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An update on Android's audio latency

android-developers.googleblog.com

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Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#51

Post by kall »

thomasahle wrote: post #36
jefftk wrote: post #17

This is way better than it used to be (I measured half a second latency in 2012: https://www.jefftk.com/p/android-sound-synthesis-and-latency ) but it is still too high to let you use an Android device as a musical instrument. This is something iPhones have always been able to do, and one of my biggest disappointments with Android. (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)

What are the equivalent numbers for iPhone? Touch to audio and round-trip times?

This data [0] doesn't have the latest models, and it's meassuring latency internaly, not "touch-to-sound". The ones they tested average around 7-8ms. I've heard of Edit: I've been thinking about this and a touch-to-tone latency below 10ms seems imposible, even with the 120hz digitizer on newer iPhones. I would be very interested in seeing some experimental data as well.

[0] https://juce.com/discover/stories/Mobile%20performance%20ind...

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#53

Post by Jtsummers »

zachruss92 wrote: post #30
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where Apple's far superior product lifecycle comes in: Buying a four year old Apple product is affordable, still runs the current OS, unlike Androids that old, and has the audio performance down.

This is a valid point, but it’s hard to place the blame on Google/Android. I think the challenge is less of Android itself but a refusal of the OEMs to support newer OS versions. This makes business sense, but sucks for consumers. I think Google is doing a better job with their Pixel devices. I honestly hope they try to lead the Android industry more with them.

Blame, here, can't be squarely placed on any one entity. But it is shared between both Google and the OEMs. Google created the Android product, and permitted people to sell devices utilizing Android and to brand/advertise their devices with Google's Android branding.

It absolutely does, in part at least, fall on Google to establish how the Android label can be used. Their decision has (apparently) been that it can be used by anyone even if their devices become (practically) obsolete in just a year or two from various perspectives (not in an absolutely obsolete sense, but a lack of many/most/any updates is a crucial element of currency for mobile devices and hastens obsolescence). That's on Google, not the OEMs who take advantage of it.

I'd like to say the OEMs should do better, but the market has clearly convinced them that they can be profitable and sell soon-to-be-obsolete devices.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#54

Post by kall »

Naac wrote: post #6
karlding wrote: post #4

Andrew Huang recently made a YouTube video [0] that provides some insight from the perspective of a music producer and someone who recently created a music production app. It's not overly technical, but it highlights some of the challenges one might face. As the article says, there is room for improvement, so I guess it's good to see that the long term goal is 10ms round trip. [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=-sPbcTcU…

That was a strange video. It seemed like he started talking about latency between Android and IOS devices, which makes sense given that this article talks about response time of just under 40 ms like you said. The article says this is "well within the range required for real-time applications" if you define real-time applications as non-pro-audio stuff. If you're playing an instrument and it takes 40 ms for you to he…

To be a little pedantic: He is not claiming that producers are never using PCs, he is claiming that live audio never runs on PC, because stability is the top priority there. Later he says in the studio you can tolerate a little instability if the other benefits of windows are worth it.

That no producers are using windows PCs is an obviously false claim. There are DAWs that don't even run on mac. There are also live production tools that don't, like Notch, so there must be someone running windows on stage, anyway.

That macs are more stable in day-to-day operation is not really a bold claim though.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#55

Post by breakfastduck »

S_A_P wrote: post #47
jefftk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://superpowered.com/latency has messy data, but it looks like typically single-digit latency.

I think typical newish (2014+) devices have between 5-9ms latency. Having core audio from the start was a huge leg up for iOS for sure. I am mostly platform agnostic unless I am working with audio where I pretty much only use Apple products.

Core Audio is the most under appreciated part of the apple ecosystem. It is lightyears ahead of windows / linux audio drivers.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#56

Post by thomasahle »

kall wrote: post #51
thomasahle wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the equivalent numbers for iPhone? Touch to audio and round-trip times?

This data [0] doesn't have the latest models, and it's meassuring latency internaly, not "touch-to-sound". The ones they tested average around 7-8ms. I've heard of Edit: I've been thinking about this and a touch-to-tone latency below 10ms seems imposible, even with the 120hz digitizer on newer iPhones. I would be very interested in seeing some experimental data as well. [0] https://juce.com/discover/stories/Mobile%20…

The best I could find was https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/71301 which suggests a 32ms touch latency. I think that might include some processing, but it doesn't seem much better than the 20ms latency in Android mentioned in the article.

The audio processing latency seems to be single digit on both systems.

In any case, I don't think these differences are big enough to argue that "Android can't be used for instruments".

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#57

Post by Judgmentality »

dmix wrote: post #37
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #18

Too little, too late, I'm afraid. The improvement is great, but I think the audio professionals jumped ship long ago to Apple, and they're not going back. I know of several music professionals plugging into their Macbooks or iPads as part of the pre-amp, but I don't know if any using Android. Google sat on this for way too long while Apple courted the creative professionals, and for any that have already made the upf…

There will always be a niche that wants to do music production or engineering and can't afford Apple productions. Newbies or living outside the western world for example. Just because the pros have merged towards a single brand doesn't mean that the only other smartphone monopoly won't benefit greatly from offering other high quality solutions.

> There will always be a niche that wants to do music production or engineering and can't afford Apple productions.

If Google cared about niches, they wouldn't have such a large graveyard of dead products - some of which were profitable and some of which were widely loved.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#58

Post by kall »

thomasahle wrote: post #56
kall wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This data [0] doesn't have the latest models, and it's meassuring latency internaly, not "touch-to-sound". The ones they tested average around 7-8ms. I've heard of Edit: I've been thinking about this and a touch-to-tone latency below 10ms seems imposible, even with the 120hz digitizer on newer iPhones. I would be very interested in seeing some experimental data as well. [0] https://juce.com/discover/stories/Mobile%20…

The best I could find was https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/71301 which suggests a 32ms touch latency. I think that might include some processing, but it doesn't seem much better than the 20ms latency in Android mentioned in the article. The audio processing latency seems to be single digit on both systems. In any case, I don't think these differences are big enough to argue that "Android can't be used for in…

Yeah, I think the numbers in the article should be good enough for a bunch of music use cases, but remember it used to be like half a second which is obviously unworkable.

Well financed developers like ROLI already have instruments on android. I think the incredible instruments available on iOS are also there because the App Store promise actually kind of works for them. They write a great application, upload it to server and people buy it for more than 2.99$, upfront. And unlike VSTs, no one even pirates it. The general idea/stereotype is that no one wants that on android. An open source port of VCV Rack would be feasable and wonderful though. That's the only free instrument I have installed on my music iPad.

Edit: nevermind, that was not free either.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#59

Post by kuschku »

zachruss92 wrote: post #30
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where Apple's far superior product lifecycle comes in: Buying a four year old Apple product is affordable, still runs the current OS, unlike Androids that old, and has the audio performance down.

This is a valid point, but it’s hard to place the blame on Google/Android. I think the challenge is less of Android itself but a refusal of the OEMs to support newer OS versions. This makes business sense, but sucks for consumers. I think Google is doing a better job with their Pixel devices. I honestly hope they try to lead the Android industry more with them.

Every Pixel phone so far stopped getting updates after 2 years.

Re: An update on Android's audio latency

#60

Post by Blueskytech »

If android can get its audio latency act together there is some real opportunity here to steal market share from Apple. Since the release of the 2nd iPad Pro Apple has forced audio processing onto the slower low power CPU core, this means that for the last three years I can run all my iOS synth applications at 96kHZ with a low buffer sample size without any drop outs on my first gen iPad Pro and an iPad mini 3. What I cannot do is get similar performance on last year's iPad Pro. It is absolute insanity that Apple has no work around to direct audio processing to the high powered cores for apps made for musicians. Presumably at some point they will allow you to do this with a documented programing call but it has been three years of bad performance on synth applications due to the necessity to have high sample buffers (ie high latency).
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