Impacts of Java Language Features on the Memory Performances of Android Apps

Authors

Yoonsik Cheon, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Adriana Escobar De La Torre, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

9-2017

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-17-84

Abstract

Android apps are written in Java, but unlike Java applications they are resource-constrained in storage capacity and battery lifetime. In this document, we perform an experiment to measure quantitatively the impact of Java language and standard API features on the memory efficiency of Android apps. We focus on garbage collection because it is a critical process for performance affecting user experience. We learned that even Java language constructs and standard application programming interfaces (APIs) may be a source of a performance problem causing a significant memory overhead for Android apps. Any critical section of code needs to be scrutinized on the use of these Java features.