Using ViewModel helps keep your app smooth by storing UI data separately from the screen lifecycle. This means your app avoids reloading data on simple screen rotations, keeping frame rates steady around 60fps. It also reduces unnecessary memory use by sharing data only while needed, which helps battery life by avoiding repeated work.
Create ViewModels only when needed and avoid heavy work in their constructors. Use asynchronous calls inside ViewModel to load data without blocking the UI thread. Keep UI updates small and efficient by observing only necessary data changes. This approach prevents jank and keeps animations smooth.
Adding ViewModel classes adds minimal size to your app bundle, usually just a few kilobytes. It does not significantly affect startup time because ViewModels are created lazily when the UI requests them. This means your app starts quickly and only loads ViewModels when the user navigates to the related screen.
Android uses ViewModel classes from Jetpack to manage UI data lifecycle. iOS uses different patterns like ViewControllers or SwiftUI's @StateObject for similar purposes. Android ViewModels survive configuration changes automatically, while iOS developers handle state preservation differently. Understanding these platform differences helps write efficient cross-platform apps.
Google Play requires apps to be responsive and not freeze during use. Proper ViewModel use helps meet this by managing data efficiently. Ensure your ViewModel does not leak memory by holding references to UI elements. Follow Android's best practices for lifecycle-aware components to pass store reviews smoothly.
If your screen is slow, you might be doing heavy work directly in the ViewModel constructor or on the main thread. Also, creating ViewModels repeatedly instead of reusing them can cause delays. Check if data loading is asynchronous and if ViewModels are scoped properly to the UI lifecycle.