Why is Windows 10 Mobile not as smooth and fast as WP 8.1?

[Vasil Dechkov]

Just why?

Will it ever be?

Everything was so smooth and great in 8.1, what happened?

 

[EspHack]

direction changed, form over function is no longer the goal, people criticized microsoft for putting so much effort in aesthetics and usability instead of functionality

now they are radicalized, everything is productivity, ease of use be dammed

na it wont be forever, at some point people will criticize constant feature-adding forced updates and ask for polishing

 

[ven07]

Tbh as the platform moves forward, I think we'll become somewhat android-ish. In the sense that your experience will depend on what kind of SD you have and how much RAM..

Not allowing 512mb phones to officially upgrade and keeping a certain threshold for phones that are allowed to use continuum, are (at least according to me) indications of this

 

[Maurizio Troso]

I left a lot of feedbacks asking for a graphic toggle on/off.
That's unuseful fadings to black slow system so much

 

[milkyway]

Because W10M does so much more than WP8.1
WP8.1 was fast because it did not have as much features as WP8.1.
Also I think it has something to do with converting all these system apps to "apps". In WP8.1 e.g. "messages" was baked into the OS and now it's an app. So you have to start an app to read your texts instead of just browing your "system"

 

[Maurizio Troso]

Just why?

Will it ever be?

Everything was so smooth and great in 8.1, what happened?

Try Windows 10 desktop on a 6/7 years old basic notebook born with Seven and later updated to 8.1.
How smooth do you think it will run?

Simply windows (as android and iOs) became bigger and packed with new funciotns

 

[Vasil Dechkov]

Thanks for all the replies, guys! I hope they "polish" it someday.

Sent from mTalk on a 535.

 

[Tarequl Islam]

Opera mini on my 8.1 phone is very smooth but in Windows 10 phone it's not smooth.

 

[a5cent]

Because W10M does so much more than WP8.1

Simply windows (as android and iOs) became bigger and packed with new functions

Both of these replies or any others like it just aren't true. There is no explicit relationship between the number of features/functions and software efficiency/performance. The number of functions often correlates with how easy a software product is to use, but that's not what the OP was asking about. If anything, it's the kinds of functions that matter, not their number, but W10M doesn't do anything that WP8 didn't which would be a drain on efficiency/performance. The real cause is down to something else entirely...

The primary reason why each version of WP/WM has been less efficient than the one before it, is because with each iteration, the OS has become ever more similar to the desktop/server OS. Desktop and server OSes are designed and built with a completely different set of requirements in mind than are OSes which are designed specifically for small, resource constrained devices like smartphones.

WP7 was based on WinCE, which was a real-time OS built specifically for small, resource constrained embedded devices that had to run for years without requiring any maintenance or experiencing any down time. That's why WP7 was so efficient and robust. In contrast, W10M is based on the same code base that powers desktops and servers, which focuses more on being highly adaptable to a huge range of very different hardware platforms (WinCE only ran on a very specific set of predetermined platforms and there was no way to change that) and on making life easier for developers. WP8 is somewhere in between those two.

In terms of functions/features, W10M and WP7 aren't even that different. The big difference between the two OSes are in the apps that ship along with the OS (mail, groove, etc). That's where 95% of the differences in features are. We could port all those apps back to WP7 and even add to WP7 the few features W10M has which WP7 lacks, yet the WP7 device would still boot in 1/4th the time and be no less efficient than it was before that effort.

For most software companies, reducing development costs is more important than improving software performance. That's definitely true for W10M as well. That's where we're at now.

 

[milkyway]

Both of these replies or any others like it just aren't true. There is no explicit relationship between the number of features/functions and software efficiency/performance. The number of functions often correlates with how easy a software product is to use, but that's not what the OP was asking about. If anything, it's the kinds of functions that matter, not their number, but W10M doesn't do anything that WP8 didn't which would be a drain on efficiency/performance. The real cause is down to something else entirely...

The primary reason why each version of WP/WM has been less efficient than the one before it, is because with each iteration, the OS has become ever more similar to the desktop/server OS. Desktop and server OSes are designed and built with a completely different set of requirements in mind than are OSes which are designed specifically for small, resource constrained devices like smartphones.

WP7 was based on WinCE, which was a real-time OS built specifically for small, resource constrained embedded devices that had to run for years without requiring any maintenance or experiencing any down time. That's why WP7 was so efficient and robust. In contrast, W10M is based on the same code base that powers desktops and servers, which focuses more on being highly adaptable to a huge range of very different hardware platforms (WinCE only ran on a very specific set of predetermined platforms and there was no way to change that) and on making life easier for developers. WP8 is somewhere in between those two.

In terms of functions/features, W10M and WP7 aren't even that different. The big difference between the two OSes are in the apps that ship along with the OS (mail, groove, etc). That's where 95% of the differences in features are. We could port all those apps back to WP7 and even add to WP7 the few features W10M has which WP7 lacks, yet the WP7 device would still boot in 1/4th the time and be no less efficient than it was before that effort.

For most software companies, reducing development costs is more important than improving software performance. That's definitely true for W10M as well. That's where we're at now.

erm, yay, that's exactly what I meant :wink:

 

[Maurizio Troso]

OK, anybody knows any registry key for unabling fade-to-back graphics or something like that on a interop-unlocked phone?

 

[ven07]

OK, anybody knows any registry key for unabling fade-to-back graphics or something like that on a interop-unlocked phone?

If you get this... share

 

[Blade800]

I think the reason number 1 is that in WP 8 things like settings or SMS were not apps, so you could acess them instantly without having them on background. Now everything on Windows 10 is basically an app so you have to run it background to match the speed of WP8.

 

[a5cent]

I think the reason number 1 is that in WP 8 things like settings or SMS were not apps, so you could acess them instantly without having them on background. Now everything on Windows 10 is basically an app so you have to run it background to match the speed of WP8.

No. SMS and Settings have never been anything but apps... on WP7, WP8 and on W10M. Admittedly, earlier versions were native programs rather than the .Net/C# based technology most apps are based on, but apps nevertheless.

 

[a5cent]

OK, anybody knows any registry key for unabling fade-to-back graphics or something like that on a interop-unlocked phone?

What are fade-to-back graphics?

 

[ven07]

What are fade-to-back graphics?

He basically wants a setting to disable all animations.. kind of like what android has after you enable devmode

 

[Vasil Dechkov]

I don't mind animations..

Sent from mTalk on a 535.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

I honestly think it's a matter of the coding itself, not necessarily the number of features a program has. I'm not the most experienced programmer but I know enough to understand that it's not what a program does that makes it slow down, it's how it's doing it. Windows 10 Mobile isn't slower because of what it does over Windows Phone 8.1, it's slower because of the foundation its built on. It's not what it's doing, it's how Windows 10 Mobile is accomplishing what it's doing. It's not "thinking" about the fastest way to do something, it's just getting it done. I'm sure Microsoft will work on polish in the future, but I honestly think the kind of work they'll need to do to make Windows 10 Mobile as fast as people are wanting to be will take a lot more work than anything they've been doing so far.

 

[EspHack]

lol we actually need more-longer animations to hide stuttering

 

[a5cent]

I honestly think it's a matter of the coding itself, not necessarily the number of features a program has. I'm not the most experienced programmer but I know enough to understand that it's not what a program does that makes it slow down, it's how it's doing it. Windows 10 Mobile isn't slower because of what it does over Windows Phone 8.1, it's slower because of the foundation its built on. It's not what it's doing, it's how Windows 10 Mobile is accomplishing what it's doing. It's not "thinking" about the fastest way to do something, it's just getting it done. I'm sure Microsoft will work on polish in the future, but I honestly think the kind of work they'll need to do to make Windows 10 Mobile as fast as people are wanting to be will take a lot more work than anything they've been doing so far.

You're right about all that, but also consider that it basically comes down to conflicting requirements. Some things simply can't be polished "away", no matter how much effort you put into it, at least not without fundamentally changing the design / architecture of the entire software system... at which point we'd be forced to give up other properties we might find desirable.

If I were to ask you to build me a house as cheaply and quickly and possible, you'd have to instantly intervene and tell me I can't have both at the same time. I can either have the house built as quickly as possible, or as cheaply as possible, but not both simultaneously. Those two requirements are mutually exclusive. That's not a perfect analogy for software, but it exemplifies the problem for all the non programmers out there. Windows for desktops / servers is designed to be as flexible as possible in terms of hardware support. If you also want the software to be as efficient as possible on the hardware platform it runs on, then we're out of luck. Those two requirements are also mutually exclusive.

There are thousands of similar trade offs which MS developers made during their work on Windows, and for Windows, peak performance is not always the most important goal. Flexibility, cost of development and maintenance, stability, and a dozen other things are all far more important than being as efficient as possible. The design decisions made with those requirements in mind are an inherent part of the system, and the performance penalties those properties incur can't be optimized away, at least not without removing those properties along with it.

Don't get me wrong... I'm sure MS can still improve a lot on what they currently have... we'll never get back to WP7 or WP8 levels of efficiency though. In exchange, MS now has an OS that is much cheaper to develop and maintain and developers have a unified programming model to makes apps with.