Wait, thats is very different from what I read back in the day. I know there was a point at, I dunno, android 5 where they started doing something different with java, but my impression was that android always ran a JVM of sorts. And frankly, given how it performs even on the highest-end devices, that was really easy to believe.

I guess I need to do some research now.

Dalvik/ART is essentially the same idea. It uses dalvik byte code, much in the same way the JVM operates.

There’s some complexity (it’s designed to do different things, and the whole Oracle lawsuits added some wrinkles) but it’s not so different as you imply.

They compile Java Bytecode to Dalvik Bytecode and run that on the Android Runtime which is a tiered JIT compiler.

It still inherits the issues of Java such as the GC, no stack allocated value types, poor cache locality, etc. Although tbf the GC on Android is pretty fucking good these days and doesn't pause the world anymore.