Ask HN: why does Apple always have better animations?

I have always wanted to keep using android for technical backend reasons. But I just find myself “captured” by the smoothness of the animations and transitions on iPhone, and I always come back. And this hyped assessment is on a fully updated iPhone 7 ,usually with motion effects turned off.

I know I could be deluded by marketing but it just seems to me something about the UI and transitions make the phone signinifcantly more appealing and addictive to my impulsive lizard brain.

And I wonder whether this factor is underrated in making sense of its dominance. Ecosystem and branding is the obvious likely most important factors, but I think some overlook how appealing the interface is, not just plainly visual, but the response the animation flow gives.

Does anyone have a plausible hypothesis for how they do this? Have I been hijacked by marketing? Does anyone else find apple default apps are just always more smooth? I really want to use obsidian and standard notes,,, but apple notes always seems to be a couple milliseconds faster or smoother, I just don’t know.

Qahlel · 2 years ago

I always turn off all animations from developer settings. It makes the phone feel smoother and responsive.

LangIsAllWeNeed · 2 years ago

I did that too on android but it still has this like stutter or bad transition to me that iOS with no animations does not.

voytec · 2 years ago

I do the same with non-mobile browsers via extension which removes CSS transitions.

phendrenad2 · 2 years ago

I've noticed this too, and my guess is they're doing animations on the CPU.

FormFollowsFunc · 2 years ago

They’re doing them on the GPU using Core Animation framework. The iPhone has used the GPU for smooth animations since the start while GPU usage on Android depends on whether the device has one.

I think that Android is doing some UI on the CPU, even if it has a GPU.