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Can someone please explain why exactly Dalvik is used in android? Is it to provide portability and ability for the application developers to write hardware independent code? I dont think it is used for security reasons, since application sandboxing is being attained via unix style user permissions where each application is running under a different user id.

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  • There are answers on SO that discuss this, if it helps. And Dalvik is replaced entirely by ART (Android RunTime) since Lollipop. – Andrew T.♦ Feb 2 '15 at 2:18
  • Thanks @Andrew , but that answer talks about Dalvik not being slow as we might assume but I still didnt find exactly why it is used. – user1004985 Feb 2 '15 at 2:40
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So it is used to store everything you need. For example:

You own a Samsung Galaxy S4, you need:

  • Verizon Tools
  • Samsung Camera Drivers
  • Speaker Drivers
  • etc

So dalvik is a partition which is used to keep everything that your android device needs. It keeps everything ready to launch once you boot up your phone. =)

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  • I was asking about the Dalvik virtual machine and not just the partition. Why do the apps need to run on a virtul machine? – user1004985 Feb 2 '15 at 7:42
  • Same thing... the Dalvik Partition is run as a virtual machine – Viraj Shah Feb 2 '15 at 21:40

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