Touchscreen analysis shows iPhone accuracy lead over Droid
A test comparing the accuracy and sensitivity of smartphone touchscreens across various makers gave the iPhone top marks ahead of HTC's Droid Eris and the Google-branded Nexus One, and much better results than the Motorola Droid.
The results, published by MOTO labs, noted that the company (which has no relation to Motorola) "has years of experience developing products that use capacitive touch, and we?ve had the opportunity to test many of the latest devices. Our conclusion: All touchscreens are not created not equal."
To demonstrate the differences, MOTO developed a simple test applying finger pressure across the screen using a drawing app. Accurate touchscreen performance comes from a variety of factors, the company reported, noting that screen sensitivity is a combination of hardware component quality and design and software integration.
Under light pressure, the iPhone passed the test with straight, unbroken lines, with only a loss in sensitivity occurring at the extreme edges of the device. The Droid Eris, Nexus One and Droid all experienced stair-stepping accuracy problems.
"On inferior touchscreens, it?s basically impossible to draw straight lines," MOTO reports. "Instead, the lines look jagged or zig-zag, no matter how slowly you go, because the sensor size is too big, the touch-sampling rate is too low, and/or the algorithms that convert gestures into images are too non-linear to faithfully represent user inputs."
"This is important," MOTO explained, "because quick keyboard use and light flicks on the screen really push the limits of the touch panel?s ability to sense."
One user commenting on the results wrote, "accuracy does matter, as anyone who has used a Droid vs an iPhone can tell you. It is much easier to accurately touch small HTML links on the iPhone than the Droid without zooming in, as one example. One can definitely feel the difference in everyday use in the greater accuracy the iPhone has over other touchscreen phones."
The results, published by MOTO labs, noted that the company (which has no relation to Motorola) "has years of experience developing products that use capacitive touch, and we?ve had the opportunity to test many of the latest devices. Our conclusion: All touchscreens are not created not equal."
To demonstrate the differences, MOTO developed a simple test applying finger pressure across the screen using a drawing app. Accurate touchscreen performance comes from a variety of factors, the company reported, noting that screen sensitivity is a combination of hardware component quality and design and software integration.
Under light pressure, the iPhone passed the test with straight, unbroken lines, with only a loss in sensitivity occurring at the extreme edges of the device. The Droid Eris, Nexus One and Droid all experienced stair-stepping accuracy problems.
"On inferior touchscreens, it?s basically impossible to draw straight lines," MOTO reports. "Instead, the lines look jagged or zig-zag, no matter how slowly you go, because the sensor size is too big, the touch-sampling rate is too low, and/or the algorithms that convert gestures into images are too non-linear to faithfully represent user inputs."
"This is important," MOTO explained, "because quick keyboard use and light flicks on the screen really push the limits of the touch panel?s ability to sense."
One user commenting on the results wrote, "accuracy does matter, as anyone who has used a Droid vs an iPhone can tell you. It is much easier to accurately touch small HTML links on the iPhone than the Droid without zooming in, as one example. One can definitely feel the difference in everyday use in the greater accuracy the iPhone has over other touchscreen phones."
Comments
I wonder how the Palm Pre would do in this test?
Unless your doing a lot of text I don't see pin point accuracy being that important. Maybe if you want to quickly hide the boobs photo from your boss and accidentally load a shlong shot.
The results, published by MOTO labs, noted that the company (which has no relation to Motorola) "has years of experience developing products that use capacitive touch, and we?ve had the opportunity to test many of the latest devices. Our conclusion: All touchscreens are not created not equal."
I don't not misunderstand that quote.
It doesn't suprise, but lets hear from all the trolls on the board ...
I'm Apple all the way but to some people other functionality might be more important than precise touch 100% all of the time. i.e. multiple open apps, printing, blah blah blah.
Unless your doing a lot of text I don't see pin point accuracy being that important. Maybe if you want to quickly hide the boobs photo from your boss and accidentally load a shlong shot.
It's not the individual actions, it's the sum of the whole experience. Each little inaccuracy adds up to a whole lot of frustration over the life of the device.
This is the same on the original iPhone, the 3G and also the 3GS
Apart from that the sensors are spot on.
This has also been tested on the Nexus one and although it fairs better than the droid it is still not as good as the iPhone.
It's not the individual actions, it's the sum of the whole experience. Each little inaccuracy adds up to a whole lot of frustration over the life of the device.
But the same can be said for missing features i.e. for my own personal uses I quite often find myself needing mail and a translation app open. Or God forbid we have clipboard history. People selling clipboard apps and all they do is let you copy and paste into the app multiple times. You still have to go back into the app, copy and paste what you want then exit then go into the new app i.e. mail and paste into there. All because Apple doesn't allow app monitoring. Some of these $3.00 copy and paste apps have like a bazillion downloads and they're just a fancy UI that lets you paste text one at a time and keep a history.
Come on.
Clipboard history and at least TWO apps open at the same time. Even if they LIMITED the ONE app to MAIL app it would be light years ahead!!!
I still like my iPod Touch though. All of these things could oh so be forgiven if they include them in 4.0.
Here is some text I cut and pasted using an HTC Magic, Android phone:-
! Check the official statement of Eric Lin(HTC)"The Magic being sold in most of Asia is not a Google experience phone so we have started to put some of the HTC special sauce into Android. That Magic has started to put some of the HTC special sauce into Android. That Magic has Exchange support, a much more responsive and full featured camera application, a custom dialer application with smart dial and additional widgets as well." custom dialer application with smart dial and additional widgets as well."
This is what was copied:-
Check the official statement of Eric Lin(HTC):
"The Magic being sold in most of Asia is not a Google experience phone so we have started to put some of the HTC special sauce into Android. That Magic has Exchange support, a much more responsive and full featured camera application, a custom dialer application with smart dial and additional widgets as well."
You may notice a slight problem with the accuracy.
But the same can be said for missing features i.e. for my own personal uses I quite often find myself needing mail and a translation app open. Or God forbid we have clipboard history. People selling clipboard apps and all they do is let you copy and paste into the app multiple times. You still have to go back into the app, copy and paste what you want then exit then go into the new app i.e. mail and paste into there. All because Apple doesn't allow app monitoring. Some of these $3.00 copy and paste apps have like a bazillion downloads and they're just a fancy UI that lets you paste text one at a time and keep a history.
Come on.
Clipboard history and at least TWO apps open at the same time. Even if they LIMITED the ONE app to MAIL app it would be light years ahead!!!
I still like my iPod Touch though. All of these things could oh so be forgiven if they include them in 4.0.
It's free and it's called Notes, they'll even sync with Mail on a Mac via MobileMe if you have it.
Notes is NOT clipboard history. Yes we already know you can paste into notes. Heck you can paste into an email draft if you wish.
I want clipboard history that is available with 3rd party apps on OS X. Even if it's not accurate at least I can edit it.
Whatever it is I've become a big champion of iPhone dueto the way it behaves. This to me is the key. Yes iPhone has short comings ( multitasking user apps & no scripting come to mind) , but these are overshadowed by the class leading performance of the device overall.
As far as multitasking goes that is a double edge sword. I know my current 3G has limited capability here, in fact it probably would greatly impact usability. But it is clear that such an ability is the only way to deliver some really neat functionality. Further notifications and other work arounds that Apple has talked about are very limited solutions. Multitasking should be a given on the next generation hardware. In the end it is about resources (RAM & Processor performance) and having the ability to use them, one more generation ought to give us those resources.
Dave
Those who band-wagon jumped onto the Droid instead of waiting for Snapdragon powered alternatives may begin kicking themselves repeatedly now. Unless, of course, they're swamped in denial.
The keyboard sucks, the touch screen sucks... how are you supposed to interact with the phone? Shake it in morse code?
I'm Apple all the way but to some people other functionality might be more important than precise touch 100% all of the time. i.e. multiple open apps, printing, blah blah blah.
Unless your doing a lot of text I don't see pin point accuracy being that important. Maybe if you want to quickly hide the boobs photo from your boss and accidentally load a shlong shot.
lol. funny...
How they coming along with copying from non-text entry fields in Android?
They got system wide cut and paste down pat yet?
I want clipboard history that is available with 3rd party apps on OS X. Even if it's not accurate at least I can edit it.