- Android 16 now supports cloud compilation, a new feature that could speed up new app installs.
- The goal of cloud compilation is to avoid running the dex2oat tool during app installations by offloading compilation to the cloud.
- Dex2oat takes an APK file and generates app artifact files that the Android Runtime loads. Depending on the device and the amount of code to compile, this could take some time.
It looks like the ART (Android Runtime) JIT is playing an increasingly less important role with time.
Friendly reminder that the cloud is just someone else’s computer.
That’s not going to work too well when you’re offline
Oh no? We’ve had browser storage and cached web apps for twenty years now. The technology exists and could be improved, if we stopped forcing everything to be a native app.
I mean, honestly, most “native” apps are webviews displaying cached content. Clearly we can make it happen, it just needs to be more discoverable and have smoother integration.
So you’re just reimplementing the current model but with the extra layer of a browser in between. Installing a PWA is the same as installing a native app, except instead of running it directly you also have to have a browser installed to run it. It’s adding a significant amount of complexity for no good reason. Browsers are huge attack targets.
No, I’m removing the layer of the native code that launches whatever flavor of Electron they’re running under the hood in favor of the browser and webview that’s already installed on your device (or whatever other one you’re interested in switching to).
…which literally every single mobile device already has. Seriously, you can’t uninstall webview if you wanted to.
Plus, you only have to install one browser for the entire system, Come on. You can’t honestly believe that the dozens of reproduced copies of the same codebases that live on your phone right now are a good use of your phone’s storage or memory.
I don’t know what complexity you think it’s adding. It’s removing a bunch of native code, and replacing it with web-standard code that (in the case of most apps) was already written for the native app anyway, or at least was written for the web app.
Ever wanted to mod an app? If it was a web app running in a browser, you could. Would you like to use ad blockers on the YouTube app? Or use a userscript to hide stories about a particular person? Or automate the function of one of your apps? With native code you can’t. With web apps you can. Web apps are more accessible, they adhere to published standards, they’re not as heavy on your operating system, they’re more resistant to privacy-siphoning attacks and surveillance, they’re more easily able to share code…and, to be honest, they’re also easier to develop. The only reason for corpos not to do this is because it gives the user power that they would rather be able to sell to the user instead.
Security is not improved by forcing users to switch to native apps. For one thing, most companies’ apps already are web apps; if they’re not already hardened, wrapping them in native code and putting them in the Play Store or App Store won’t magically make them more secure, because decompiling native apps and sniffing API endpoints is still a thing. Also, it could be argued that browsers are more resistant to security issues, since you can patch them once and mitigate certain vulnerabilities in every app without waiting for developers to ship a fix.