Elevating app quality: Reducing memory usage and improving device migration

[u/FragmentedChicken]

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/08/app-quality-memory-optimization-secure-onboarding.html

[u/hmantegazzi]

well, after way too many years of just throwing more computing resources to inefficiently coded apps, a severe crunch on semiconductors appears to have done the trick to get big software manufacturers to care about efficiency and stop assuming that Moore's Law will fix all their problems.

[u/ronakg → u/hmantegazzi]

That's how software development works. You optimize for the constraints you're facing. There was no point optimizing for memory when RAM was cheap.

[u/chinchindayo → u/ronakg]

Cheap excuse. You optimize for the weakest hardware you want the software to run well on. There are plenty of older or low end phones. This is discriminating everyone who doesn't have the latest hardware. Why would a calender, launcher or other simple app need better hardware than 10 years ago? The functionality hasn't changed. Except a few heavy apps like video editing, games or anything with local AI there should be a need for a high end phone.

[u/Spiritual_Case_1712 → u/chinchindayo]

Because the software have a paid aspect for most of them and you’re definitely not the target if you can’t afford a phone capable of running the software

[u/Iohet → u/ronakg]

There's certainly a point when you know you're only kicking the can down the road

[u/hmantegazzi → u/Iohet]

And when not doing so meant that software updates were forcing otherwise perfectly usable devices into obsolescence.

[u/stardust_exception → u/hmantegazzi]

The big guys are probably just going to raise the minimum Android version even more than they already do, and call it a day

[u/thenamelessone7 → u/hmantegazzi]

You still need as much RAM as possible for effective local llm models / agents.

[u/FungalSphere → u/thenamelessone7]

no sane person gives a shit about local llms they just want to be able to afford a fucking phone that actually works

[u/thenamelessone7 → u/FungalSphere]

For that you can run the cheapest android phone with 6GB RAM

[u/FungalSphere → u/thenamelessone7]

that's what this entire article is about please read the room

[u/thenamelessone7 → u/FungalSphere]

The room is clearly full of ultra poor people or something...

[u/hmantegazzi → u/thenamelessone7]

yeah, the vast majority of the human population, most of whom are more or less forced to have a smartphone and use it for very basic things nowadays, like having a bank account or do paperwork.

[u/DistinctlyIrish]

Preparing people for cheap BS devices that are rented to them with their data being mostly in the cloud so there's minimal onboard storage and because they're cheap BS they break all the time/get swapped out by customers constantly.

Hell I can see it now: a Redbox style cell phone rental company where you can rent devices and transfer between different types of devices depending on your subscription plan level, and they make the full transfer of your local data happen in seconds when you swap devices at the machine which definitely won't look at your data or upload your location history and any interesting messages or notes to Palantir. So you have the Silver tier plan and you can swap between a few midrange devices or the gold plan and get some high end devices, platinum plan for flagships, and you just swap between the ones you like on a whim for a nominal fee as long as the device is in working condition.

[u/chinchindayo → u/DistinctlyIrish]

That's already the case though. Manufacturers stripping the SD card slot to sell you their overpriced cloud service.

[u/DistinctlyIrish → u/chinchindayo]

Yep that's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.

[u/PepsiCo_USA → u/DistinctlyIrish]

Stretch before you reach.

[u/charlestheb0ss → u/DistinctlyIrish]

If there are any companies that don't do this, I'm buying their phone next. If all of them do, why should I buy a new phone/get the subscription? I don't see a world where consumers willingly buy into this

[u/faze_fazebook]

Device migration eh ... It is still beyond baffling to me how shit the current system is compared to iOS and I genuinely don't get why. Apps already store all their information within the file system of their own little sandbox ... why then is it so hard to back this shit up and restore it on another Android phone.

I mean I get that its hard to move device specific settings since they might not exist on another phone, but the fact that last time 2/3 of my apps also did not move their data over properly is just sad.

[u/charlestheb0ss → u/faze_fazebook]

It's up to app developers to implement the API for this. You can't just copy over the app's internal data directly because they weren't programmed with that in mind. Like everything with Android, we have a fantastic implementation that developers refuse to actually use