It's a Mess
One of the reasons I gravitated towards using an iPhone over an Android was a perception that Apple sweats the details that others will miss. I haven’t been disappointed. These items will never make for an exciting commercial but small things like touch sensitivity, storage speed, and even audio lag are all better on Apple’s iPhone.
But I had no idea how bad the state of affairs is in The World of Android when it comes to audio. The iOS community has a vibrant and growing group of musicians and developers who are taking music and communications to a whole new level. But on Android? Not so much. Writing for TheNextWeb, Patrick Vlaskovits laments the problems and cites a potential opportunity to finally fix Android audio.
Android suffers from a persistent 10ms audio lag that affects every app that uses audio. Virtual instrument apps, VR apps, VOIP apps, voice assistants, and karaoke apps.
While iOS and iDevices are found on stage at music festivals and in recording studios in Hollywood, thanks to the thriving pro audio ecosystem replete with software and hardware add-ons such as audio effects to mics to guitar pedals to MIDI controllers and sound cards; high audio lag on Android prevents the very existence of an equivalent ecosystem on Android. It just doesn’t exist.
Historically, Apple’s Mac OSX has been the standard for pro audio, so Apple’s version of the USB Audio Class implementation has become the industry standard. Which is why USB audio hardware manufacturers produce chips and firmware to be fully compatible with Apple.
Apple has ported its USB Audio implementation to iOS as well, therefore iOS has good support for USB Audio. But Android’s native USB Audio support is poor, virtually non-existent. Meaning that USB audio is available on only a handful of Android devices. To get around this, OEMs connect to USB audio via Linux USB audio (as Android has Linux under the hood). But Linux USB functionality is not even close to Apple’s.
Without well-designed, universal USB support on Android, Android users will experience worse audio quality and greater fragmentation problems as Android OEMs switch from the 3.5mm headphone jack to USB-C. Does that pair of USB headphones work for Lenovo and Samsung too? Or just Xiaomi devices? How about on Sony’s Xperia line?
Bluetooth? No, Virginia, Bluetooth is not going to save us either.
The currently available Bluetooth enabled audio devices virtually guarantee high audio lag and mediocre audio quality, thanks to the commonly implemented Bluetooth standard versions (below 4.0). If you use a Bluetooth headset for Skype, then you’ve added around 0.2 seconds latency to the audio chain.--Patrick Vlaskovits
Now available in iBooks ---> The Tesla Bubble
Android suffers from a persistent 10ms audio lag that affects every app that uses audio. Virtual instrument apps, VR apps, VOIP apps, voice assistants, and karaoke apps.
While iOS and iDevices are found on stage at music festivals and in recording studios in Hollywood, thanks to the thriving pro audio ecosystem replete with software and hardware add-ons such as audio effects to mics to guitar pedals to MIDI controllers and sound cards; high audio lag on Android prevents the very existence of an equivalent ecosystem on Android. It just doesn’t exist.
Historically, Apple’s Mac OSX has been the standard for pro audio, so Apple’s version of the USB Audio Class implementation has become the industry standard. Which is why USB audio hardware manufacturers produce chips and firmware to be fully compatible with Apple.
Apple has ported its USB Audio implementation to iOS as well, therefore iOS has good support for USB Audio. But Android’s native USB Audio support is poor, virtually non-existent. Meaning that USB audio is available on only a handful of Android devices. To get around this, OEMs connect to USB audio via Linux USB audio (as Android has Linux under the hood). But Linux USB functionality is not even close to Apple’s.
Without well-designed, universal USB support on Android, Android users will experience worse audio quality and greater fragmentation problems as Android OEMs switch from the 3.5mm headphone jack to USB-C. Does that pair of USB headphones work for Lenovo and Samsung too? Or just Xiaomi devices? How about on Sony’s Xperia line?
Bluetooth? No, Virginia, Bluetooth is not going to save us either.
The currently available Bluetooth enabled audio devices virtually guarantee high audio lag and mediocre audio quality, thanks to the commonly implemented Bluetooth standard versions (below 4.0). If you use a Bluetooth headset for Skype, then you’ve added around 0.2 seconds latency to the audio chain.--Patrick Vlaskovits
Now available in iBooks ---> The Tesla Bubble
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