Mobile Apps: It’s Time to Move Up to CondOS

  • David Chu ,
  • Aman Kansal ,
  • Jie Liu ,
  • Feng Zhao

13th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS XIII) |

Published by USENIX

We take the unorthodox view that the operating system ought to shoulder responsibility for converting raw sensor data to Contextual Data Units (CDUs). The CDU is simply an abstract data type that embodies a unit of context meaningful to applications. A concrete CDU such as user motion state might take values such as sitting, standing, walking, and driving. In contrast, traditional OSs offer apps opaque bytes, a very low level and unassuming interface to data. We suggest that the right approach for mobile systems is a much higher level of data abstraction: the CDU.

FALCON: Fast App Launching with Context

FALCON: Fast App Launching with Context Part Of ConDOS: rethinking Context Data for the OS We have identified ways in which context can benefit key OS services such as memory management, scheduling, I/O and security. As a first step, we have built a prototype of Falcon: Fast App Launching with Context. As mobile apps become more deeply integrated into our everyday lives, mobile app interactions ought to be rapid and responsive. Unfortunately, even the basic primitive of launching a mobile app. is sorrowfully sluggish: 20 seconds of delay is not uncommon even for very popular apps. We have designed and built Falcon to remedy slow app launch. Falcon uses context such as user location and temporal access patterns to predict app launches before they occur.…