Why do app updates make Android so slow?

[Christmas themed thank]

I've used a bunch of Android phones over the last couple of years and on nearly all of them, when apps are updating or installing, there is a notable slowdown in the phone's performance. On some phones it makes the OS completely unusable.

Why is this?

 

[Orcvader]

Heavy writing to the storage. I don't notice this on phones with fast storage, but it was a killer on my brother's old Xperia SP. What phones have you had?

 

[boxman2000]

Never noticed this on any phone I've owned (current phone is MotoG 3rd Gen 2GB)

 

[Fubsy]

Have never noticed on the past 4 nexus phones I've owned, however the Nexus 7 (2012) and Nexus 9 are god awful when they start to update, I find myself refusing to use tem while they update.

 

[Christmas themed thank]

Heavy writing to the storage. I don't notice this on phones with fast storage, but it was a killer on my brother's old Xperia SP. What phones have you had?

A ridiculous number - kona knows

I've noticed it on:

Sony Xperia Z3
Vodafone Smart ultra 7
Vodafone Smart platinum 7
Tesco hudl2
OnePlus X
OnePlus One
Nexus 7 2013

It does not occur on the OnePlus 3, that was the first thing I noticed about it.

 

[Christmas themed thank]

Well this explains why the Smart ultra 7 slows to a crawl then?

 

[Raumarik]

My galaxy S4 is bad for this,I just don't bother using it when updating, convinced it being fully encrypted doesn't help though.

 

[marc2003]

Well this explains why the Smart ultra 7 slows to a crawl then?

My Smart Ultra 6 is a fair bit faster than that.

 

[Orcvader]

Is that read or write? But yes that is extremely slow for internal storage .

 

[marc2003]

The "sw" label in the top left stands for sequential write.

 

[neil_g]

cant say my oneplus 1 was slower during update than my oneplus 3 is now to be fair.

 

[Christmas themed thank]

So the Smart ultra 7 is basically a real downgrade from the ultra 6 then. I guess it runs Android 6 which is nice though.