> JVM based is clearly possible, as the most popular mobile OS the world uses it, and on far less capable devices. The gap seems to have been closed somewhat,

> JVM based is clearly possible, as the most popular mobile OS the world uses it, and on far less capable devices. The gap seems to have been closed somewhat, but RAM-wise I don’t think top of the line Android devices ever were far less capable, likely not even less capable. For example: Apple still sells the iPhone 13 with 4Gb of RAM, the iPhone 15 has 6GB, the top of the line iPhone 15 Pro Max 8GB. The Google pixel 8 has 8GB, the Pixel 8 Pro 12GB RAM, and those aren’t the devices with the highest amount of RAM you can buy. Having less RAM translates into having better standby time for the same battery size, or smaller batteries for the same standby time. I think that was and is important to Apple. > But even if you ignore that, there were plenty of choices: Go, D, Nim. I don’t see any of those qualify for the criterion “Or does there exist some other language that gets it close enough, plus has decades of work and stability going for it” Go is from 2009, D technically from 2001, but in practice from 2007, when the standard library was replaced (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(programming_language)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(programming_language)#Histo...), NIM from 2008.