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Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

superpowered.com

21–30 of 311 posts

Re: Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

#21

This is a pet peeve of mine. Hackers, when measuring time for software performance, please use something smaller than milliseconds. 0ms is a Dirty Lie!

In this case the performance measure in question is whether the latency is perceptible to humans or not. Milliseconds is the appropriate unit. Nobody is going to notice differences of less than 1ms.

Re: Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

#22
post #19
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a music geek, I just chose to carry a dedicated music player.

The issue isn't about having your phone play music, it's about you playing music on your phone, in some cases with friends who play on their own phones.

Ah, for that I have a workstation. But as my guitar playing is very poor it doesn't help a great deal.

Re: Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

#23
post #7

Does anyone actually believe the reason " the Google Play store, the Music category is not even a top five revenue producing app category." is due to audio latency? I am not disagreeing with the fact that there is a lot of audio latency (no worse than Windows 8) but maybe it's time to explain cause vs correlation? Interesting article all the same.

I think the argument comes down to the fact that audio latency is preventing the makers of the most popular/lucrative apps from developing for Android, the implication being that they would develop for Android if the latency wasn't there and the music category would therefore increase in revenue numbers.

Re: Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

#24
post #20

Can someone explain in layman's what the issue actually is, because the article, neither its comments here or on Reddit, seem to dumb it down for non audiophiles?

Imagine if you were playing an instrument, and your hand moved a little (36ms) before any sound came out.

Or imagine trying to listen to your own voice, but having the sound delayed by that 35ms, so it feels like someone is talking over you every time you open your mouth.

Re: Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

#25
post #20

Can someone explain in layman's what the issue actually is, because the article, neither its comments here or on Reddit, seem to dumb it down for non audiophiles?

Say you want to create an app that adds a sound-effect to your voice, live. On Android, the time it takes for the audio from the microphone to get into the app, be processed, and sent back out to the speakers is long enough that it'll be jarring to use. For musical instrument apps, the latency between touching the screen and the speakers responding is too long to be useful.

Re: Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

#26

> “Consumers ... have a strong desire to buy such apps on Android, as shown by revenue data on iOS...” That's like saying, “Consumers have a strong desire to buy gourmet steaks from McDonald's, as shown by revenue data from Ruth's Chris.” No, McDonald's serves billions of meals by understanding its own market, not by catering to diners at Ruth's Chris. And naturally, comparing top sellers at each will give very diffe…

This is not a good analogy. McDonald's and Ruth's Chris are not direct competitors, they are targeting completely different markets. Android and iOS are in direct competition.

If we have to use a food analogy, I would propose Starbucks and a competing coffee shop. Almost all the major players in app development make corresponding Android and iOS versions of their apps. Imagine if Twitter or Snapchat only had an iOS or only had an Android app. Similarly, customers expect to have certain things available at all coffee shops, regardless the brand behind them: cappuccinos, flavored syrups, alternative milk choices, etc. So a better analogy would be one coffee shop chain not supplying their stores with espresso machines, or flavored syrups, or alternate milk choices... or maybe just not letting them have refrigerators at all to keep milk cold.

The prevalence of orders for highly-sweetened, cold, milk-based drinks at Starbucks almost certainly means that customers would order the same thing at similarly positioned coffee shops if it was available, and indeed most coffee shops offer such drinks now.

There is no reason to think that somehow Android users are in such a different market that they would have no interest in these apps on Android even though in almost every other case platform parity is expected from large players in the app market.

Re: Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

#27

> “Consumers ... have a strong desire to buy such apps on Android, as shown by revenue data on iOS...” That's like saying, “Consumers have a strong desire to buy gourmet steaks from McDonald's, as shown by revenue data from Ruth's Chris.” No, McDonald's serves billions of meals by understanding its own market, not by catering to diners at Ruth's Chris. And naturally, comparing top sellers at each will give very diffe…

Analogizing McDonald's:Ruth's Chris::Android:iOS is dishonest. While I agree you can't necessarily draw that conclusion, it's like having a major (equal caliber!) seafood restaurant deciding whether to start selling steaks because Ruth's Chris is doing well. It's still apples to oranges, but it's not apples to Twinkies.

Re: Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

#28
post #20

Can someone explain in layman's what the issue actually is, because the article, neither its comments here or on Reddit, seem to dumb it down for non audiophiles?

Audio processing on Android devices is Slow. Even seemingly small delays (10 milliseconds) is enough to make apps seem clunky and erratic. This puts the Android platform at a disadvantage for developers whose product ideas involve delivering high quality audio performance.

The embedded graph with the U shaped figure pretty much sums up the author's search for the components in the software that are the culprits.

Re: Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

#29
So if I get it correctly the problem is twofold: there is some extra intermediate processing and the buffer size and sampling rate are fixed to 256 samples and 48kHz respectively? And which of these two does Superpowered fix? Or both? And what would be the lowest possible latency on for example the Nexus 9?

Re: Android’s 10 Millisecond Problem explained

#30
post #4
post #2

Anyone with any insight about how Apple does this?

Some answers on quora. TLDR Apple have been working on audio a long time. http://www.quora.com/Why-do-iPhones-have-better-professional...

Or, rather, actually care about audio. Google (/Motorola Mobility, when it was owned by it) doesn't even care if a phone ships with a broken headphone port and refuses to fix it.
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