An Empirical Study of Local Database Usage in Android Applications

Local databases have become an important component within mobile applications. Developers use local databases to provide mobile users with a responsive and secure service for data storage and access. However, using local databases comes with a cost. Studies have shown that they are one of the most energy consuming components on mobile devices and misuseof their APIs can lead to performance and security problems. In this paper, we report the results of a large scale empirical study on 1,000 top ranked apps from the Google Play app store. Our results present a detailed look into the practices, costs, and potential problems associated with local database usage in deployed apps. We distill our findings into actionable guidance for developers and motivate future areas of research related to techniques to support mobile app developers.