Evaluating impact of cross-platform frameworks in energy consumption of mobile applications

In this paper we analyze energy consumption of mobile applications using different smartphones sensors, e.g., GPS, accelerometer, etc., and features, e.g., acquiring video or audio from the environment. In particular, we have studied how the use of frameworks for mobile cross-platform development may influence the amount of required energy for the same operation. We use an hardware and software tool to measure energy consumption of the same application, using different sensors, when developed natively or using two frameworks, Titanium and PhoneGap. Our experiments have shown that frameworks have a significant impact on energy consumption which greatly increases compared to an equal native application. Moreover, the amount of consumed energy is not the same for all frameworks.