Evaluating impact of cross-platform frameworks in energy consumption of mobile applications

WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014

Evaluating impact of cross-platform frameworks

in energy consumption of mobile application

Matteo Ciman and Ombretta GaggiDepartment of Mathematics

University of Padua, Italy{mciman, gaggi}@math.unipd.it

WEBIST14 – 10th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies

Smartphones equipment

Smartphones equipped with ample set of sensors

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Mobile Sensing

Data from sensors used for several purposes Activity recognition Mobile healthcare Augmented reality

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Mobile sensing problem Acquire and use data from smartphone sensors

consumes energy Higher precision requires more data Users always request longer battery life

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Smartphone application development

Market fragmentation => higher costs to support all mobile platforms

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Cross-platform frameworks Idea: write a single application in a framework

specific language that is after build into application for the different target platforms

4 different approaches: Web, Hybrid, Interpreted and Cross Compiled

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Web Approach

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Web Approach - 2

+ No installation+ Easy update+ User interface reusable across platforms

No access to app store Network delays and reduced performances Difficult to testWEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 8 of 22

Hybrid Approach

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Hybrid Approach - 2

+ Store access+ Use of device features

Reduced performances No native look and feel

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Interpreted Approach

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+ Store access+ Native look and feel+ Available API for smartphone features access

Reduced performances

Interpreted Approach - 2

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Cross compiled approach

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+ Store access+ Native look and feel+ All smartphones features accessible

No reusable user interface Difficulties in code conversion and application

build

Cross compiled Approach - 2

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Analysis objectives Analyze energy consumption of mobile

applications which acquire data from different sensors Accelerometer Compass Microphone GPS Camera

Compare the native solution with a cross-platform application

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Related works Other authors already explored energy

consumption in smartphones Thompson et al. proposes a model-driven

methodology (SPOT, System Power Optimization Tool) to estimate energy consumption before app development

AppScope (Yoon et al.) is an Android energy metering system which estimate the usage of hardware components

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Study setup

Monsoon Power Monitor

Information about «Energy consumption», «Average current and power», «Expected battery life» etc.

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Study setup - 2 Tested application: native, Phonegap (Hybrid

Approach) and Appcelerator Titanium (Interpreted Approach)

Data acquisition at different sampling rates (when possible)

Test smartphone: Samsung Galaxy i9250 (battery capacity: 1750mAh)

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Applications

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Native Application Phonegap Application Titanium Application

Results

Native PhoneGap TitaniumSensor Consumed

Energy(mAh)

D (%) Consumed Energy(mAh)

D (%) Consumed Energy(mAh)

D (%)

Only App 7705,54 +27,42% 8130,85 +34,45% 7860,97 +29,99%Accelerometer 9179,99 +51,80% 12849,82 +112,49% 11972,16* +97,97%*Compass 9489,85 +56,93% 12124,6 +100,50% - -Microphone (Rec)

8120,92 +34,29% 8404,71 +38,98% - -

GPS 9301,48 +53,81% 9947,60 +64,50% 9577,27 +58,37%Camera 21857,38 +261,44% 22347,52 +269,54% 22576,45 +273,33%

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Table 1. Energy consumption comparison between native applications and apps developed with a framework for cross-platform development.

Energy consumption without running applications: 6047,31 mAh

Results - 2

Consumed energy increase (%)

Sensor 60ms 150ms 300ms 500ms

Accelerometer +112,49% +70,06% +49,48% +40,25%

Compass +100,50% +75,31% +52,92% +46,62%

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Table 2. Consumed energy using different sampling frequencies to capture data with Phonegap

Conclusions Energy consumption comparison between native

and cross-platform developed applications Results useful to choose the right framework to

develop an application Actually, cross-platform frameworks use more

energy that reduce user experience and acceptance

Compared together, Phonegap requires less energy Future works: study HTML5 (in this case the

browser becomes important) and other frameworks

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WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014

Evaluating impact of cross-platform frameworks

in energy consumption of mobile application

Matteo Ciman and Ombretta GaggiDepartment of Mathematics

University of Padua, Italy{mciman, gaggi}@math.unipd.it

WEBIST14 – 10th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies