Android - will it ever go native? And why isn't it native today?

[maximus1987/lou99]

Why would anyone learn ob C? You learn one proprietary language so you can do 1 thing and 1 thing only. Java means you have a job when apple goes belly up. Don't tell me it's impossible. RIM will remind you it is. Learn java and you can learn android pretty easily. Learn ob C and you better hope the app store stays open until you retire.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

If you learn ObC, you can easily transition to any language. The "hard" part is object oriented progamming. Everything else is minor.

[maximus1987/lou99]

Yes, I know phone processors are tiny embedded devices. Isn't that what I literally just said? Why are you repeating me? o.o

 

Hoo buddy. Can't even have a personal opinion around here. I'm not going to spend all night detailing my issues with C++. If you like it (like I already said), go have fun. It's not bothering me.

 

And hold on - what evidence do you have that triple buffering and 60 FPS animations being implemented is due to architectural limitations? How could native code have made animations smoother? Without proper interpolation and whatnot you're sitting at "terrible", native code, Objective C on iOS, or Java/Dalvik on Android.

 

And let's just get this out of the way: I agree with your point. Virtual machines are slower than native code. That's a physical fact of the universe nobody is arguing against. Android runs slower than some other operating systems on the same hardware. And no, it will never be "native", unless a complete code rewrite and language migration is done, which is highly unlikely to happen unless Oracle really goes nutso.

 

At any rate, none of us are Google engineers who can make these types of decisions, so I actually don't see the point of this thread going on any further.

 

Ok.

[S4GRU]

Here's a guy who knows more than all of us

 

But the latest versions of Android don't run well on such cheap devices, he claims. "Android 4 doesn't run on 256MB of RAM... it really wants a gig." And Eich believes that Google doesn't have a solution for that, other than telling developers to fall back to the lesser Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread. "Gingerbread is still being mass produced this year and will be mass produced next year," he claims, because Google doesn't have anything better to offer. Eich also thinks that Google's app momentum could be its Achilles' heel: "Android can't really slim down... they'd break compatibility."

 

http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/1/4484052/mozilla-cto-says-android-is-too-bloated-for-mass-market-phones

 

I'm not saying I like the idea of HTML-only apps. That's simply a quote from someone whose opinion is respected more than mine.

 

Do the latest versions of iOS and Windows Phone work well on 256MB of RAM?  256MB of RAM is woefully inadequate for 2013. If you're using 2010 hardware, you are stuck with a 2010 operating system.

 

Robert

[digiblur]

The price points of mass produced devices having that much ram to not having it is really negligible anyways.

[maximus1987/lou99]

 

 

Here's a guy who knows more than all of us

 

But the latest versions of Android don't run well on such cheap devices, he claims. "Android 4 doesn't run on 256MB of RAM... it really wants a gig." And Eich believes that Google doesn't have a solution for that, other than telling developers to fall back to the lesser Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread. "Gingerbread is still being mass produced this year and will be mass produced next year," he claims, because Google doesn't have anything better to offer. Eich also thinks that Google's app momentum could be its Achilles' heel: "Android can't really slim down... they'd break compatibility."

 

http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/1/4484052/mozilla-cto-says-android-is-too-bloated-for-mass-market-phones

 

I'm not saying I like the idea of HTML-only apps. That's simply a quote from someone whose opinion is respected more than mine.

 

 

Do the latest versions of iOS and Windows Phone work well on 256MB of RAM? 256MB of RAM is woefully inadequate for 2013. If you're using 2010 hardware, you are stuck with a 2010 operating system.

 

Robert

I didn't post that to specially reference the 256MB RAM but to have an authoritative quote pointing out Android's sluggishness (due to Java-like choice for architecture).

[S4GRU]

I didn't post that to specially reference the 256MB RAM but to have an authoritative quote pointing out Android's sluggishness (due to Java-like choice for architecture).

 

I get your point.  However, to say that the latest versions of Android have a problem because they will not run on as little as 256MB is kind of a pointless discussion, because the latest versions of iOS and Windows Phone will not either.  It is comparing 2013 operating systems to 2010 hardware.  This is really a third world problem, as they are the ones who want cheap phones with outdated hardware with the latest operating systems.

 

As digiblur points out above, the cost difference between 256MB of RAM and 512MB of RAM is negligible.  Even the cost difference to go to 1 GB nowadays is not so large either.  This is not unprecedented that newer software and OS'es require more RAM.  This has been true in the PC World too.  And like I have mentioned, WP and iOS devices also require more RAM as generations evolve.

 

Robert

[maximus1987/lou99]

 

I didn't post that to specially reference the 256MB RAM but to have an authoritative quote pointing out Android's sluggishness (due to Java-like choice for architecture).

 

I get your point. However, to say that the latest versions of Android have a problem because they will not run on as little as 256MB is kind of a pointless discussion, because the latest versions of iOS and Windows Phone will not either. It is comparing 2013 operating systems to 2010 hardware. This is really a third world problem, as they are the ones who want cheap phones with outdated hardware with the latest operating systems.

 

As digiblur points out above, the cost difference between 256MB of RAM and 512MB of RAM is negligible. Even the cost difference to go to 1 GB nowadays is not so large either. This is not unprecedented that newer software and OS'es require more RAM. This has been true in the PC World too. And like I have mentioned, WP and iOS devices also require more RAM as generations evolve.

 

Robert

 

I used to think that all cheap smartphones were crap until I saw the $130 (off contract) Lumia 521. I was impressed.

[z250kid]

The newest Android phones have insane - 2GB - amounts of RAM and 4 cores and most people - hopefully not the ones here - say "WOW! Android phones are SOOO much better than iPhones and Windows Phones cause they have WAYYY more memory and 4 cores! I'm buying an Android cause it's gonna be so much faster"

 

But the reason why they have so much memory and cores is because apps are written in Java which needs a Virtual Machine which needs memory and more processing power compared to a native app. I'm sure there's caveats to above statement but that's the gist of it.

 

And the sad part is that all the extra processing power still doesn't make up Java. Just compare the fluidity of Ookla's Speedtest app. The needle doesn't even stutter in Android; it updates at .2 frames/sec while in iOS it behaves like a needle, though this may be due to lazy use of the Android API.

 

So given its inherent limitation and ESPECIALLY on a mobile platform, WTF did Google use Java as their framework?

It's not as if people don't also know C++.

If you want automatic memory management in C++ like Java, use boost's smart pointer.

Done. [Chirp Chirp]

 

If Apple and Microsoft can make a native SDK, why can't Google?

Buy putting in more ram anc cpu cores.  It makes developers for software lazy and resource hogs.