" debate. As phone lovers (no homo) we heart technology.
 
mobilemaniac said:
I'm not sure it's a Google problem. Like I said the Incredible is very smooth. Don't know if you saw the link to the video I posted, but this guy thinks it beats the iPhone 3GS. Remember the Incredible is moving a lot more pixels too:
Droid Incredible vs iPhone 3GS Web Browsing
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I dont think its the browsing. If you open the app list and try to scroll there is noticeable lag. I have seen it in every video review it is clearly noticeable when someone scrolls the app screen. Definitly not a game changer, definitly not as smooth as my iphone 3g. Im still loosing the iphone for the evo, but the slight lag is clearly there.
 
The thing with scrolling and these little details many here seem to be annoyed that us former iPhoners expect out of the Evo, and any device — these details make the phone feel 'done' or complete.

The details are not the details. They make the design.
—Charles Eames
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The make the phone feel perfect. Those details make the phone feel expensive. And like a luxury device.

The lack of these things now make any other phone feel cheap by comparison.

Some on the board have used the car analogies - and the lack of details can make a phone feel like a 5.0 Mustang instead of a BMW M3. Personally, I want the M3 of phones… especially considering the prices are roughly the same for the phones.

Sorry to those Androiders who are annoyed by us iPhoners —*we've been spoiled with a great device for 3 years. At the end of the day though, if we're here talking to you, we've bought an Android device, so we're not all bad... right? lol
 
Response after response debating about why it is-or-isn't okay to agree-or-disagree about whether the iPhone is-or-isn't better than the Evo. Which... ultimately is a matter of personal opinion. This makes all of you right and all of you wrong. It's a no-win argument.

The iPhone has more polish. If you've ever written software then you know that the polish on the iPhone is a LOT of work. Apple is benefiting from all that hard work because that polish is about 80% of what people cling to on their iPhone. However, having ultimate control over the entire ecosystem of the device (internal apps, OS, hardware) gives you the right environment to dedicate the time it takes to flesh out all those little things that the iProducts do. In business it is relatively common knowledge that polish and user experience on crap will yield higher margins and user share over powerful and feature rich but unusable software.

You don't have to be a fanboy of either camp to acknowledge strengths and weaknesses of both sides. You fellas stomping up and down because other people don't have an unnatural love fest with the [phone-of-your-choice] should look up the word tolerance.
 
shadrap said:
Ok, for arguments sake. We will say the iPhone "scrolls" better. It doesn't matter, the Evo still pwns it, in every other shape and form and remember we are talking about the yet to be released iPhone. Because it will be the one comparable to the iPad.

Either way the Evo wins. The End.
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Hey buddy, your fanboyism is showing...

You can admit that certain other phones (I won't say the name because I don't want you raging out) can do some things better than the EVO. It's alright. Just calm down.
 
I think its cool that most posters in this forum can see both sides. Generally most threads I post on is quite bias.

Since the OP was addressing scrolling/animations, that was what my post was specifically about. This doesn't mean that the iPhone is better overall, just that its better in reference to what the OP was talking about.

I think the iPhone is better at smooth animations, and I think HTC EVO is quicker at launching apps. I see no problem with this conclusion.
 
So, I'm not too familiar with programming but if what I read in this thread is correct, and apple simply adds extra animation to make it seem smoother, Wouldn't someone be able to program an app of some kind that has as much animations as an iphone, basically an "emulator" just to show that the evo can do what the iphone can?
It'd end all these threads too..
 
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