Playbook has much faster Hardware, yet in the first videos scrolling appears to be horribly laggy. Also, they still have the "swipe gesture left - wait for computer to interpret gesture - move content to the left" problem.
Yes.
I get the impression that the gesture issue [touch events] is a problem with Adobe AIR as the UI,
From an earlier demo, it seems that AIR is very much a work-in-progress and they are trying to bolt on a multitouch UI.
iOS gives you a callback when each touch begins, moves, or ends. The iPad monitors 11 concurrent touches.
When the iOS or an app gets a touchesBegan, followed by a touchesMoved -- it can determine what is happening and begin to change the display accordingly, With iOS you can touch, then wiggle your finger and the OS or app should wiggle the display content accordingly -- as if you are actually moving the content with your finger.
For whatever reason, the QNX/AIR combo appears to wait to interpret the gesture until it receives a touchesEnded event callback.
That gives the "move and catch up" start/stop effect you noted. It is quite unsettling.
An Emperor who cares for nothing but his wardrobe hires two fanboys who promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "just hopelessly stupid". The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position or stupid; his fanboys do the same. When the fanboys report that the suit is finished, they dress him in mime and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects. A child in the crowd calls out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues the procession.
Research in Motion has offered a hands-on glimpse at its forthcoming 7-inch touchscreen tablet, the PlayBook, in a new video that shows the device offers Adobe Flash and has superior Web browsing speed to Apple's iPad.
The video posted this week by RIM is entitled "BlackBerry PlayBook and iPad Comparison: Web Fidelity." The video shows the PlayBook loading a number of websites much faster than Apple's iPad.
RIM also touted that their device can run Adobe Flash, demonstrating the interactive front page of adidas.com with the PlayBook. Loading the same site on the iPad shows a message that says Flash is not available on the device.
The video also shows an Acid3 test to demonstrate HTML5 performance of the PlayBook and iPad. Both Apple's and RIM's tablets earn a perfect score of 100 out of 100, though the iPad has a rendering artifact in the top right corner.
Of course, the iPad has already been on the market since April, while RIM's PlayBook will not go on sale until early 2011. Apple is expected to announce its next-generation iPad about the same time.
RIM also hopes to take on the iPad with a competitive starting price of under $500. But the device will also come with a smaller 7-inch screen than Apple's 9.7-inch iPad display.
Screen sizes of tablet devices has been a hot topic since Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs criticized iPad competitors, like the PlayBook, for their smaller 7-inch screens. Jobs said that Apple's own internal testing has found that a 7-inch display is too small to be functional for most users.
Is it really any wonder that a device with FOUR TIMES the RAM of an iPad can outperform it at web browsing?
With that kind of spec difference I'd be exceedingly disappointed if it wasn't.
Really, is all this angst and tin foil hat'ism really necessary? The PlayBook looks like it's going to be a spunky system. It probably helps that they chose an OS like QNX to be it's foundation and I don't doubt that overall it's a more efficient system than iOS. I also don't doubt that RIM might have spent a lot of time optimizing their browser. That combined with some human perception tweaking (get some content up quickly to create a perception of speed, as others have mentioned, the ipad renders the page fairly quickly but takes a long time to actually start displaying anything whereas the PlayBook starts splatting things up faster), a bit fewer pixels to push, and newer/faster hardware and they probably will end up with a system that is decently fast. I love my ipad, but I can live with that, I don't need to get defensive.
However, I will take this time to rag on flash again though. For all the spriteness they show off, the fact that the flash animations on the adidas site stutter so badly on a machine that can display hd video, browse and do other stuff at the same time is just plain sad.
I love how they show that it "plays Flash," then go on to explain that HTML5 is the wave of the future. The fact that the iPad doesn't render an HTML5 animation as fast as a prototype PlayBook means very little. What will be more interesting is to see how the iPad's Safari renders HTML5 animations running iOS 4.2. That will be telling. And we're still only talking about the first generation iPad.
In the video, notice on the iPad there is a delay and then all of a sudden it renders the page - much faster than the playbook. This looks like a DNS response delay more than rendering speed. So either the test was rigged so that their DNS server served the iPad slower (doubtful), they used different DNS servers and the Playbook used a faster one(possible, but unlikely), or that they cleared the web browser cache on both machines, but the Playbook still had the DNS addresses cached.
I think the latter is what we are seeing.
Or it could be that the Playbook has a better, faster browser than the iPad.
I'm sure it'll crash less than Mobile Safari, regardless.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tawilson
Exactly, that and the "caching behavior" can easily be explained by it having (more than likely NEEDING) 1GB RAM, to the iPad's 256MB.
So... you're criticizing it for having more memory than the iPad, therefore having more room to operate efficiently, resulting in the browsing experience being faster. Seriously?
so iOS 4.2 is vaporware? it is no more real than the Playbook, nor is it shipping, and its innovation is unknown, as it is not publicly available (only in the friendly hands of Apple engineers and beta testers). So by your definition it is vaporware, or does Apple get a special pass?
But Apple always comes through. They would never announce a product and then fail to ship it.
Has webkit inside the iOS devices been receiving steady updates or are we still running same version as 3.0 (last time I definitively heard about browser improvements on iOS)?
From what I remember SJ used to speed-compare Mac OS X with Windows so I see nothing wrong with RIM tactic. It's quite impressive. It doesn't say much though because it'll be iPad 2 Playbook up agaimst. One thing it actually show is how overpriced some tablet like Samsung Tab is. It's actually cheaper and look faster than iPad for once.
Cost, power/battery life for starters. Then there's the issue of apps requiring re-writing - as mentioned elsewhere many times, an iPad screen with the same dpi as an iPhone 4 would be higher resolution than the 27" iMac.
Does it mean Apps written for Mac OS X will be compatible in resolution to iPad. That will be interesting.
I take it then you find web browsing on an iPhone/Android/Windows Phone totally impossible then?
I manage fine on my iPhone 4, making use that handy pinch to zoom thing. You should try it. I imagine on the much larger Playbook screen it will work even better.
If you manage fine then you don't need a Playbook. See, it isn't hard to understand, is it? Take the time to think about it..........
If you pinch to zoom on tablet then it's a fail 'cause it's no different than a phone. (yes, there'll be some special cases you may want to do it but it shouldn't be a crucial function)
If you manage fine then you don't need a Playbook. See, it isn't hard to understand, is it? Take the time to think about it..........
If you pinch to zoom on tablet then it's a fail 'cause it's no different than a phone. (yes, there'll be some special cases you may want to do it but it shouldn't be a crucial function)
I pinch and zoom all the time on my iPad as I find the text rendering on most web pages too crude and a little too small. A retina display would certainly help, but it would still be too small on some sites.
In the video, notice on the iPad there is a delay and then all of a sudden it renders the page - much faster than the playbook. This looks like a DNS response delay more than rendering speed. So either the test was rigged so that their DNS server served the iPad slower (doubtful), they used different DNS servers and the Playbook used a faster one(possible, but unlikely), or that they cleared the web browser cache on both machines, but the Playbook still had the DNS addresses cached.
I think the latter is what we are seeing.
Exactly. If you look at the stopwatch, the RIM is faster. But the iPad seems a lot snappier because it has a better User Experience.
Do you guys really believe there's only one good company in the world, and no one else can ever do anything right?
Man, the Mac community ain't what it used to be....
Who said there's only "one good company in the world?" That's called a straw man argument, and oh look! You already knocked it down. Because nobody said such a thing.
Regarding RIM "doing anything right," they've done plenty "right." However, in the tablet space, they are the epitome of an also-ran. What do they really have to offer? 7" tablet that renders a god-awful Flash commercial site, and HTML5 that renders faster. Not exactly compelling.
So that's it, eh? THAT is what makes one tablet superior to its competitor? Web browsing speed? Are we supposed to forget comparative screen size (45%?), the device's OS, its track record for stability and reliability, its behind-the-scenes infrastructure (iTunes), etc., etc., etc.?
Actually, QNX is very well regarded with respect to stability. One form or another of it has been around since the very early 1980s. So I wouldn't hold that fact against RIM.
BTW, I work on nuclear reactor control consoles that are powered by QNX. So I know a little bit about QNX's stability and reliability.
There are many other points you can complain about with respect to RIM's pad, but I would try the "stability and reliability" angle.
I wonder how the QNX OS compares to Mac OS X/iOS performance wise.
QNX has been running on embedded systems for a while and more then likely is more optimized.
I'd love to compare both kernel and OS designs. I'm have a feeling that the QNX OS is better designed in many respects. It doesn't take much to beat Mac OS X's messaging system,
its pretty dog slow by design. Here are some sample tests (a bit old) but interesting nonetheless:
Kernel design really effects performance. I would love to see how QNX compares.
QNX has always been touted as a high-performance microkernel. Last time I looked, they were doing context switches an order of magnitude faster than the nearest competitor (granted, I haven't looked in a while, but in the OS world things tend to get slower rather than faster as more features are added).
The real issue will be the GUI that RIM bolts on top of QNX. I'm pretty sure it's not the QNX Photon GUI (which was blazing fast and very small, but probably too feature lean for a consumer device).
Comments
Playbook has much faster Hardware, yet in the first videos scrolling appears to be horribly laggy. Also, they still have the "swipe gesture left - wait for computer to interpret gesture - move content to the left" problem.
Yes.
I get the impression that the gesture issue [touch events] is a problem with Adobe AIR as the UI,
From an earlier demo, it seems that AIR is very much a work-in-progress and they are trying to bolt on a multitouch UI.
iOS gives you a callback when each touch begins, moves, or ends. The iPad monitors 11 concurrent touches.
When the iOS or an app gets a touchesBegan, followed by a touchesMoved -- it can determine what is happening and begin to change the display accordingly, With iOS you can touch, then wiggle your finger and the OS or app should wiggle the display content accordingly -- as if you are actually moving the content with your finger.
For whatever reason, the QNX/AIR combo appears to wait to interpret the gesture until it receives a touchesEnded event callback.
That gives the "move and catch up" start/stop effect you noted. It is quite unsettling.
.
An Emperor who cares for nothing but his wardrobe hires two fanboys who promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "just hopelessly stupid". The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position or stupid; his fanboys do the same. When the fanboys report that the suit is finished, they dress him in mime and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects. A child in the crowd calls out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues the procession.
Remind you of anyone?
Ballmer?
Research in Motion has offered a hands-on glimpse at its forthcoming 7-inch touchscreen tablet, the PlayBook, in a new video that shows the device offers Adobe Flash and has superior Web browsing speed to Apple's iPad.
The video posted this week by RIM is entitled "BlackBerry PlayBook and iPad Comparison: Web Fidelity." The video shows the PlayBook loading a number of websites much faster than Apple's iPad.
RIM also touted that their device can run Adobe Flash, demonstrating the interactive front page of adidas.com with the PlayBook. Loading the same site on the iPad shows a message that says Flash is not available on the device.
The video also shows an Acid3 test to demonstrate HTML5 performance of the PlayBook and iPad. Both Apple's and RIM's tablets earn a perfect score of 100 out of 100, though the iPad has a rendering artifact in the top right corner.
Of course, the iPad has already been on the market since April, while RIM's PlayBook will not go on sale until early 2011. Apple is expected to announce its next-generation iPad about the same time.
RIM also hopes to take on the iPad with a competitive starting price of under $500. But the device will also come with a smaller 7-inch screen than Apple's 9.7-inch iPad display.
Screen sizes of tablet devices has been a hot topic since Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs criticized iPad competitors, like the PlayBook, for their smaller 7-inch screens. Jobs said that Apple's own internal testing has found that a 7-inch display is too small to be functional for most users.
Is it really any wonder that a device with FOUR TIMES the RAM of an iPad can outperform it at web browsing?
With that kind of spec difference I'd be exceedingly disappointed if it wasn't.
Of course RIM's 'Playbook' is faster it only has 45% of a screen to fill up!
That's the "benefit" of a 7" tablet!
</sarcasm>
Exactly, that and the "caching behavior" can easily be explained by it having (more than likely NEEDING) 1GB RAM, to the iPad's 256MB.
Sorry, but I'm not that impressed by it yet.
Really, is all this angst and tin foil hat'ism really necessary? The PlayBook looks like it's going to be a spunky system. It probably helps that they chose an OS like QNX to be it's foundation and I don't doubt that overall it's a more efficient system than iOS. I also don't doubt that RIM might have spent a lot of time optimizing their browser. That combined with some human perception tweaking (get some content up quickly to create a perception of speed, as others have mentioned, the ipad renders the page fairly quickly but takes a long time to actually start displaying anything whereas the PlayBook starts splatting things up faster), a bit fewer pixels to push, and newer/faster hardware and they probably will end up with a system that is decently fast. I love my ipad, but I can live with that, I don't need to get defensive.
However, I will take this time to rag on flash again though. For all the spriteness they show off, the fact that the flash animations on the adidas site stutter so badly on a machine that can display hd video, browse and do other stuff at the same time is just plain sad.
I love how they show that it "plays Flash," then go on to explain that HTML5 is the wave of the future. The fact that the iPad doesn't render an HTML5 animation as fast as a prototype PlayBook means very little. What will be more interesting is to see how the iPad's Safari renders HTML5 animations running iOS 4.2. That will be telling. And we're still only talking about the first generation iPad.
In the video, notice on the iPad there is a delay and then all of a sudden it renders the page - much faster than the playbook. This looks like a DNS response delay more than rendering speed. So either the test was rigged so that their DNS server served the iPad slower (doubtful), they used different DNS servers and the Playbook used a faster one(possible, but unlikely), or that they cleared the web browser cache on both machines, but the Playbook still had the DNS addresses cached.
I think the latter is what we are seeing.
Or it could be that the Playbook has a better, faster browser than the iPad.
I'm sure it'll crash less than Mobile Safari, regardless.
Exactly, that and the "caching behavior" can easily be explained by it having (more than likely NEEDING) 1GB RAM, to the iPad's 256MB.
So... you're criticizing it for having more memory than the iPad, therefore having more room to operate efficiently, resulting in the browsing experience being faster. Seriously?
Some of the posts in this thread defy belief.
If you throw enough CPU power into it, you can have multitouch elegance on MS-DOS.
DOS? Microsoft? I spit up my milk through my nose! LOL!
so iOS 4.2 is vaporware? it is no more real than the Playbook, nor is it shipping, and its innovation is unknown, as it is not publicly available (only in the friendly hands of Apple engineers and beta testers). So by your definition it is vaporware, or does Apple get a special pass?
But Apple always comes through. They would never announce a product and then fail to ship it.
Cost, power/battery life for starters. Then there's the issue of apps requiring re-writing - as mentioned elsewhere many times, an iPad screen with the same dpi as an iPhone 4 would be higher resolution than the 27" iMac.
Does it mean Apps written for Mac OS X will be compatible in resolution to iPad. That will be interesting.
I take it then you find web browsing on an iPhone/Android/Windows Phone totally impossible then?
I manage fine on my iPhone 4, making use that handy pinch to zoom thing. You should try it. I imagine on the much larger Playbook screen it will work even better.
If you manage fine then you don't need a Playbook. See, it isn't hard to understand, is it? Take the time to think about it..........
If you pinch to zoom on tablet then it's a fail 'cause it's no different than a phone. (yes, there'll be some special cases you may want to do it but it shouldn't be a crucial function)
If you manage fine then you don't need a Playbook. See, it isn't hard to understand, is it? Take the time to think about it..........
If you pinch to zoom on tablet then it's a fail 'cause it's no different than a phone. (yes, there'll be some special cases you may want to do it but it shouldn't be a crucial function)
I pinch and zoom all the time on my iPad as I find the text rendering on most web pages too crude and a little too small. A retina display would certainly help, but it would still be too small on some sites.
Do you guys really believe there's only one good company in the world, and no one else can ever do anything right?
Man, the Mac community ain't what it used to be....
Your right, there are a whole lot more of us.
In the video, notice on the iPad there is a delay and then all of a sudden it renders the page - much faster than the playbook. This looks like a DNS response delay more than rendering speed. So either the test was rigged so that their DNS server served the iPad slower (doubtful), they used different DNS servers and the Playbook used a faster one(possible, but unlikely), or that they cleared the web browser cache on both machines, but the Playbook still had the DNS addresses cached.
I think the latter is what we are seeing.
Exactly. If you look at the stopwatch, the RIM is faster. But the iPad seems a lot snappier because it has a better User Experience.
But then again, it a 7 inch tablet... it's gonna be DOA remember?
There is no doubt at all about that. All the 7 inch tablets will be DOA.
Do you guys really believe there's only one good company in the world, and no one else can ever do anything right?
Man, the Mac community ain't what it used to be....
Who said there's only "one good company in the world?" That's called a straw man argument, and oh look! You already knocked it down. Because nobody said such a thing.
Regarding RIM "doing anything right," they've done plenty "right." However, in the tablet space, they are the epitome of an also-ran. What do they really have to offer? 7" tablet that renders a god-awful Flash commercial site, and HTML5 that renders faster. Not exactly compelling.
So that's it, eh? THAT is what makes one tablet superior to its competitor? Web browsing speed? Are we supposed to forget comparative screen size (45%?), the device's OS, its track record for stability and reliability, its behind-the-scenes infrastructure (iTunes), etc., etc., etc.?
Actually, QNX is very well regarded with respect to stability. One form or another of it has been around since the very early 1980s. So I wouldn't hold that fact against RIM.
BTW, I work on nuclear reactor control consoles that are powered by QNX. So I know a little bit about QNX's stability and reliability.
There are many other points you can complain about with respect to RIM's pad, but I would try the "stability and reliability" angle.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
I wonder how the QNX OS compares to Mac OS X/iOS performance wise.
QNX has been running on embedded systems for a while and more then likely is more optimized.
I'd love to compare both kernel and OS designs. I'm have a feeling that the QNX OS is better designed in many respects. It doesn't take much to beat Mac OS X's messaging system,
its pretty dog slow by design. Here are some sample tests (a bit old) but interesting nonetheless:
Ubuntu vs Solaris vs Freebsd
Ubuntu vs Mac OS X
Ubuntu vs Win7 vs Mac OS X
Kernel design really effects performance. I would love to see how QNX compares.
QNX has always been touted as a high-performance microkernel. Last time I looked, they were doing context switches an order of magnitude faster than the nearest competitor (granted, I haven't looked in a while, but in the OS world things tend to get slower rather than faster as more features are added).
The real issue will be the GUI that RIM bolts on top of QNX. I'm pretty sure it's not the QNX Photon GUI (which was blazing fast and very small, but probably too feature lean for a consumer device).