Finish old activity and start a new one or vice versa

Question

I know, that I get the same result with both code snippets

finish(); startActivity(newActivity); 

and

startActivity(newActivity); finish(); 

I'd like to know your opinion, if there is a big difference between them. Is one better than the other? If so, why?

Answer 1

When you do startActivity(), all that does is post your intent in a queue of events. The actual starting of the activity happens asynchronously in the near future. So I don't see a big difference between the two.

Answer 2

The animation is clearly different (at least on 4.1 onwards). Calling finish() first starts to fade away the first activity earlier and you can briefly see a black background before the new activity fades in. Calling startActivity() first fades in the new activity on top of the old one and the black background is not visible.