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Still need JVM support of value types for this to make sense.

Android doesn't use the JVM. Hell, it doesn't even really use a VM any more.

Sure it does, ART was AOT only during Android 5 and 6.

Android 7 brought the VM back.

Now it uses an interpreter hand written in Assembly that gathers PGO info for the JIT, which also performs PGO data gathering, then only the hot bits are AOT compiled to native code, when the device is idle.

Any change on the execution path or updates trigger the execution process from the beginning.

I didn't know that. Here are the docs: https://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik/jit-compiler

The docs are outdated, Android P is bringing sharing of PGO data across devices via the Play Store.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi9-BqUxsno

I'm going to stand by my statement of "not really a vm." Calling it a plain vm when the goal is to run as much AOT code as possible is too misleading.

I call it whatever the CS theory of programming language says.

And from that point of view, ART on Android 5/6 was a runtime, turned into a VM on Android 7.

From your point of view, the CLR is also not a VM.

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