Many factors in mobile application development can contribute to the app’s performance and efficiency. Mobile phones, unlike traditional web devices, have limited bandwidth and battery life, which means that the apps designed for mobile networks will have greater responsiveness if planned to maximize efficiency within those constraints. The difficulty lies in determining what changes should be made to a particular application’s architecture to increase optimization.
To help boost app efficiency, AT&T has released the Application Resource Optimizer (ARO), a free diagnostic tool that can help developers significantly enhance their apps’ performance, network impact, and battery utilization on all wireless carriers. ARO consists of a Data Collector and a Data Analyzer that assesses an application to determine the recommendations that will maximize efficiency and waste less battery life and data.
ARO first uses the Data Collector feature to gather information about the application, including data usage and traffic. Additionally, the collector gathers data on GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, the camera, and other features that drain the battery, then generates a video of the device’s screen.
The app traces are then analyzed in the Data Analyzer, which helps the developer interpret the detailed results generated from the Data Collector. The traces are evaluated to determine how the app is handling caching and how the radio and network resources are being managed in the application. The results are then compared against the best practices guidelines determined by the AT&T Developer Program to determine which areas need to be improved.
AT&T ARO will measure and analyze applications’ energy usage, so that they work fluidly with network architecture and lower level protocols that are typically hidden from developers. By utilizing simple design improvements, the developer can drastically improve app efficiency and the user experience.
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