A Trace-based Precompile Method for Improving the Response Times of Android Applications

Abstract

Recently, to improve the user response times of Android applications, several studies have been proposed to combine the idea of Ahead-of-Time compilation into Dalvik virtual machine, which uses Just-in-Time compilation. The studies, however, require modifications of the Dalvik executables of target applications, thus are difficult to be adopted for legacy applications already deployed. This paper proposes a JITwP(JIT with Precompile) technique that precompiles hot traces at application launch time with no modification of the Dalvik executable. It improves the user response times of target applications by providing precompile hints prepared offline. Our experimental results demonstrate a 4% improvement in terms of execution time for the Web browser application.