why is android a problem

JohnMFord · May 10, 2017

It was never my intention to cause friction or animosity, and it seems as if we could be headed in that direction. If I am wrong, I apologize. I started this thread simply to find out if I would ever be able to buy a Mavic without having to also purchase an Apple product. I seemed to have sparked somewhat of a controversy. Not my intention. Thanks.

johnf

geigy · May 10, 2017

I've programmed Apple and Android professionally. The issue is not that Android is less stable, or harder to program. There are more tools for Android and more languages available. Making a guess, I think it's that Apple is spearheading the software for DJI, and the first stringers are gravitating to the IOS platform.

The smart people at a company are very, very good at getting on the better projects because they do excellent work and have more options. At DJI, programming the IOS front end is, in my opinion, a better project than programming Android, where you are always playing catch-up with the IOS team.

Do I know this for sure? No. Just my guess from working in the industry for companies similar to this one.

JohnMFord · May 10, 2017

well, I guess I have my answer. No Mavic for me till Android is stable. DARN!

geigy · May 10, 2017

Android will be more stable at some point. Just not yet.

Certain Android tablets are reported to run very stably, including the Acer Iconia. I almost got one instead of the iPad 4, but it was too easy to just drop into the Apple Store near where I live.

The links below are courtesy of cruisingoffduty on youtube.

Acer Iconia 10.1" Tablet
Canada - Amazon.ca: acer iconia 10: Electronics
USA -Amazon.com: acer iconia 10
UK - Amazon.co.uk: Acer iconia 10.

coullit · May 11, 2017

Android phones work fine with litchi and goapp, I have 2 and have no problems , make sir etch phone has good ram and sufficient memory...

geigy · May 11, 2017

coullit said:
Android phones work fine with litchi and goapp, I have 2 and have no problems , make sir etch phone has good ram and sufficient memory...

Which phone do you use?

Oglo · Jun 14, 2017

This is from a post of mine over on the DJI Form, it may help some:

I don't have any of these problems on a HTC. Sorry to hear about all of yours. Maybe you are already doing it, but I do the following -

# In Android control panel(settings), go to battery settings and turn on battery optimisation of all apps, this is designed to extend battery by killing background apps starting up, optimising/killing them. Optimise all apps, but then un-optimise DJI GO. It has the advantage of killing unnecessary background apps starting up while you are flying. You only have to do this once, checking occasionally that new apps or updates haven't changed this setting.
Before each flight session:
# In Android control panel go to Storage, select the internal storage, and clean/delete cache. * Do this before caching your satellite view (if using) in DJI GO4.
# Always run in airplane mode. Explicitly turn off WiFi & cell data as well.
# Get an App task killer like AVG, always kill as many/all apps before starting DJI Go.(make sure you don't set off a scan while doing this)
# Close every open App.(this is different to killing apps)
# Turn on GPS after doing above.
# once your phone is clean of other apps and empty cache, start up RC then DJI GO.

Good luck

ElPocho · Jun 15, 2017

geigy said:
Apple owns 1/3 of DJI, and has a hand in the hardware and software design. It's why everything is so beautiful and works so well.

This means that if you work for DJI, you want to be on the IOS team programming Apple devices. The big guns - the really smart programmers - are either working on the Mavic software, or they are going to be programming IOS. Android has the second stringers, and is always playing catch-up. This is not due to Android being flaky - for example the maps are better for android (cacheable maps). Maybe some day, Android will finally catch up, and be more stable, but until that happens an Apple device is definitely the way to go, IMHO.

There's another irony, which is that the Mavic is itself an Android device.

Where do you get the idea Apple owns a part of Mavic? I'm a longtime shareholder and have never seen anything on the books or annual reports. Apple entered a partnership with DJI to purchase commercial drones for their mapping efforts. They also entered a partnership with Parrot. These had to be disclosed in their SEC filings.

A DJI executive (not sure of his exact position) said in an article that DJI research shows that a majority of their customers are Apple users. DJI has made no secret they want to be the Apple of drones. Like a few people in this thread have said it is much harder to program for an OS when you can't account for all the components on different phones, not to mention OS fragmentation.

geigy · Jun 15, 2017

That's the standard Apple criticism, not just of android, but of Windows and Linux, that because these operating systems support heterogeneous hardware they are inherently more difficult to program for. Doesn't hold water, in my opinion, and I've developed professionally on Mac, Windows, and Linux, and dabbled with Android.

I may very well be mistaken about Apple owning 1/3 of dji. I heard it while yacking with another developer who impressed me as a reliable sort, but I have not been able to find a reference on the web, or otherwise substantiate it. I'll ask next time I see the guy, perhaps, at the park where I do most of my flying.

I think we probably agree that Apple products are cooler than Android products, and that I think is part of why IOS is the more stable platform regarding DJI products. Smart people jockeying for position to work on the more interesting and glitzy stuff.

Brojon · Jun 15, 2017

Gp™ said:
In french... " chaqu'un sa merde". As you are an android lover, dji prefers apple than android. So what?

That would be true if the Apple products matched features, but it is my understanding several Android features are missing in teh IOS app. (radar comes to mind for some reason)

Brojon · Jun 15, 2017

GerdS said:
DJI is a good hardware designer and manufacturor but not the world's best programmers. So both GO apps for Android have a memory leak which causes the RAM to fill up, leading to lagging and often frezzing of the whole device.
I am still hoping that the development of Android-based CrystalSky monitors will enforce DJI to put more effort onto fixing this long and well known memory leak, or if they continue with failing, DJI will hire experienced Android developers for doing the fix.

This I can check out. Makes perfect sense from a developer's point of view (which I am). I will run some analysis on memory usage and see what I can find out. I know DJI has pulled the S7 from their list of supported devices supposedly because Samsung won't fix something. Then other folks point the finger at Android Nougat since they have the same issues on other devices.

geigy · Jun 15, 2017

Brojon said:
That would be true if the Apple products matched features, but it is my understanding several Android features are missing in teh IOS app. (radar comes to mind for some reason)

Yes, there are a couple of things like that. The simulator on Android has something resembling an FPS mode, while the IOS one does not, radar is fancier, and maps were better (before being moved off of google maps).

Jamison74 · Jun 15, 2017

In my opinion this is why it works better on iOS.

When the DJI & Apple partnership was announced there was talk of "exclusive content and advanced features". DJI Ground Staion Pro comes to mind.
But just to be clear it was a partnership, not a merger or acquisition. I have never seen anything about Apple owning any % of DJI.

jimmybbq · Jun 17, 2017

normr said:
That's exactly it, Android is such a hodgepodge mess depending on the manufacturer, model, processor, and because of all these subtle differences it's very difficult to write a program that can be counted on to be stabile whereas with iOS, one company (Apple) manufacturers the hardware and the operating system software, there isn't this problem trying to figure out how the hardware and software is going to react, in other words, less guesswork.

Right on the money. You can't compare one company's products to dozens of companies products.. it's not "android", it's all the different phone and tablet manufacturers. On top of that a lot of those manufacturers change architecture with each release and if that's not bad enough, some companies put their own software on top of android. As for me, my Nexus and Shield work perfectly fine.

Kilrah · Jun 17, 2017

Brojon said:
This I can check out. Makes perfect sense from a developer's point of view (which I am). I will run some analysis on memory usage and see what I can find out.

It's not a memory leak, on devices where the app crashes after a while it's usually the device throttling down becasue of excess heat, causing the app to crash becasue it can't keep up with what it has to do anymore.
A lot of android devices boast crazy specs, but actually can't thermally sustain running at full blast for more than a few minutes straight. Of course that's never mentioned or tested for.

optiplex · Jun 19, 2017

i never had issue in android 6 with dji go, 3 and 4
only issue was in android 7, and on latest go 4 update they fixed that
all other 3rd party software works prefect in android

GerdS · Jun 19, 2017

Kilrah said:
It's not a memory leak, on devices where the app crashes after a while it's usually the device throttling down becasue of excess heat, causing the app to crash becasue it can't keep up with what it has to do anymore.
A lot of android devices boast crazy specs, but actually can't thermally sustain running at full blast for more than a few minutes straight. Of course that's never mentioned or tested for.

Maybe true for some devices but not all, even high-end phones.
I often have experienced that after GO4 has crashed the phone is slowly recovering to normal operation, by restarting the launcher and slowly redrawing app symbols. This can take up to maybe 30 seconds. This behaviour amplifies my estimation about a memory leak.