[omniusovermind]

Hi, you're welcome for the long thread title!
I've just been mulling over BB10 vs Android multitasking today because I... well I have nothing better to do atm. I got to thinking about multitasking speed between the two platforms and basically what I'm seeing here is two different ways to do the same thing in an equal amount of time. Let's take a look at BB10 first.

So you're using your web browser and you want to switch from that app to another app you currently have sitting as one of your active frames. So you swipe up to bring up the screen of active frames, and you hit that app you wanted. Now if you were using your Android phone, you would accomplish this by pressing the multitasking button, which would bring up all your recently used apps and you would choose the app you want. Is it fair to say both actions take the same amount of time and effort to accomplish the same end result? I would give the edge to active frames giving you an updated views in the "card" when minimized but the view you get with Android with the multitask button is pretty slick in that regard too as seen here:



Now onto Hub vs Notification Bar. On both phones you can pull these up no matter where you are on your phone, whether in an app or whatever. The BB10 Hub gets the clear advantage here for sure by letting you access all your communications new or old with a swipe, as well as taking action on those with a cascades system of menus. Android's solution is to only deal with recent unread incoming items and does not keep "read" emails, texts, etc in the notification bar. It's not terrible by any means, the notifications are very well done and give you a good extended view of the details of new incoming stuff, but it doesn't stay there after you click on it. I give this one to BB10.

Now I'll get into app drawers. I'm going to call this one a draw. There's a gazillion ways you can categorize your apps on Android for quick access from your homescreen and your app drawer, while BB10 offers you the ability to access your app drawer from within anywhere. Although 3rd party Android apps have the ability to insert a shortcut to your app drawer in the notification bar. Which brings me to,

quick settings. If you're within an app on BB10, when you swipe down from the top you enter the menu settings for that app. If you want to access all your device settings like wifi, gps, Bluetooth etc, you will have to minimize that app and then swipe down. Android has the ability to place all those quick setting toggles in the notification bar accessible from anywhere at any time. I'm calling this a draw as well.

Intangibles: There are a few things available to Android that could tip the balance here. The two main things that come to mind are, foremost and most obviously, the app ecosystem. Besides the suite of apps made by Google, most notably their unparalleled map and navigation apps, there is literally an app for every player in the game just as there is for iOS. Your bank's app? You can rest assured it'll be there. Your favorite streaming radio? Yep. They have everything. The second is pretty new and pretty handy and it's called Google Now. It's like having a personal assistant on your phone at your beck and call 24/7. Want to be told how the traffic is on the way to the airport AND a dynamically updated feed on flight delays etc while you're driving there? It'll do that.

However going Blackberry offers it's own intangible perks. You won't be at the mercy of carriers and OEM's for OS updates, which is one of Android's biggest weaknesses for those who don't purchase a Nexus Android. That's a big plus just on it's own. You're also less susceptible to apps that are riddled with ads or phone-clogging poor coding (hopefully). You won't be hit by 5-6 new phones that outdate the one you just bought 3-6 months ago all the time.

My overall conclusion is that I don't see either side having a clear advantage here, but from what I've seen so far both of them offer a lot of innovations that place them well ahead of the iPhone 5 and iOS in general, and my dabblings with WP8 has led me to conclude that they haven't really brought anything attention grabbing to the table.

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

Interesting study

[mikeo007]

Interesting. I haven't used a newer Android device, so I can't really comment from personal experience. They're both slightly quicker than iOS which requires a double-press to get the multitasking screen up. I'd say both BB10 and Android beat iOS in your categories above. iOS does surpass in other areas, but in terms of quick access to multi-tasking/settings, Android does look very good, and I imagine BB10 will be similar.

[sydsam]

Very good analysis indeed. It seems that bb10 might be striking a chord between the closed garden and one manufacturer/one OS of iOS and functionality of the android devices. Another thing i noticed about android is that it gets really slow with time. I have a Nexus 7 and the device is noticeably slower than it was in the beginning, there are also more bugs and crashes, which is not the case with iOS. It will be interesting to see how bb10 will perform in terms of stability.

[Xopher]

One of the differences between Active Frames and Android is that on BB10, the frames are running applications. On Android, it is a list of recently run apps, which may have been closed. I've seen this list grow and grow. I'm not sure if it has a limit, or how much memory it takes up, though.

Just a different way to get to them.

[omniusovermind]

On Android they are running applications as well unless you specifically backed out of them to end them, rather than just starting another. It doesn't really take up any more memory than you need because the OS will start shutting down apps automatically if the memory becomes required elsewhere. Older versions of Android did this as well, but not very well, which is partially why they got a reputation for laggy performance. 4.1 and upwards are supposed to have improved that dramatically.

Another thing i noticed about android is that it gets really slow with time. I have a Nexus 7 and the device is noticeably slower than it was in the beginning, there are also more bugs and crashes, which is not the case with iOS. It will be interesting to see how bb10 will perform in terms of stability.

@sysdam
Yes, thanks for that, I hadn't even mentioned a comparison of bugs/crashes. Unfortunately I won't be able to either until BB10 goes live, and we'll also have to wait for them to be in people's hands for about a month to see what the user feedback regarding bugs is. I also wouldn't be too easy on iOS, a quick search will reveal that users have been reporting app crashes and bugs on it as well.
No OS is 100% lag proof yet though, I've been able to make my Playbook perform very laggy and choppy after playing graphics and memory demanding games and high def movies. Hopefully I'll be able to put BB10 through it's paces once I get my hands on one. I want to spank it with some CPU and RAM intensive apps/games and compare the FPS of the UI against a similarly priced and release date 4.2 Android put through the same tasks.

[JR A]

It's not entirely the same.

Android has ALL the apps in the multi-tasking section you've used and you'd still have to scroll/sort through those apps to find the one you want to get back to. I agree, slight edge to Active Frames because it brings most recent to the top of the stack.

Also, the way Hub displays read messages is a plus, at least for me. I'm always digging through read messages to view and copy/paste stuff.


The real beauty of BB10's UI comes in handy when you need to quickly go back from the Hub to your current app.


If I was in an app/web browser and wanted to get to my messages, I just make one gesture. And to go back from my messages to the web browser, I just make one gesture.

If this was Android. I'd be in my web browser, push the mult-task button, select the messages. Then to go back from messages to browser, I'd push the multitask button, scroll through my open apps and go into messages again.

Now multiply that process times several hundred times a day.

Yeah, I'll go with BB10