User avatar
Jon Sterling @jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
2mo
www.inkandswitch.com/slow-software/ An amazing article from Ink & Switch.

The latency measurements are really cool.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
Jon Sterling @jonmsterling@mathstodon.xyz
2mo
This is only a very small part of the article, whose main point is not to argue that one device is better than another. But it was striking just how much worse the touch latency is on Samsung devices than on Apple ones.

Every time I say stuff like this based on my experience, people come out of the woodwork telling me that it’s delusional and the non-Apple device is actually superior blah bla blah. But we’re talking 5X latency difference. That’s obviously unusable for anyone who has even an ounce of taste or self-regard…

Apple sucks as a company, and they’re getting worse in all respects that have to do with software, but for the past 20 years the “choice” between Apple devices and non-Apple ones has been a non-choice for anyone who notices details. There are a few exceptions. But on the whole, this has held true.
3
1
0
0
User avatar
Liam O'Connor @liamoc@types.pl
2mo
@jonmsterling Even putting aside performance, Apple was and is by and large the only company that puts actual thought and effort into a lot of the visuals of their software.

In previous decades, I tried hard to find non-Apple devices that:
1) Didn't set the colour temperature of the screen way too high to make it look more futuristic or "cool", and actually had colour profiles on the display that are easy on the eyes and accurate for natural images.
2) Didn't squeeze fonts into the pixel grid and actually rendered fonts the way they're supposed to look. Microsoft were convinced that their font-mangling made things more "readable" but it always made things just look worse.
3) Didn't build the device with a cheap, breakable plastic chassis.

Those three requirements were enough to rule out basically ALL devices except apple. Pixel android phones now meet these requirements but the software they run is still much worse.
4
0
0
0
User avatar
mio @mio@shrimp.mio19.uk
2mo
@liamoc I am looking for such a device too. I borrowed a laptop with similar physical feel but my operating system on it breaks once per 4 hours. Sometimes the face recognition led keeps flashing and does not stop. Sometimes zotero crashes
0
0
0
0