Google replaces Dalvik with ART in Android

Changes to the repository of the Android Open Source Project, which manufacturers use as the basis for the Android versions on their smartphones and tablets, indicate that the old Dalvik compiler is being permanently replaced by the newer ART.

Google had already set the ART compiler as the default in its own Android repository, but the changes have now been pushed to the Android Open Source Project repository. Manufacturers use the code in that repository as a source for the Android installations on their smartphones and tablets.

This makes it likely that Google will definitively exchange Dalvik for ART. More information about this may be announced next week, when Google will hold its I/O developer conference in San Francisco. By the way, not all apps have been made suitable for ART yet, including the Xposed framework, which is popular among modders.

It concerns a total of two changes, which were noticed by XDA-Developers. Together, the two commits disable Dalvik, while setting ART as the default. In Android 4.4 both compilers still exist side by side: users can choose to choose ART as the compiler themselves, but Dalvik is used by default.

Dalvik has been used in Android for years. Dalvik is a just in time compiler: code is only converted to machine code at runtime. ART converts the code of apps into machine code immediately upon installation. Partly because of this, ART is more efficient than Dalvik.