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The number of smartphones shipped in 2014 will be four times larger than the number of PCs. Compared to PCs, smartphones have limited computing resources, and smartphone applications are more prone to performance problems. Traditionally, developers use profilers to detect performance problems by running applications with relatively large inputs. Unfortunately, for smartphone applications, the developer cannot easily control the input, because smartphone applications interact heavily with the environment.

Given a run on a small input, how can a developer detect performance problems that would occur for a run with large input? We present SUNCAT, a novel technique that helps developers understand and predict performance problems in smartphone applications. The developer runs the application using a common input, typically small, and SUNCAT presents a prioritized list of repetition patterns that …