Actually, Android IS optimized - Gary explains

I often see the comment, "Android isn't optimized" or "iOS is better optimized." Why do people say that and is it true? Gary explains!

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[AnandRao]

Android should be little more strict on manufacturers who uses too much bloat and iOS kinda of look on Androids

[DanLMH]

Android itself is optimised, it's the damn skins and apps that OEMs & some devs create that aren't (from what I've seen with my four-year experience)

[LuneTech]

Android itself is "optimized" and is a great operating system. The reason why some android phones are slower than others is because of stupid companies that don't implement it correctly. For example, the oneplus 3T is ironically one of the fastest, if not the fastest phone on the market (even faster than the iPhone overall). That's because oneplus keeps their UI very clean, and they use things like a fast storage technology, and f2fs file system. On the other hand, companies like samsung have been struggling to find out how to make their UI faster and lag free, and even to this day they're still trying to improve upon it. Also, you can grab two android phones from 2 different manufacturers, and even if they have the exact same specs, they can perform completely different. My point is, it's the manufacturer that uses the android OS that has to use it "correctly" in order for it to perform the best it can.

[AllPr]

FINALLY SOMEONE THAT SPEAKS ABOUT THIS

[shricharan]

I feel that the debate started due to the following
1) How does iphone's 2 GB RAM able to keep more apps on memory than most 4 GB Android phone?
2) How does iphones give same amount of battery back up with only 50% of the actual battery capacity that many Android phones have?
3) How does games load twice as fast when compared to the fastest android phone with f2fs storage?
4) How does a dual core processor stand equivalent to a quad core or an octa core processor of an android phone?

[jlebrech]

ios devs only have one device to target against at a time.

[jasoniviejr.]

It's getting there to be honest, like TouchWiz is a perfect example. It used to be a straight mess. But now it's a very nice offering

[HolyAngel]

As someone who has been working on the android kernel and os for 4-ish years, Android *isnt* optimized for current soc's.

The only "optimization" in the android os and/or kernel is -Os flags on %90 of it. Optimizing for size when our phones have 5-10x the storage available in all partitions compared to ~2008 when they added that. Literally has not been touched by any oem since Google added it way back then. There are 3 levels above Os that would be more beneficial that aren't being used by any oem/google.

The whole os and kernel are built using old out of date gcc 4.7-4.9 toolchains, these are completely generic toolchains and not at all (specifically) optimized for the hardware they're going to be compiling for. (You can build the toolchain to compile for a specific soc, telling it how many cache's/cores/instruction set/etc. And You can tell the compiled toolchain what device you're building for so it optimizes for that in the same way) GCC is up to version 7 currently. Linux mainline kernel supports this toolchain. Android does not natively support that in any version google has posted publicly.

On top of that, the android os and kernel makefiles only target(if they target at all) generic devices like armv8 or armv7a instead of the specific soc. None of the qcom chips are stock armv8 listings. You can add in flags in the makefile(s) to tell it how many caches, what size, cache line size, etc so the compiler builds the code with those specifications in mind.. All of these things increase the performance of the device when done properly, no negatives. None of that is being done by any oem currently. Only the freelance "dev" community does these things.

We haven't had an update to the arm big_little driver in the android kernel since 2013... Linaro was the last contributor to that driver update. Saying android is optimized is a sick joke at this point.

[ZacDUDE]

Gary I wish I had you as my College Prof. holy shit you're smart. Great video!

[practice]

I think most people claim that Android is not optimised for two reasons: battery life when compared to iOS (iPhone 8 has a 1821 mah battery vs Samsung galaxy s8 3000 mah, but comparable battery life). 2. Performance (Apple products have always had fewer cores but even so, they're winning some serious benchmarks - even multithreaded benches).

[zakirhussainmintu]

Android is optimized and I can feel it.

[AlawamiAZ]

one that thing people dont seem to consider is how good apple SoC is. SD821 (2016) is really close to A7 (2013) in term of single core performance. A10 has DOUBLE of that. Yes I know single core performance isn't everything but it plays a large role in phones speed. Add to that the crazy fast storage.

[simonsaysrewind]

loved this video a lot. many thanks for giving me superb knowledge. 👍 ☺

[Rocksta]

You have answered everything except one question, why does iOS seem to outperform android in closing/opening apps, a few benchmarking tests, general snappiness etc with hard ware that seems far inferior when compared to android flagships? I always though optimization was the problem if it isn't that then what is?

[afstar]

Superb Explanation Gary ! I really liked the fact that you actually noticed what people been commenting and it was very wise of you to come up with such a topic which was plagued by so many discrepancies ! Thanks :) Also i've always had an impression that Android is solely based on linux, didn't knew that it has got something to do with java too..

[alexanderbarr]

Gary the classic british bloke that politely puts people in there place. Love your videos and don't stop EVER.

[techguy]

Usually as an app developer if you take advantage of multi-threading you can make apps be well optimized for most devices, Qualcomm has a pretty cool API that deals with the heavy lifting for you

[matthewsjardine]

That makes sense. Thanks for clearing it up Gary 👍 It is not unlike Apple to build a competitive advantage in terms of customer perception, based on a vague statement.

I would like to ask though: Your best guess, how is it that Apple manages to get the performance that it does out of minimum hardware (e.g. 1-2GB RAM, Dual-core and Quad-core chipsets, etc). Their phones are often on par with top shelf, flagship Android phones when it comes to performance, or faster.

[floppa]

I actually think at this point especially stock Android is better optimized than iOS. In contrast to iOS Android still needs to run on very weak hardware and stock still runs extremly well on ancient phones like the Note 3.

[noice-ob]

as always. superb ! many thanks from me gary !