[halpmeh]

The point is that iOS has always used a separate process for computing the GPU state. Android does this on the main thread, which is why Android feels like garbage. And I say this as a former Android developer. Animations on Android feel like peanut butter. They always will until they are moved off the main thread.

[incrudible]

No, it has not. If you talked to the GPU through OpenGL, you did it on the main thread. You pass all the state that you computed in that thread. Chances are you computed that state in that thread too.

There are some optimizations regarding e.g. scrolling being computed in a different thread/process (still on the CPU) before compositing (on the GPU) but that is not a requirement for smooth animation.

[vvanders]

That's not technically correct(which is always the best kind of correct :) ), HWUI has been multithreaded for quite a long while now. That doesn't prevent apps from doing bad things but it's been possible to do smooth animation on Android since the days of project butter.

[ricardobeat]

My low-end Android device disagrees. Eight cores @ 2.3ghz and _everything_ stutters, on a barebones OS with nothing installed.

Pixel phones fare a lot better, but I suspect it's just a result of their sheer processing power.

[halpmeh]

How do you animate on the HWUI thread?