Thank You for referencing this work, if you find it useful! Reference/Citation: M. Ciman, O. Gaggi: "Evaluating impact of cross-platform frameworks in energy consumption of mobile applications", In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST14), Barcelona, Spain, April 2014.

1. WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014
Evaluating impact of
cross-platform frameworks
in energy consumption
of mobile application
Matteo Ciman and Ombretta Gaggi
Department of Mathematics
University of Padua, Italy
{mciman, gaggi}@math.unipd.it
WEBIST14 – 10th International
Conference on Web Information
Systems and Technologies

2. Smartphones equipment
Smartphones equipped with ample set of sensors
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 2 of 22

3. Mobile Sensing
 Data from sensors used for several purposes
 Activity recognition
 Mobile healthcare
 Augmented reality
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 3 of 22

4. Mobile sensing problem
 Acquire and use data from smartphone sensors
consumes energy
 Higher precision requires more data
 Users always request longer battery life
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 4 of 22

5. Smartphone application development
 Market fragmentation => higher costs to support
all mobile platforms
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 5 of 22

6. 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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7. Web Approach
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8. Web Approach - 2
+ No installation
+ Easy update
+ User interface reusable across platforms
- No access to app store
- Network delays and reduced performances
- Difficult to test
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 8 of 22

9. Hybrid Approach
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 9 of 22

10. Hybrid Approach - 2
+ Store access
+ Use of device features
- Reduced performances
- No native look and feel
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11. Interpreted Approach
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12. + Store access
+ Native look and feel
+ Available API for smartphone features access
- Reduced performances
Interpreted Approach - 2
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13. Cross compiled approach
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14. + 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
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 14 of 22

15. 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
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 15 of 22

16. 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
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 16 of 22

17. Study setup
Monsoon Power Monitor
Information about «Energy consumption», «Average
current and power», «Expected battery life» etc.
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 17 of 22

18. 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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19. Applications
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Native Application Phonegap Application Titanium Application

20. Results
Native PhoneGap Titanium
Sensor 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%
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 20 of 22
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

21. 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%
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 21 of 22
Table 2. Consumed energy using different sampling frequencies to capture data with
Phonegap

22. 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
WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014 22 of 22

23. WEBIST14, Barcelona, 4 April 2014
Evaluating impact of
cross-platform frameworks
in energy consumption
of mobile application
Matteo Ciman and Ombretta Gaggi
Department of Mathematics
University of Padua, Italy
{mciman, gaggi}@math.unipd.it
WEBIST14 – 10th International
Conference on Web Information
Systems and Technologies