UI responsiveness: OSX vs. Windows, iOS vs. Android

Speaking of anecdotes, I have always found Windows more responsive than OS X to the point where I have completely switched to Win 7 - mouse handling and screen drawing is definitely superior on Windows.<p>However it is easier on Windows to mess up the experience - install some crappy antivirus or other messy program and it is a piece of cake to make Windows feel laggy.

I don't really have an opinion on Windows vs. OS X, but I have been extremely impressed with iOS's graphical performance.<p>It's not just that they have good framerate - even Android can get good average framerate. The amazing thing about iOS that it gets amazing maximum frame delay, i.e. the space between frames is almost never more than 33ms (~30fps). On Android you frequently run into tiny little hiccups in frame delay that might not impact its measured FPS, but are certainly noticeable to the human eye. The result is that it just doesn't feel as smooth.<p>I don't know how Apple achieved this. It's certainly not perfect - you can occasionally get an iDevice to freeze for a few hundred milliseconds, but those are very rare occurrences. It's <i>as if</i> they have a real-time guarantee built into the system, but I don't think they actually have one. Which is a pretty amazing accomplishment.

I love OSX, but objectively speaking, "The lag of a Mac OS X cursor is at least twice bigger than Windows’ cursor and yes, a human eye can surely notice that." <a href="http://d43.me/blog/1205/the-cause-for-all-your-mac-os-x-mouse-annoyances/" rel="nofollow">http://d43.me/blog/1205/the-cause-for-all-your-mac-os-x-mous...</a>

There's many reasons to prefer OSX over Windows (and vice-versa)<p>But OSX UI certainly never has been reacting faster than Windows UI. Things like opening dirs, menu navigation, window resizing, etc is much faster in Window and its been that way since OSX started (OS9 and prior had a fast UI).

Unless people can back this up with hard facts they simply shouldn't post these kinds of stuff.

This submission needed some actual data ...

I agree with needing more data but I will give my testimonial. I switched from Windows 7 to Mac Lion several months go and have not looked back. Simple things like responsiveness of the touch pad, gestures, and a better terminal are definitely what got me. Overall I would say the UX is just simply better.

Well there's no denying iOS is the king of responsiveness in the mobile sector, but to be honest, I can't really say the same thing on OS X vs Windows 7. I use both on a daily basis and Win7 is definitely the most rock solid OS Microsoft ever put out. For example, when an application crashes Windows just kills it and everything is fine. On OS X when something crashes, you can usually Force Close, but sometimes the process just can't be killed. Also it feels OS X memory management almost requires an SSD nowadays.<p>There are other things, which makes me like OS X more, but being faster or more stable is not one of them.

I have experienced the exact opposite of what this person experienced.<p>I use both Windows and OS X all through the day and while the response on both is adequate, the Core 2 Quad Windows 7 box is much more responsive than my MBP with the high end 15" i7. They both have 8GB RAM -- but then again, my Core 2 Duo Thinkpad X200 feels more responsive, and requires fewer resources.<p>I've never experienced or heard of the "infamous" cloned dialogs bug on Windows 7, but oddly, I have experienced it on OS X. Conversely, I've never experienced the reported cursor lag on OS X.<p>Like I said, I find both OSes perfectly good, but the post just seems suspect to me.<p>Now, if only Microsoft would integrate a <i>well-supported</i>, <i>well-integrated</i>, native bash/zsh. I can't bring myself to like Powershell.

I never thought I would say this: but I miss the OS X spinning-wheel-o-death … on my non-current generation iOS device. Sometimes the software just does nothing for a noticeable amount of time and you don't know if it didn't got the input or just hangs.

I completely agree with the iOS vs. Android responsiveness difference, but completely disagree that Windows 7 on a fast PC with an SSD is unresponsive. I've literally never had any of those problems on my Windows 7 gaming machine.

My favorite explanation of this phenomenon, beyond the visual demonstration, is that lag time reminds the human mind that it is interfacing with a machine.<p>Because that feels unnatural, it creates fatigue and builds separation between the user and his work.<p>UI guru Jakob Nielsen has an excellent description of this here:<p><a href="http://www.useit.com/papers/responsetime.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.useit.com/papers/responsetime.html</a>

Another thing which OSX has done for a long time that I really liked is that everything syncs to vertical refresh. It doesn't actually speed anything up, but it gives the perception that things are smoother and more responsive. You don't see the 'tearing' effect that you often see on other systems when you drag windows around the screen.

I use both platforms with a MacBook Pro/Lion being my main machine. I have always felt that my Windows 7 machine is snappier in starting apps and generally moving around the desktop. In fact, if Windows 7 were *nix based I would probably switch to it as my primary. The command processor situation feels pretty hopeless to me in Windows.

Is this a troll thread? if so 10/10