Professional audio definition requirements for Android 6

In order for a device to advertise itself as professional audio capable in a way that the +Google Play​ Store or an application can be aware of, it will have to perform with an analog round-trip latency of 20 ms maximum.
A target of below 10 ms is recommended.

To give you a comparison point, iPhone and iPad are in between 6 and 10ms (for years)
A target of below 10 ms is what's commonly described as a requirement for real-time instrument sound processing as well as virtual instrument synthesis.

This is a new effort at encouraging the development of a music and pro audio ecosystem around the Android platform:

Nothing Google tried worked so far and Apple devices enjoy a quasi exclusivity on this segment as a result.
The thing is: Google doesn't tell manufacturers how to reach those low latencies. Qualcomm, the leading SoC provider doesn't know either.

Samsung tried something with a dedicated SDK implementing a JACK Linux audio based solution – bypassing AudioFlinger apparently but with mixed results: devs reported buffer underruns.
In consequence, we've seen no progress.

That's why while this new definition is a laudable initiative, it might not make any difference.

PS: Anyone with a +Nexus​ 5X or 6P wants to try to measure their round-trip audio latency?

Excellent find in the latest CDD, thanks to +Android Police​.

#supercurioBlog #audio #latency #API



Google Explains Requirements For ‘Professional Audio’ Devices In Android 6.0
Android has long had trouble with audio latency, which has made most music creation tools unworkable on the platform. Things were vastly improved in Androi… by Ryan Whitwam in Marshmallow 6.0, News

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François Simond

Mobile engineer & analyst specialized in, display, camera color calibration, audio tuning

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