MOBILESoft 2023
Mon 15 - Tue 16 May 2023 Melbourne, Australia
co-located with ICSE 2023
Mon 15 May 2023 15:45 - 16:10 at Meeting Room 111 - Session 4 Chair(s): Xiaoyu Sun

Context. Many Internet content platforms, such as Spotify and YouTube, provide their services via both native and Web apps. Even though those apps provide similar features to the end user, using their native version or Web counterpart might lead to different levels of energy consumption and performance.

Goal. The goal of this study is to empirically assess the energy consumption and performance of native and Web apps in the context of Internet content platforms on Android.

Method. We select 10 Internet content platforms across 5 categories. Then, we measure them based on the energy consumption, network traffic volume, CPU load, memory load, and frame time of their native and Web versions; then, we statistically analyze the collected measures and report our results.

Results. We confirm that native apps consume significantly less energy than their Web counterparts, with large effect size. Web apps use more CPU and memory, with statistically significant difference and large effect size. Therefore, we conclude that native apps tend to require fewer hardware resources than their corresponding Web versions. The network traffic volume exhibits statistically significant difference in favour of native apps, with small effect size. Our results do not allow us to draw any conclusion in terms of frame time.

Conclusions. Based on our results, we advise users to access Internet contents using native apps over Web apps, when possible. Also, the results of this study motivate further research on the optimization of the usage of runtime resources of mobile Web apps and Android browsers.

Mon 15 May

Displayed time zone: Hobart change

15:45 - 17:15
Session 4Research Track / Tools and Datasets at Meeting Room 111
Chair(s): Xiaoyu Sun Australian National University, Australia
15:45
25m
Paper
Native vs Web Apps: Comparing the Energy Consumption and Performance of Android Apps and their Web Counterparts
Research Track
Ruben Horn Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Abdellah Lahnaoui Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Edgardo Reinoso Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Sicheng Peng Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Vadim Isakov Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Tanjina Islam Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Ivano Malavolta Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Pre-print
16:10
15m
Paper
Ebserver: Automating Resource-Usage Data Collection of Android Applications
Tools and Datasets
Wellington de Oliveira Júnior University of Lisbon, Bernardo de Moraes Santana Júnior , Fernando Castor Utrecht University & Federal University of Pernambuco, João Paulo Fernandes LIACC, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
16:25
40m
Talk
Leaders Forum Talk - Discovering Requirements Using the App Store: when automation is not enough
Research Track
Paola Spoletini Kennesaw State University
17:05
10m
Talk
Q&A
Research Track