Mobile Memory and Resource Management Questions

Covers memory management principles and resource handling for mobile applications across platforms. Candidates should understand platform specific models such as automatic reference counting on iOS and garbage collection on Android, common causes of memory leaks and retain cycles, and how reference ownership and weak versus strong references affect lifetime. Include techniques for releasing resources correctly in lifecycle methods and avoiding long lived references that hold activity or context objects. Expect knowledge of memory profiling and diagnostics including tools and workflows for locating leaks and high memory usage, strategies to prevent out of memory conditions, and trade offs such as requesting a larger heap. Also cover cross platform considerations for frameworks like React Native and Flutter and practical practices for identifying and fixing real memory issues in production, such as analyzing heap dumps, using allocation instrumentation, and applying targeted fixes and regression tests.

EasyTechnical

0 practiced

Explain the behavior and lifecycle of java.lang.ref.SoftReference and java.lang.ref.WeakReference on Android. Why is SoftReference-based caching generally discouraged on Android, and what practical caching strategies should you adopt instead (for example explicit LRU caches and disk caches)?

MediumTechnical

0 practiced

Describe, step-by-step, how you would use Android Studio Memory Profiler to analyze heap growth during a user flow: start a profiling session, record a baseline heap, reproduce the flow, force GC, capture one or more heap snapshots, compare snapshots (baseline vs after-action), inspect class histograms and the dominator tree, and interpret retained sizes to find likely leaks or unexpectedly held objects.

HardTechnical

0 practiced

Describe how you would detect and fix native (C/C++) memory leaks in a mobile app that uses JNI or custom native libraries. Include tools and techniques you would use on Android (Address Sanitizer, Native Memory Profiler, special build flags) and iOS (Xcode Instruments, Address Sanitizer), how to reproduce leaks, interpret leak reports, and remediation strategies such as RAII, smart pointers, and explicit lifecycle-based frees.

EasyTechnical

0 practiced

Compare memory management on Android and iOS for a mobile engineer. Specifically explain how Android's garbage collection (ART) and iOS's Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) manage object lifetime, how each handles cyclic references, typical pitfalls (for example retain cycles on iOS and delayed reclamation on Android), and the implications for UI responsiveness, native memory usage, and debugging approaches. Give a short example scenario where GC pause versus ARC immediate deallocation would affect a scrolling list or background task.

HardTechnical

0 practiced

Discuss the trade-offs of using android:largeHeap="true" in an Android app's manifest. When might it be appropriate to request a larger heap, what are the drawbacks to the user and system (including GC and memory pressure), and what alternatives should you pursue before opting into largeHeap?

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