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UI responsiveness: OSX vs. Windows, iOS vs. Android

kentnguyen.com

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Re: UI responsiveness: OSX vs. Windows, iOS vs. Android

#11

Post by neebz »

ben_straub wrote: post #10
dristic wrote: post #5

I agree with needing more data but I will give my testimonial. I switched from Windows 7 to Mac Lion several months go and have not looked back. Simple things like responsiveness of the touch pad, gestures, and a better terminal are definitely what got me. Overall I would say the UX is just simply better.

OSX has definite advantages here. 1. The trackpad hardware is great. It's so good that when we were making the Bamboo Touch at Wacom, the Macbook Pro trackpad was the standard we measured ourselves against. 2. True pixel-level scrolling from HID devices. Windows has the concept of "wheel scrolling", but it's only vertical, and lots of apps won't scroll in less than a wheel increment (which is oddly 120 units), so you…

regarding #2..

I used Mac for a week and went back to Windows. The jerky scrolling in Windows was driving me crazy. The fact was that before Mac I never realized that (maybe I'm numb to perfection) but it was only using Mac that it occurred how much crap scrolling is in Windows.

Re: UI responsiveness: OSX vs. Windows, iOS vs. Android

#12

Post by huggyface »

dbcooper wrote: post #3

This submission needed some actual data ...

This was precisely my response to it as well.

Indeed, I have to confess that I quickly skim linked articles from here, and if they seem to be largely narrative/opinion, I hit back. There just isn't enough time in the day to read yet another subjective opinion: Give me the facts.

Re: UI responsiveness: OSX vs. Windows, iOS vs. Android

#13

Post by blinkingled »

Speaking of anecdotes, I have always found Windows more responsive than OS X to the point where I have completely switched to Win 7 - mouse handling and screen drawing is definitely superior on Windows.

However it is easier on Windows to mess up the experience - install some crappy antivirus or other messy program and it is a piece of cake to make Windows feel laggy.

Re: UI responsiveness: OSX vs. Windows, iOS vs. Android

#14

Post by dristic »

neebz wrote: post #11
ben_straub wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSX has definite advantages here. 1. The trackpad hardware is great. It's so good that when we were making the Bamboo Touch at Wacom, the Macbook Pro trackpad was the standard we measured ourselves against. 2. True pixel-level scrolling from HID devices. Windows has the concept of "wheel scrolling", but it's only vertical, and lots of apps won't scroll in less than a wheel increment (which is oddly 120 units), so you…

regarding #2.. I used Mac for a week and went back to Windows. The jerky scrolling in Windows was driving me crazy. The fact was that before Mac I never realized that (maybe I'm numb to perfection) but it was only using Mac that it occurred how much crap scrolling is in Windows.

I completely agree with this. I was a dedicated Windows user but I never realized all its shortcomings, scrolling being a big one.

Re: UI responsiveness: OSX vs. Windows, iOS vs. Android

#16

Post by zobzu »

There's many reasons to prefer OSX over Windows (and vice-versa)

But OSX UI certainly never has been reacting faster than Windows UI. Things like opening dirs, menu navigation, window resizing, etc is much faster in Window and its been that way since OSX started (OS9 and prior had a fast UI).

Re: UI responsiveness: OSX vs. Windows, iOS vs. Android

#17

Post by LesZedCB »

fudged wrote: post #2

I love OSX, but objectively speaking, "The lag of a Mac OS X cursor is at least twice bigger than Windows’ cursor and yes, a human eye can surely notice that." http://d43.me/blog/1205/the-cause-for-all-your-mac-os-x-mous...

I remember reading this before, and I thought the OP said he didn't have lion at the time. Though looking over it again, he said it still supposedly exists in Lion. However, I am running lion, and experience no more mouse lag then what exists in windows. I distinctly remember the problem in Snow Leopard, which I only just upgraded from about a month ago. Maybe it's self-deceiving fanboy thinking, but I don't experience this anymore. Even in gaming, in some of the open-gl ports of steam games, they seem to run beautifully in 10.7.

Re: UI responsiveness: OSX vs. Windows, iOS vs. Android

#20

Post by ender7 »

I don't really have an opinion on Windows vs. OS X, but I have been extremely impressed with iOS's graphical performance.

It's not just that they have good framerate - even Android can get good average framerate. The amazing thing about iOS that it gets amazing maximum frame delay, i.e. the space between frames is almost never more than 33ms (~30fps). On Android you frequently run into tiny little hiccups in frame delay that might not impact its measured FPS, but are certainly noticeable to the human eye. The result is that it just doesn't feel as smooth.

I don't know how Apple achieved this. It's certainly not perfect - you can occasionally get an iDevice to freeze for a few hundred milliseconds, but those are very rare occurrences. It's as if they have a real-time guarantee built into the system, but I don't think they actually have one. Which is a pretty amazing accomplishment.

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