ANDROID 4.4 KITKAT: HOW OS has been optimized for 512 OF RAM

After improving the fluidity of the interface of its mobile OS from Jelly Bean with Project Butter, Google then deployed a new version of Android 4.4 name KitKat rotatable with only 512 MB ​​of RAM. This improvement also name Project Slender, including engineering manager of Google's mobile OS, Dave Burke, today we explain all the technical aspects.

To carry out Project Slender, teams used a Google Nexus 4 they have virtually reduced to 512 MB ​​RAM and a screen resolution of 960 x 540 pixels in order to upgrade to a device input range.

How Google Android 4.4 optimized for KitKat 512 Ram


To optimize Android 4.4 KitKat to 512MB Ram, engineers were first isolated each Google App to define their consumption of Ram. They then developed a tool called ProcStats to determine the amount of memory required by each application and process with the aim of:

1. Limit consumption of system memory
2. Reduce the consumption of Ram each application performed by Nexus devices
3. Correct the behavior and potential crashes each application when the memory becomes too low
4. Provide a better measure developers Ram consumption of each application system

KitKat fully functional Android on Nexus One.

And it is after this stage that the Nexus 4 downgraded to 512 MB ​​RAM, a lower screen resolution, speed calculation downgraded and only two CPU cores running came into play, serving as a reference for the development of Project Slender which, thanks to a reduction requested by the system and Google apps resources has enabled the firm to provide a fully functional Android 4.4 KitKat 512 MB ​​of Ram.

A giant step towards eliminating fragmentation as the OS already running unofficially on the Nexus One and could turn on any entry level with at least 512 MB ​​RAM device, although unfortunately this progress is for the theoretical time.