Chris Nacca has posted an interesting video, in which the startup times of applications are compared between a Nexus 5 (released about a year ago) and the brand new iPhone 6. As you can see in the video, application startup times are essentially the same between the two devices, and in both cases, applications open very quickly.
This raises an interesting question, more so because of this article I read on The Verge today, about some guy who was very depressed about his brand new iPhone 6 Plus because he couldn’t use it with one hand. Aside from two obvious points – one, you have two hands, and two, didn’t you know how big the phone was? – it struck me that with phones being used almost exclusively for very lightweight tasks, why would you rush out and buy the latest iPhone or Galaxy or whatever when it doesn’t bring you any obvious benefit?
The iPhone 5S, or even the 5, is still a perfectly fine, fast, and capable phone, and other than getting a larger screen, upgrading to an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus will get you absolutely nothing. If even a year-old Nexus 5 that’s only half the price gives you about the same performance when checking Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and so on, what’s the point in spending $700-$900 on the new iPhone or Galaxy?
The video is not interesting because a Nexus 5 and iPhone 6 show equal application startup performance, but because it illustrates that the specifications race has already run its course. On desktop computers, newer machines at least give you better gaming performance, but on phones? Are you going to notice that little bit of extra AA or whatever the iPhone 6 is going to give you over the 5S?
Phones have really gotten into the numbers game, and it serves absolutely nobody, except the bank accounts of Apple and Samsung. The person in The Verge article is exactly how Apple and Samsung like their customers: rushing out to buy the latest and greatest phone, without giving it any obvious thought – not because they need it, but because they feel inferior if they don’t have the latest and greatest, actual needs be damned.
The thing is that Apple pushes with a flashing neon sign “usability”. Not everyone has two hands. But even if you do, one of the features of the earlier iPhones was that you could use it one-handed. The 6+ would need a mode to do it (along with a left/right), but didn’t do it
I found it very interesting that the iphone 6 plus particularly is making many of the same design mistakes that android has been making for years. That is that the buttons are not usable one handed. Fast forward to 2014 and the one plus was the first phone (that I know of) where the buttons are actually placed correctly to use the phone one handed.
Did you ever enjoy thumb-typing with one hand? I never could do that efficiently on a touch screen, no matter what size. In fact, touch screens suck for pretty much any task when navigating with the thumb, simply due to the properties of the thumb itself, and the fact that a touch screen offers no tactile response prior to taking input.
Nokia N9. Pretty much ‘nough said.
It is THE phone for one handed use. The haptic feed back on it is amazing as well.
I’ve lately been considering leaving my Galaxy Note 3 home and just going back to my N9.
If Nokia had stuck with MeeGo, instead of getting in bed with Microsoft, it could be looking very different right now. Of course Nokia could have gone Android, kept Maemo/MeeGo as a little side project until it was ‘ready’ then blasted the market with it. But.. well we all know what happened. For what it’s worth, the alpha of Jolla-Launcher is even pretty sweet, if a bit crash prone (well hell, Android in general seems to be rather crash prone, though I do have a sort of hacked version of the Note 3…)
I’ve got the N9, and although the haptic feedback is the best I’ve experienced, it’s still only feedback. Can’t really type with one thumb. On a classic phone with a T9, I’m even ambidextrous.
So true. Whenever I use an android or iOS device these days, the keyboard always feels like I’ve taken a massive step backwards, even though the N9 is probably two years older. And while one-handed use with a thumb isn’t great on any touchscreen phone, the Swype keyboard on the N9 is just spot on, and it’s the only phone other than a keypad type that I’ve been properly comfortable using it fully with one hand.
For Android phones you could try installing a T9 style keyboard.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bigkeyboard.bordeux.ne…
Or one that offers a T9 style keyboard as a selectable option.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.akeyboard
They can’t fix the main problem, though. On a proper T9 keyboard, you can rest your thumb on the keys and immediately get a feel for where it is. If you rest your thumb on a touchscreen, you type.
I won’t be getting an iPhone 6 Plus, it’s just too big, but this chart may explain why Apple made a model this large.
http://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/morgan-stanley.png…
Wait, so you NEED a PC with good gaming performance? Sounds like a luxury item to me. Why are you passing judgement on everyone else for buying shit they don’t need? Some people probably just buy new phones for no other reason than they can, and they want one. That should be good enough for you.
I would have expected that java startup is slower than ObjectC but Android seems to have no problem with that and even outperforms iOS. Nice.
There’s nothing inherently slow or fast about a programming language. It’s how the language is executed that matters. Java has the reputation of being slow because the standard Java VM sucks for user-facing tasks. Neither Dalvik nor Art are using the traditional VM, so they aren’t plagued by the slowness that is typically attributed to Java.
It is all about the implementation.
Don’t mistake programming languages with their implementation.
Any language can be implemented with text parsing interpreters, bytecode interpreters, threaded code, ahead-of-time compilation, just-in-time compilation.
It is just a matter of how hard it can be to implement the language semantics in a specific implementation model and if the invested effort is seen as worthwhile.
Not being a phone fan.. I find all these phone stories boring.
Perhaps there needs to be a fork of the site called “phone news” and keep this one for actuall operating systems of computers. Phones are not computers, rather consumer devices.
I don’t do any computing and OS development on a tablet, phone or other. They consume.
Just gets boring, feels like 90% of stories here are about some new phone O/S that Thom or $other is obsessed with. Sorry mate, your probably a nice guy, I don’t follow your obsession and wish a site that used to have awesome O/S news and insights has turned into for the most part a phone and phone company review site. *Sigh*
Seriously, you need a phone review and mobile tablet review and inspection site.
Lets compare some of the major O/S’s out there, the development in them, and how frequently they have stories posted on here. IBM AIX (interesting virtualisation stuff there of late?), iOS. HP-UX, VMS (bit of late.. which is great), Solaris? Anyone watching the interesting stuff there with OVM and storage? no? Phones. Again.
Your phone reviews are great, in depth.. but perhaps you’ve out-grown this site and need something new.
How about a filter option under “Preferences” for those who’re logged in? Not specifically for phones, but for certain tags.
At present the closest thing OSNews has to tags that I’m aware of is the icon on the top right of a story, which wouldn’t be adequate. So that would have to change first. Its probably most realistic to assume the change will have to wait for the long delayed New Look (http://www.osnews.com/story/26634/Early_sneak_preview_of_OSNews_5).
Filtering by tag in the future; how about it Thom?
Like we’ve said before: if the most popular phone operating systems and the devices they run on do not belong on OSNews – nothing does.
Well, I hope your treatment for OCD is successful… because that’s the only reason I can think of why someone who finds phone stories boring would bother clicking on an article entitled: “How Apple and Samsung Like Their Customers”.
When I see an uninteresting article on a web site, I scroll past it, without being interested enough to be offended by it.
…it’s new. Sheesh. Haven’t you figured this out by now?
Performance of modern phone suck. My Nokia E7 has a better performance than my Moto G, which is one of the most performant phone these days. 4-5 days with one charge on my E7. 20-24 hours on a lucky day with my Moto G.
A phone is not a PC. Performance of a phone is measured in bogomips/watt. The battery life is by far the most important thing. The size of the phone is the next most important thing. The number of operations per seconds less important.
It’s still a… phone, you know, to make calls. Nokia used to be top notch on the area, I’ve got a N95 and was pleased with, really, even tough it was “only” a 600 MHz dual processor.
Since late 2011 I own a HTC Evo 3D GSM, 1.2 GHz dual core with 1 GB memory and QHD (960*540) screen and it’s a breeze to use under Android 4.0.3 : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2422629
Don’t need more, I’m not fast/intelligent enough.
Kochise
Edited 2014-09-23 07:24 UTC
Moto G is actually pretty weak from HW side. It’s Moto/Google optimizations that make it appear quick.
I guess you didn’t read what I wrote. I don’t care how quick it displays icons. My E7 is slow, it takes milliseconds to switch page, yes milliseconds! That is very slow and yet it’s the most perfomant phone I have. When I said the Moto G was one of the most performant phones out there I was refering to battery life, not how quick it displays a web page.
Well, it would help if you did not attribute new meanings to words and then expected everyone to understand it the way you do.
However, I do agree with you in that battery life is not getting enough attention. My phone is quite old (a Motorola Defy), not supported anymore (another sore point), so I have been considering buying a new phone for months now, but the abysmal battery life reported for the new phones just puts me off…
I have an E7. I humbly disagree with everything you said.
Even an original iPhone is faster than the slow abomination that is the E7. Battery runs out in hours – and that’s with a *new*, official Nokia battery I bought for it.
Edited 2014-09-23 08:52 UTC
Try enabling powersave mode and you will notice your E7 can easily sustain 4-5 days with one charge.
Power-saving mode disables everything that makes a smartphone a smartphone. You can do the same on any Android, iOS, or WP device and achieve the same results.
That’s just highly misleading.
On my 808 power saving mode puts the display to its lowest brightness level and disables the screen saver. It disables 3G, but you can re-enable it without deactivating power saving mode.
It must be the same for your E7, so nope, it doesn’t disable anything that makes a smartphone a smartphone.
That said, my 2-year-old, hacked 808, laden with almost every app and background service that can be installed, has bad and inconsistent battery life. Nothing I can’t fix by buying a new, cheap battery and resetting the device.
Edited 2014-09-23 09:54 UTC
My Moto G has power saving mode always on. It makes it last a full day. Without it I’d be lucky to get 12 hours of battery life. What feature does power saving disable, exactly? It only makes the screen darker, and lower the processor clock. It’s a good idea to activate it when you are not using your phone or using it lightly. On the E7, you can enable and disable it with the power button and one tap or you can have a widget on your home screen and it’s just one tap.
Combination of IOS ecosytem + a phablet screen.
The argument will only be valid for Iphone 7+.
I still wonder how IOS developers deal the breakage of one of the oldest Apple contracts – physical screen size.
In Android world it took almost 2 years to bring a decent phablet optimized keyboard (latest swiftkey with a halfscreen mode). Most app still don’t utilize the extra space reasonably.
I hope sending IOS devs back to drawing board will bring a blow of fresh air to app design in general.
I’d say – welcome to the world of variability.
Edited 2014-09-23 08:20 UTC
I still belive Apple should continue the 4` line, maybe with lowcost models (6c anyone?).
There is no such thing as a ‘cheap’ Apple product. They just keep selling sell old models at a ridiculously high price.
No one (sane) wants a phone with a 3.5″ screen (even the cheapest current Android models have a 4″ screen.)
“and two, didn’t you know how big the phone was?”
Size is not important for most people, what’s important is that it’s a novelty. People buy stuff because they’re new, they’re shinny, they’re hipped.
Otherwise you think apple would release such a big phone in the first place ?
Actually this is the first time Apple launches a new iPhone with only minor performance improvements vs the previous phone.
Don’t really follow the Android side – and I won’t touch a Samsung product with a ten foot pole – but I do own a Nexus 7 2012 and it still works fine.
“but because they feel inferior if they don’t have the latest and greatest, actual needs be damned.”
Feel inferior? Apparently YOU feel superior. What a contemptuous guy you are!
It’s funny he put that in his commentary – it’s ‘common knowledge’ that apple users are sheep- but common knowledge is sometimes not born out by facts. Lots of apple users are upgrading from older phones and not from the 5s.
as a developer I do own an iPod touch and iPad mini. But I haven’t used an iPhone as my personal phone since the original iPhone 2g.
As a developer I also have various android devices, including an at&t galaxy note, but they don’t have cell contracts…my actual daily device, has been an optimus t…circa 2010, 3.5″ screen and Android 2.2
I’m quite happy to finally get a large screen iPhone, and I’m almost entirely certain it wasn’t a fashion statement.
Still… I will look dang pretty with the phone.
I must admit I don’t instinctively know why people want to use a phone with one hand – other than the obvious talking on the phone when you have it up to your ear.
But I mean the smartphone functions, why one handed?
Is the other hand busy? Like, driving a car? Well stop doing that. If you keep driving a car, you’ll go blind.
I always used two hands even if it was a 3.5″ screen, because I have two hands, I’m comfortable operating both hands simultaneously.
I believe it comes from one of the premises that the iPhone was made for. Before 2007, most smartphones were dreadful to use and to fuss with them you had to use two hands for holding and typing and using stylus inputs. Steve Jobs keynote in 2007 made mention of the issues most faced with the various Treo phones, Blackberry’s, Windows Mobile, etc.
To many, it was a godsend to just be able to use one hand for everything.
I believe now that it might not be the end all to use just one hand since we have decent sized screen real estate where developers can position input entry in ergonomic places on your phone.
In other words, I also think it’s unnecessary these days to tote one-handed use as the prime objective.
Now he has to buy a new stand accessory so he can continue masturbating to the glorious sight of the iObject he so fetishizes.
I may be in the minority. But, I use my Galaxy Victory phone (nice smallish 4″ screen) primarily as a phone. I don’t see what the attraction of having the biggest and baddest phone available is, other than bragging rights. The 5″ and 6″ phones are too clumsy to be used one handed without risk of losing one’s grip.
You’re not alone. I still use my iphone4, which works perfectly fine for everything for my needs. I don’t need or want my cell phone to be a replacement for my gaming consoles, htpcs, high-end digital camera, etc. I have little interest in an expensive all-in-one device that does a lot but isn’t great at anything. Thus far I don’t even give a shit enough about an iphone5 to care about “upgrading”, much less a new iphone6 and it’s shiny new iphone6 price tag. The same goes for any Android phone too. I have no loyalty to any phone maker or phone OS, and I likely won’t replace my iphone4 until it either breaks or I come across a smoking deal on something significantly better.
Some people are into cell phones, some people are into comic books, I’m into neither.
Well…. Then he should not have bought that phone, should he? On the other hand, I have a feeling that a lot of people want to buy it from him, at a lower price.
For the record, I can ashure you all that I used to have a Galaxy S3 LTE, and I used it with my right hand.
Just a question of learning a new way of using a phone.
Not hard. He will actually learn it pretty quick if he want to.
Edited 2014-09-24 11:02 UTC