Generally, Android as an operating system, places fewer restrictions and limitations on developers when compared to iOS and iPadOS. As a result, all features in Vista that are available on Desktop, have also been made available on Android devices. This means that smartphones and tablets built using Android, have access to Vista's full feature set.

However, the range of devices built using Android for the OS is extremely large with great diversity. Different devices have different components such as CPUs and GPUs, which results in different behaviours across the Android device range. On top of that, different manufacturers customize the operating system on their devices, by altering certain features and processes included in the base version of Android made available by Google. Consequently, the diversity in devices and capabilities in the Android universe, means that inevitably, certain features that work well in one device may not work at all in another.

Volume Viewer

In general, we have observed few issues when rendering Volumes on Android devices. On the Samsung Galaxy Devices that we have tested on (the 2024 range), volumes have been created and rendered with no issues observed. However, different Pixel phones have various GPUs resulting in different behaviours. For example, the Pixel 7A cannot render certain Linear Textures.

As covered in the WebGL & WebGPU section earlier, Vista makes use of the Web Graphics Library (WebGL) to render high-performance interactive 2D and 3D graphics directly within your browser. Critical extensions in WebGL require support for Linear Textures, for high-quality 3D graphics rendering in browsers. These devices are therefore likely to encounter issues when rendering Volumes in Vista.

If you notice Volumes created in the Volume Viewer profile do not appear in the Canvas, this is likely the reason. As this is probably a limitation due to hardware components, it is not a bug in Vista.

Full Browser Support - No Webkit

On a positive note, unlike in iOS and iPadOS, where developers are required to build browsers using Apple's Webkit, there are no such restrictions on Android. This means that the Google Chrome or Firefox on Android, are the true versions of themselves, capable of a lot more.

Google Chrome for example, tends to leverage the latest web standards. Your experience on these browsers on Android, is likely to be better than on their equivalents on iOS.