Romain, You seem to underestimate the power of games. I can buy a phone for $20 or even less, which makes calls. I can buy a phone for $50 which has internet browsing, e-mail, sms, mms, blah, blah, blah. I can buy a phone for $100 which has GPS, and what not. People don't buy phones to make calls only, they buy it for various reasons, one of which is lifestyle - read iPhone, other - entertainment - read games, etc.
I'll give you an example of how bad it might turn out to be the lack of quality games on the Android because of the following: - lack of memory, or ability to run off the SD card (I know you're working on an encrypted partition on the SD card, and are addressing this) - lack of running in "exclusive" mode leading to stuttering I have this comment on my game (disclaimer: my game is FAR, FAR, FAR, FAR from the best games, despite what the user is saying, I'd personally rate it 5/10): A 5 * rating, with comment: "Sadly the best game overall on the G1 which isnt saying anything about the dev he deserves praise but I wish the SDK was better and devs had more." I can bet my ass (and I'm not gay either ;) that there are MORE comments like this one on other games. I'm *sure* Android *will* fail, as a mobile OS on smartphones, if it doesn't have great games. Cheers P.S. I can make my game a lot more better, if I had more space. I don't want any comments like "download from the internet to SD card". Like I said, my game is simply, it's far from the best games, it's an arkanoid-like breakout game. However, I can imagine how much space would a great 3D game need, and that it would require lots of processing, and not only on the GPU. On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 12:16 PM, Romain Guy <romain...@google.com> wrote: > > You are looking at *ONE* use case. Android is trying to provide an > efficient system to the users that also allows background apps. I'm > not saying it's an easy problem to solve, I'm saying that the > comparison with some other devices out there is moot when they're not > trying to reach the same goals. We would all very much like to see > this issue disappear and what we need is hard data and discussions on > how to solve this issue. But discarding background apps is not the > appropriate solution, it's just one easy solution. > > On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 3:06 AM, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com> wrote: >> >> I guess it comes down to the choice of do we want high performance games on >> Android or not. >> >> At the moment it seems clear that due to the ability of background tasks to >> continue running it is next to impossible to provide predictable performance >> for resource demanding games on all users devices and thus games can not >> make the most out of the hardware without risking 1* ratings and being >> called laggy by those running a number of background apps. >> >> Maybe this is where Android is trying to be different. Maybe games are not >> best suited to an Android based platform because of this. I guess time and >> users will be the judge of whether this is the right way to go. >> >> Personally I don't think it is, but hey, I'm only one voice. >> >> Al. >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: android-developers@googlegroups.com >> [mailto:android-develop...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Romain Guy >> Sent: 27 March 2009 09:47 >> To: android-developers@googlegroups.com >> Subject: [android-developers] Re: Anything on Android that can do smooth >> scrolling? >> >> >> No, I was not pointing back to this idea. >> >> And the PS3 does that because it's a *video game console.* On which you >> usually do *one thing at a time.* >> >> On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 2:44 AM, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com> wrote: >>> >>> And once again we get pointed back to the idea of pausing most (if not >>> all) background apps to achieve a good user experience. >>> >>> Even the PS3 which has far better hardware than the G1 goes down this >>> route as it pauses the game just to bring up an in-game menu. The only >>> thing it ever tries to run in the background is the PlayTV system and >>> that comes with a big warning about affecting game performance. >>> >>> Al. >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: android-developers@googlegroups.com >>> [mailto:android-develop...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Romain Guy >>> Sent: 27 March 2009 09:38 >>> To: android-developers@googlegroups.com >>> Subject: [android-developers] Re: Anything on Android that can do >>> smooth scrolling? >>> >>> >>> Yeah... none of them have background apps. >>> >>> On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 2:33 AM, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> Ahh so that's how the PSP, DS, and iPhone do it.... Hold up, that >>>> doesn't sound right... :). >>>> >>>> Al. >>>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: android-developers@googlegroups.com >>>> [mailto:android-develop...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Romain Guy >>>> Sent: 26 March 2009 22:12 >>>> To: android-developers@googlegroups.com >>>> Subject: [android-developers] Re: Anything on Android that can do >>>> smooth scrolling? >>>> >>>> >>>> Have multiple cores :) >>>> >>>> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Stoyan Damov >>>> <stoyan.da...@gmail.com> >>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 11:53 PM, Romain Guy <romain...@google.com> >>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Once again it has NOTHING to do with GC, it's just another app >>>>>> using the CPU. It could be for any reason, not just GC. >>>>>> >>>>>> I hope you get it now. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Aaaaaaaah, @#$ me. I GET it now! >>>>> >>>>> Thanks Romain, and thanks again for patiently explaining this >>>>> several >>>> times! >>>>> >>>>> So, we're back then to square 1 - how do we make Android *appear* >>>>> that it runs an application exclusively. >>>>> That is, what's the best way to ensure great user experience for >>>>> demanding apps, such as games, without pausing all other processes. >>>>> >>>>> Any ideas besides the permission thing, anyone? >>>>> >>>>> Cheers >>>>> >>>>> > >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Romain Guy >>>> Android framework engineer >>>> romain...@android.com >>>> >>>> Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time >>>> to provide private support. All such questions should be posted on >>>> public forums, where I and others can see and answer them >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> > >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Romain Guy >>> Android framework engineer >>> romain...@android.com >>> >>> Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time >>> to provide private support. All such questions should be posted on >>> public forums, where I and others can see and answer them >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> > >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Romain Guy >> Android framework engineer >> romain...@android.com >> >> Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to >> provide private support. All such questions should be posted on public >> forums, where I and others can see and answer them >> >> >> >> >> > >> > > > > -- > Romain Guy > Android framework engineer > romain...@android.com > > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time > to provide private support. All such questions should be posted on > public forums, where I and others can see and answer them > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---