Yes, agreed on the low latency audio. However I do think this may be more of an issue with the hardware possibly. For example, if may depend on the hardware what kind of audio abilities you get, whereas in the iPhone they are all a standard set by Apple. But right now the smallest latency is around 100ms or so buffers, which is way too much (slow)
Fortunately I'm making apps that really dont care about latency, they are sample driven (my main app is Electrum Drum Machine), they only have latency problems when trying to play live with the touchscreen (and I think some of that latency is from the screen hardware itself). So for me processor power is most important right now. Having access to NDK audio would be nice, but not really necessary, since I've found that calling JNI and passing a buffer back from Native Code doesn't have as much overhead as most people think, I've had speed increases of up to 100 or more by doing so, native code is just that much faster than the Dalvik java! -niko On Mar 17, 11:32 am, Kevin Duffey <[email protected]> wrote: > I too wanted to work on some audio apps.. I had bought BeatMaker on iPhone, > and wanted to do something similar for Android. It's a blind guess, but > unless the google team has a massive update in 3.0 coming by end of year, I > would guess that we wont get the audio/low latency capabilities of iPhone > for at least 2 years. I can not imagine why, but games and audio, even tho > they are huge on the iPhone, seem to be lacking interest from the Android > team as being important. From the various forum posts I've seen over the > last several months, it seems like the JVM doesn't have a JIT, so its > actually slower than J2ME JVMs although the hardware is faster so it is > probably comparable. Most basic apps run fine, but games struggle to keep > solid framerates up do to the GC issues among other things. With a new > thread that started a few days ago describing other apps stealing cpu/gc > cycles and causing games to hiccup, there seems to be almost no way to > provide a solid smooth game that provides any sort of detail all the time. > I've not personally played any iphone level game on android other than basic > puzzle games, so I am formulating my opinion from various other developers > that have posted these issues. > > I would agree that Android is STILL more appealing to write for than iPhone. > I just can't stand the ridiculousness of apple and their changes, forceful > removals, etc. It's crap. I don't care if there are 60 million iPhones and > only a few million android devices... why suffer thru having to work with > objective-c and having to own a mac to write for it, and all their rules.. > worrying about whether or not your months of hard work will even get > approved. > > but ya, Android has a long way to go to catch up. If they are even trying > to. I don't know if anyone on the android team could comment, but it would > be really nice to get some sort of inclination of what is going on with the > various threads discussed here about the major shortcomings of android. I > would think that android/google would be listening to the developers that > plan to write for it, and thus want to focus resources on things like low > latency audio, keeping background processes from interfering with foreground > real-time games, better 3D support and so on. > > > > On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 10:12 AM, Sundog <[email protected]> wrote: > > Right on point here, all three of you, and representative of the > > problems of both platforms. I won't even consider continuing my IPhone > > development, but I've had to completely drop several projects I wanted > > to do in Android because it simply isn't up to it. Since they're being > > nice enough to send me a phone I'll probably try once more, but I'll > > choose what I write around what Android can do well (audio-visually), > > which isn't much. Margarita Drop was a silly little game but I had to > > work like crazy to get it to work as smoothly as it does... no more 3d > > from us until things improve. > > > On Mar 17, 10:26 am, MobDev <[email protected]> wrote: > > > hehe, > > > another music app developer here, with no decent streaming app > > > possibilities :( > > > It's nice to have a MediaPlayer which streams MP3, but thats way way > > > too limited.. > > > I want it to be compatible with AAC to begin with (because of the > > > bandwidth), and I definitely would want more control (and maybe > > > somewhat lessi nterfaces??)... > > > I mean you are saying it was an advanced platform in 2008, but what > > > you want to say that it hasn't evolved since 2004, since J2ME MIDP... > > > A class like MediaPlayer is actually based on that one (which is old > > > and has never been updated nor up par) with the same functionality ! > > > Even worse actually, the SE devices had a better MediaPlayer > > > implementation 4 years ago... > > > My personal experience, after working in J2ME and objective C, has > > > been of utter dissapointment... > > > > On 17 mrt, 15:23, Gabriel Simões <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > I do agree with you that the Apple app publishing restriction is > > > > pushing developpers too far, far enough to see some great developers > > > > give the plataform up not for technical reasons, but for their > > > > principles. > > > > > On the other side, as a music app developer I don´t know how you are > > > > happy with Android. > > > > First, a lot of developers (including me) can´t even figure out how to > > > > acquire audio streams from AudioRecord and play them using AudioTrack > > > > without problems such audio chopping, sample rate differences, > > > > distortion, ... (see how many posts without solutions we have here on > > > > this group). We can´t syncronize audio input and ouput, or audio > > > > output and video, so it gets hard to develop apps that need to handle > > > > those events precisely, such as samplers, music games, music makers > > > > based on gestures, etc. > > > > We don´t have a low latency audio interface to access (ALSA would be > > > > great and it´s already working on Android ... but we can´t access it), > > > > so give up virtual instruments and low latency audio apps (small > > > > buffers aren´t available too). We don´t have native audio interfaces > > > > officially supported by Google and AudioRecord (at least running on > > > > the emulator) warns buffer overflows if you just receive audio from it > > > > and play using AudioTrack on the same thread, it doesn´t matter which > > > > buffer sizes you use. > > > > > The behavior of the apps running on different devices is unpredictable > > > > while on iPhone, since the archtecture and hardware is a lot more > > > > closely related on different devices and thought to be compatible, it > > > > ´s a lot easier to predict, test and publish apps that you know that > > > > will run as great as you intended them to be. On Android this is not > > > > something up to the developers to do, but to Google and the device > > > > developers that should garantee compatibility with the OS and what > > > > runs on top of it. > > > > > I´m working on Android mostly because of Apple´s restrictions on it´s > > > > plataform, on publication, on development, on resources usage... But > > > > yes, I think Android still needs to play ball, and play a lot to catch > > > > iPhone + IphoneOS. And I hope it doest it! > > > > > On 17 mar, 10:04, niko20 <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > First off I like to write music apps, so I keep an eye on the music > > > > > apps that are out for iPhone. > > > > > > Two of these really popular apps are BeatMaker and Noise.IO. > > Beatmaker > > > > > is a sample driven sequencer MPC style, and Noise.IO is a full > > > > > featured FM synth. > > > > > > I read something disturbing in the app info yesterday that shows just > > > > > how much power Apple has over developers. > > > > > > In the past Beatmaker and Noise.IO had formed a way to share data - > > > > > the ability to export a synth sound out of Noise.IO and import it > > into > > > > > Beatmaker. It looks like Apple now "forced" them to change how this > > > > > sharing works - in fact so much so that currently the export feature > > > > > in Noise.IO is GONE! And the lastest reviewers of the app aren't > > happy > > > > > about it LOL. And the Beatmaker app indicates that import is gone in > > > > > the current update. Imagine LOSING functionality in an update! > > > > > Wouldn't that piss off a customer! Anyway the Beatmaker page mentions > > > > > something about having to switch over to Apple's copy/paste > > > > > functionality instead of the way they were using before, and that > > this > > > > > was requested by Apple. > > > > > > So that makes me feel much better about Android, I think it sucks > > when > > > > > a product that has been out for a long while already, and now Apple > > > > > comes in and bullies the developers to break their software basically > > > > > for no good reason except they want some control over how stuff is > > > > > done. How obnoxious. > > > > > > Also, I dont see how Apple is so "groundbreaking". I was looking up > > > > > specs on the iPhone OS 3.0 yesterday, and it didn't come out until > > > > > June/July 2009, this is when it finally got copy/paste, MMS, and Push > > > > > notifications. By the way Push notifications are where an app can get > > > > > notified to start when it receives some data, even though the app > > > > > isn't "running". Well, Android was well along the way already back in > > > > > 2008 and it had Widgets and Intents, which do this already. Push > > > > > notification is just a widget with an intent basically, and it came > > > > > out much later. > > > > > > I am not an Android Fanboy or an Apple fanboy, I always figure > > whoever > > > > > has the best tech wins in the end, I am writing Android apps and I > > > > > usually compare Apple apps to what I'm doing so I can see if such a > > > > > thing is possible at all processor speed wise, etc. I found that the > > > > > original iPhone processor was actually only running at 412Mhz or so, > > > > > and still has some good music apps, so that gives me a bit of info on > > > > > how those apps are written then. iPhone has objective C and can > > > > > compile to native code, but Android has NDK and you can also use > > > > > native code, so I should be able to still write comparable apps > > > > > processing power wise. > > > > > > So reading some of this info made me start to see how Android is > > > > > really ahead of the game in a lot of ways. Back in 2008 it already > > had > > > > > copy/paste, MMS messaging, and widgets and intents long before iPhone > > > > > OS 3.0..The hardware such as the touch screens still isn't as > > accurate > > > > > or as good, but the OS it pretty darn good, and it's nice not to have > > > > > big brother over your shoulder everytime you write an app. > > > > > > -niko > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups "Android Developers" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > ... > > read more » -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
