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As of Android 5, there is only ART, which is no different than using Go, D, or any other AOT compiled language with a GC enabled runtime.

Also many Scopes are actually written in either JavaScript, or QML with C++ and Go as possible code-behind languages.

https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/scopes/

So overall the runtime requirements aren't much different, unless you are writing a pure Qt/C++ scope (without QML).

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Ah well, I guess I'll stay with Android for the time being then. I hope they meant to introduce Scopes as a stopgap measure to bridge the app divide to Android and iOS. I don't like this trend of newer (Android) apps needing 20-50MB downloads, and being so bloated for what they actually do.

> I don't like this trend of newer (Android) apps needing 20-50MB downloads, and being so bloated for what they actually do.

Most of those apps are actually written in Qt, PhoneGap, Xamarin, or whatever portable flavour of the month.

Applications written in Java just with the Android Frameworks, are hardly above 10MB in application code, usually the rest are image/audio resources or a collection of the "Java framework of the month" for Android.

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