this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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It's not even an issue with java. Apps ran fine on the original Android devices with single core CPUs and half a gig of RAM or less. It's just that developers get lazier as more powerful hardware become available. Nobody cares about writing well optimized code anymore.
If Google and Apple required all apps to run smoothly on low end hardware from 5 years ago, we would be using our phones until the wear out rather than having to upgrade every couple of years if the batteries are replaceable.
Not sure why you get Apple into this. Apps on iOS have been natively compiled from the beginning and they are amazing at running stuff on older hardware. My current iPhone 12 Mini is over three years old and smoothly runs everything I throw at it. Before that I had a 2016 iPhone SE for about four years and only replaced it because I wanted something with a better camera (I'm a semi-professional photographer so I want something decent for when I see something cool and don't have my big camera with me). I gave the SE to my mom and she used it for another two years until she decided she needed a bigger screen. It probably still works and it got its last OS update just two months ago.
As long as you don't run something super hardware hungry, you can easily use an iPhone for at least five years without any problems. Even if the battery dies halfway through, there are lots of repair shops around that will replace it for a reasonable price in case you're not comfortable with opening up the phone on your own.
Software optimization is mostly not a language-level problem. I'll be dailying my 3-year-old OnePlus 9 Pro until it starts missing out on security updates, but it will probably still be "usable" long after that. Support/updates aside, my 6-year-old galaxy s9 can still run most normal apps. Hell, I got the most recent lineageOS running on a pixel 2 XL from the year before that and it straight up felt fast as long as I wasn't playing some super intensive game or something. This isn't an android vs. iOS problem, it's a "developers of [insert flashy new app here] either not bothering to put effort in to optimize their code or being forced to push out a minimum viable product ASAP" problem.
Edit: fixed my hyphen use
Well okay, but iOS is not FOSS while Android (AOSP) is
That‘s correct and indeed unfortunate but not what we were talking about.