More concretely, I’m asking this: why aren’t applications compiled fully to native code before distribution rather than bytecode that runs on some virtual machine or runtime environment?
Implementation details aside, fundamentally, an Android application consists of bytecode, static resources, etc. In the Java world, I understand that the main appeal of having the JVM is to allow for enhanced portability and maybe also improved security. I know Android uses ART, but it remains that the applications are composed of processor-independent bytecode that leads to all this complex design to convert it into runnable code in some efficient manner. See: ART optimizing profiles, JIT compilation, JIT/AOT Hybrid Compilation… that’s a lot of work to support this complex design.
Android only officially supports arm64 currently, so why the extra complexity? Is this a vestigial remnant of the past? If so, with the move up in minimum supported versions, I should think Android should be transitioning to a binary distribution model at a natural point where compatibility is breaking. What benefit is being realized from all this runtime complexity?
Who would it simplify things for?
Not for the developer. For developers, compiling in advance would just slow them down and remove a lot of the cool things you can do with Java today like hot-swapping and reflection.
Not for the user. The current system is totally transparent to the user.
You’re proposing making things simpler for the Android OS, but worse for the developer. That’s the exact opposite of what they want. A lot of Android is quite complex in ways that make things easier for developers, on purpose.