Ask any room of developers if smooth UI matters—unanimous agreement. So why are Instagram, Twitter, and Slack still shipping apps that stutter on scroll?
The Feature Trap. Ship now, optimize later. Except “later” never comes because there’s always another feature.
The Green Line
Android gives you 16 milliseconds to render each frame. Hit 60fps or drop frames.
The Profile GPU Rendering overlay makes this visible: bars below the green line are smooth, bars above are jank. Bars way above? Frozen frames—700ms of “why is this app broken.”
Audit the major apps against this line. Instagram spikes wildly. Twitter can’t handle a profile scroll. Meanwhile, Google Maps—arguably more complex—stays butter smooth.
The difference isn’t resources. It’s priorities.
Jank is MVP
The industry obsesses over “Minimum” and forgets “Viable.”
A functional app that frustrates users isn’t viable. Allo worked as a messenger—nobody used it. Features without polish are features without retention.
Performance isn’t a luxury you add after launch. It’s a core product requirement. Users feel jank before they understand it—they just know something’s wrong.
The Business Case
- 16ms stutter: user doesn’t notice
- 700ms frozen frame: user perceives a broken app
- Jank-free apps see ~2% higher ad CTR and ~15% higher retention
Milliseconds have dollar values.
The Fix
Test on mid-range devices. Developing on flagships hides the debt. The average user isn’t running a Pixel; they’re running whatever was on sale. If it stutters on a $200 phone, it stutters for most of your users.
Use the tools. Android Profiler and Systrace exist for a reason. Sit down with them before you ship.
Automate the audit. Script touch interactions over 8 hours. Find the regressions before your users do.