Android 16 is the next big OS update for Android devices which is said to be released in June this year. According to a report, it will bring a new feature aimed at making app installation faster. Dubbed Cloud Compilation, it targets low-end devices and offloads app compilations to the cloud, eliminating the need of running the dex2oat tool and making the process faster. This is said to prove beneficial when installing apps that have a lot of code to compile, which may put strain on the handset’s chipset.
Cloud Compilation in Android 16
Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman shed light on Android 16’s new feature in a report. The OS usually leverages Android Runtime (ART) to execute the application’s code. It starts with the dex2oat tool which converts the .dex files containing the app’s bytecode into artifacts — files or directories produced by the Android Gradle plugin during the build.
These can help in several ways: speeding up the bytecode verification, contain pre-compiled code for methods, or have ART internal representations of certain strings or classes to improve the app startup speeds.
On high-end devices, these artifacts can be generated quickly courtesy of flagship processors under the hood. However, the low-end devices in the market often struggle due to less capable chipsets or memory bandwidth issues. This is where Android 16’s Cloud Compilation feature comes in.
The report suggests that instead of generating application artifacts on-device using the handset’s processor, it simply imports the (Secure Dex Metadata) SDM file containing the pre-compiled versions of the artifacts from the Google Play Store. The files are said to be signed with the same key as the APK. This method helps bypass the need of running the dex2oat tool, reducing the dependency on the phone’s chipset for app installation and speeding up the process entirely.
However, the feature isn’t activated yet. As per the report, Google is required to configure its Play Store to generate application artifacts using dex2oat and provide them at the time of the APK installation on devices running Android 16.
