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Monitor app launch performance for iOS and Android in RUM #33710

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1cec0f8
New iOS and Android pages to monitor application performance in RUM
arti-arutiunov Jan 7, 2026
03b34cf
Merge branch 'master' into Arti-Arutiunov/rum-mobile-app-launch
arti-arutiunov Jan 8, 2026
73c489c
Cleaned up documentation in accordance with our style guidelines
arti-arutiunov Jan 14, 2026
e218d7e
Rearranged warning banner for legacy SDK versions
arti-arutiunov Jan 14, 2026
2c1a1bd
Update app launch summary screenshots
arti-arutiunov Jan 14, 2026
5471e8d
Cleaning up documentation
arti-arutiunov Jan 15, 2026
9f5c711
Updated links for Android TTFD API
arti-arutiunov Jan 20, 2026
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46 changes: 28 additions & 18 deletions config/_default/menus/main.en.yaml
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Expand Up @@ -8103,51 +8103,56 @@ menu:
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_crash
weight: 102
- name: Monitoring App Launch
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/application_launch_monitoring
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_application_launch_monitoring
weight: 103
- name: Monitoring App Performance
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/monitoring_app_performance
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_monitoring_app_performance
weight: 103
weight: 104
- name: Advanced Configuration
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/advanced_configuration
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_advanced_config
weight: 104
weight: 105
- name: Data Collected
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/data_collected
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_data_collected
weight: 105
weight: 106
- name: Mobile Vitals
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/mobile_vitals
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_mobile_vitals
weight: 106
weight: 107
- name: Web View Tracking
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/web_view_tracking
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_web_view_tracking
weight: 107
weight: 108
- name: Integrated Libraries
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/integrated_libraries
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_integrated_libraries
weight: 108
weight: 109
- name: Jetpack Compose Instrumentation
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/jetpack_compose_instrumentation
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_jetpack_compose_instrumentation
weight: 109
weight: 110
- name: Troubleshooting
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/troubleshooting
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_troubleshooting
weight: 110
weight: 111
- name: SDK Performance Impact
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/sdk_performance_impact
parent: rum_mobile_android
identifier: rum_mobile_android_performance_overhead
weight: 111
weight: 112
- name: iOS and tvOS
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios
parent: application_monitoring
Expand All @@ -8163,51 +8168,56 @@ menu:
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_crash
weight: 102
- name: Monitoring App Launch
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/application_launch_monitoring
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_application_launch_monitoring
weight: 103
- name: Mobile App Performance
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/monitoring_app_performance
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_monitoring_app_performance
weight: 103
weight: 104
- name: Advanced Configuration
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/advanced_configuration
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_advanced_config
weight: 104
weight: 105
- name: Data Collected
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/data_collected
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_data_collected
weight: 105
weight: 106
- name: Mobile Vitals
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/mobile_vitals?tab=ios
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_mobile_vitals
weight: 106
weight: 107
- name: Web View Tracking
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/web_view_tracking?tab=ios
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_web_view_tracking
weight: 107
weight: 108
- name: Integrated Libraries
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/integrated_libraries
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_integrated_libraries
weight: 108
weight: 109
- name: Troubleshooting
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/troubleshooting
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_troubleshooting
weight: 109
weight: 110
- name: Supported Versions
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/supported_versions
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_supported_versions
weight: 110
weight: 111
- name: SDK Performance Impact
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/sdk_performance_impact
parent: rum_mobile_ios
identifier: rum_mobile_ios_performance_overhead
weight: 111
weight: 112
- name: Flutter
url: real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/flutter
parent: application_monitoring
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1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions content/en/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/_index.md
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Expand Up @@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ To get started with RUM for Android, create an application and configure the And
{{< whatsnext desc="This section includes the following topics:">}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/setup">}}<u>Setup</u>: Learn how to set up the Android SDK, track background events, and send data when devices are offline.{{< /nextlink >}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/error_tracking">}}<u>Crash Reporting</u>: Add ANR detection and crash reporting, get deobfuscated stack traces, then test your implementation.{{< /nextlink >}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/application_launch_monitoring">}}<u>Application Launch Monitoring</u>: Measure Android mobile application launch performance, including the time to initial display and time to full display.{{< /nextlink >}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/monitoring_app_performance">}}<u>Monitoring App Performance</u>: Monitor view timings to understand your app's performance from a user's perspective. {{< /nextlink >}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/advanced_configuration">}}<u>Advanced Configuration</u>: Enrich user sessions, manage events and data, track custom global attributes and widgets, review initialization parameters, modify or drop RUM events, and more.{{< /nextlink >}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/mobile_vitals">}}<u>Data Collected</u>: Review data that the Android SDK collects.{{< /nextlink >}}
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125 changes: 125 additions & 0 deletions ...user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/application_launch_monitoring.md
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@@ -0,0 +1,125 @@
---
title: Android Mobile App Launch Monitoring
description: "Measure Android mobile application launch performance, including the time to initial display and time to full display."
aliases:
- /real_user_monitoring/android/application_launch_monitoring/
- /real_user_monitoring/mobile_and_tv_monitoring/application_launch_monitoring/android
- /real_user_monitoring/mobile_and_tv_monitoring/android/application_launch_monitoring
further_reading:
- link: https://github.com/DataDog/dd-sdk-android
tag: "Source Code"
text: Source code for dd-sdk-android
- link: /real_user_monitoring
tag: Documentation
text: Explore Datadog RUM
---

## Overview

Application launch monitoring helps you understand how fast your Android app becomes usable after a user taps the app icon. Use it to identify slow startup times, track performance regressions, and optimize the user’s first impression of your app.

With this feature, you can:
- Measure time to initial display (TTID) and time to full display (TTFD) for cold and warm starts
- View launch performance trends in the RUM Summary and Mobile Performance Dashboard
- Drill into individual launch events to diagnose bottlenecks

## How it works

During initialization, the RUM Android SDK creates a view called `ApplicationLaunch`. This view’s start time matches the start of the Android process. The `ApplicationLaunch` view includes any logs, actions, and resources created before your first call to `startView`.

<div class="alert alert-danger">
The <code>application_start</code> action is not collected in Android SDK versions 3.5.0+. The <code>rum.measure.app.startup_time metric</code> is marked as deprecated but continues to report data from devices running app versions that use older SDK versions.
</div>

### Time to initial display and time to full display

In Android SDK versions 3.5.0+, the time to initial display (TTID) and time to full display (TTFD) are collected during the application launch period.

| Measurement | Summary | Details |
|----------------|----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| [Time to initial display][1] | The time it takes to display the first frame of the app's UI. | The time taken for an app to produce its first frame, including process initialization during a cold start, activity creation during a cold or warm start, and displaying the first frame. |
| [Time to full display][2] | The time it takes for an app to become interactive for the user. | The time taken to display the first frame of the app's UI, as well as the content that loads asynchronously after the initial frame is displayed. |

Each time to initial display and time to full display is categorized by launch type:
- [Cold start][3]: The application is launched from scratch. Cold starts happen when the application is launched for the first time since device boot or since the system terminated the process of the application.
- [Warm start][4]: The application is launched using a subset of the operations that take place during a cold start. Warm starts result from situations such as a user backing out of the application or re-launching the application. Warm starts can also result from the user launching the `Activity` when the OS-process already exists, such as the arrival of a silent push or `WorkManager` job execution.

### Measuring the time to initial display
The Android SDK automatically measures the TTID. The TTID can be optionally profiled using the Android Mobile Profiler.

### Measuring the time to full display
The time to full display is manually defined using the `GlobalRumMonitor.get().reportAppFullyDisplayed()` API in the Android SDK based on the application’s specific definition of “fully drawn.”

Below is an example where time to full display is determined when home activity is fully loaded.

{{< tabs >}}
{{% tab "Kotlin" %}}

```kotlin
class SampleApplication : Application() {
override fun onCreate() {
super.onCreate()
val configuration = Configuration.Builder(
clientToken = "<CLIENT_TOKEN>",
env = "<ENV_NAME>",
variant = "<APP_VARIANT_NAME>"
).build()

Datadog.initialize(this, configuration, trackingConsent)
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@0xnm 0xnm Jan 15, 2026

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this code snippet shows only core SDK setup, should it include example of reportAppFullyDisplayed call?

upd: like for iOS

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@arti-arutiunov arti-arutiunov Jan 15, 2026

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@0xnm Yes, it should. I generated this with AI, so please let me know if it an incorrect equivalent:

class HomeActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_home)
        lifecycleScope.launch { loadData() }
    }

    private suspend fun loadData() {
        val url = URL("https://api.example.com/data")
        try {
            val data = withContext(Dispatchers.IO) {
                url.openConnection().getInputStream().bufferedReader().readText()
            }
            updateUI(data)
        } catch (e: Exception) {
            // Handle the error if needed
        }

        // Mark the app as fully displayed
        GlobalRumMonitor.get().reportAppFullyDisplayed()
    }
}

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@0xnm 0xnm Jan 20, 2026

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looks good! sorry for missing this comment

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@ambushwork ambushwork Jan 20, 2026

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The code snippet above can work, but there are two issues as a demo in the documentation from what I see:

  • It doesn't follow Google recommended MVVM pattern, since it is loading data from the View side.
  • Due to the point above, we are exposing the unnecessary part (how the data is loaded) to the reader, which may confuse them.

So I suggest to change to following code snippet, HomeViewModel is responsible for preparing the uiState and the HomeActivity just observes the state without exposing the data loading detail, and when the state is ready,
reportAppFullyDisplayed should be called.

class HomeActivity : AppCompatActivity() {

    private val viewModel: HomeViewModel by viewModels()

    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_home)
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)

        viewModel.uiState.observe(this) { state ->
            if (state.isLoaded) {
                 GlobalRumMonitor.get().reportAppFullyDisplayed()
            }
        }
    }
}

}
}
```
{{% /tab %}}
{{< /tabs >}}

If you use `reportFullyDrawn` to identify the moment of full display, you can use [getFullyDrawnReporter][7] to subscribe to `reportFullyDrawn` and call `GlobalRumMonitor.get().reportAppFullyDisplayed()`.

<div class="alert alert-danger">
If the time to full display is not defined, the Android SDK only collects the TTID.
</div>

### RUM summary

The TTID and TTFD are presented in the RUM Summary under Mobile Performance. The standalone Mobile Performance Dashboard also contains distribution visuals for TTID and TTFD.

{{< img src="real_user_monitoring/android/android-rum-summary-app-launch.png" alt="Android RUM Summary" style="width:90%;">}}

### Vital events

The time to initial display and time to full display are presented as vital events in the RUM session. They are also found under the first view after the `ApplicationLaunch` view. TTID and TTFD are captured if the user launches the application in the session. Neither the TTID nor the TTFD appear if the user does not launch the application during the session.

{{< img src="real_user_monitoring/android/android-app-launch-session.png" alt="Android session side panel" style="width:90%;">}}


The TTID and TTFD can be queried in the RUM Sessions Explorer using the following attributes on the vital event type:
- `@vital.type:app_launch`
- `@vital.name:time_to_initial_display` or `@vital.name:time_to_full_display`

Each TTID and TTFD side panel contains a distribution visualization, an indication of whether the launch was cold or warm, and an event waterfall.

{{< img src="real_user_monitoring/android/android-ttid-vital.png" alt="Time to initial display vital event" style="width:90%;">}}

If Android profiling is enabled and the session is sampled, the time to initial display may include profiling data.

### Metrics
The time to initial display and time to full display are calculated as metrics:
- `rum.measure.app.startup_to_initial_display`, which represents the time to initial display
- `rum.measure.app.startup_to_full_display`, which represents the time to full display

These metrics contain the `@vital.startup_type` attribute to specify the launch type for accurate monitoring.

<div class="alert alert-danger">
The <code>rum.measure.app.startup_to_full_display</code> metric is not calculated if the time to full display is undefined.
</div>

## Further reading

{{< partial name="whats-next/whats-next.html" >}}

[1]: https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/vitals/launch-time#time-initial
[2]: https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/vitals/launch-time#time-full
[3]: https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/vitals/launch-time#cold
[4]: https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/vitals/launch-time#warm
[5]: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity#reportFullyDrawn()
[6]: https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/activity/ComponentActivity#getFullyDrawnReporter%28%29
[7]: https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/activity/ComponentActivity#getFullyDrawnReporter()
9 changes: 0 additions & 9 deletions content/en/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/android/data_collected.md
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Expand Up @@ -35,15 +35,6 @@ The following diagram illustrates the RUM event hierarchy:

{{< img src="real_user_monitoring/data_collected/event-hierarchy.png" alt="RUM Event hierarchy" style="width:50%;" >}}

## Application launch

During initialization, the RUM Android SDK creates a view called "ApplicationLaunch". This view's start time matches the start of the Android process, and can be used to track your application launch time.

The `ApplicationLaunch` view includes any logs, actions, and resources created before your first call to `startView`. Use the duration of this view to determine time to first view. This view has an action, `application_start`, with a duration that depends on Android version:

- In *Android 7.0* and above, this view/action captures the period before any application code is executed (right before `Application.onCreate`) and when the first RUM event is recorded.
- In versions before *Android 7.0*, the view/action captures the period between the `RumFeature` class loads and when the first RUM event is recorded.

## Views instrumentation versus app lifecycle

The Android RUM SDK offers various strategies to [automatically track views][2] like Activities, Fragments, or Navigation destinations. You can also track views manually by directly calling the RUM APIs. The precise moment a view starts or stops depends on the chosen tracking strategy or manual instrumentation:
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1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions content/en/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/_index.md
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Expand Up @@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ To get started with RUM for iOS, create an application and configure the iOS SDK
{{< whatsnext desc="This section includes the following topics:">}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/setup">}}<u>Setup</u>: Learn how to set up the iOS SDK, track background events, and send data when devices are offline.{{< /nextlink >}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/error_tracking">}}<u>Crash Reporting</u>: Add crash reporting, get deobfuscated stack traces, then test your implementation.{{< /nextlink >}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/application_launch_monitoring">}}<u>Application Launch Monitoring</u>: Measure iOS mobile application launch performance, including the time to initial display and time to full display.{{< /nextlink >}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/monitoring_app_performance">}}<u>Monitoring App Performance</u>: Monitor view timings to understand your app's performance from a user's perspective. {{< /nextlink >}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/advanced_configuration">}}<u>Advanced Configuration</u>: Enrich user sessions, manage events and data, track custom global attributes, review initialization parameters, modify or drop RUM events, and more.{{< /nextlink >}}
{{< nextlink href="/real_user_monitoring/application_monitoring/ios/mobile_vitals">}}<u>Data Collected</u>: Review data that the RUM iOS SDK collects.{{< /nextlink >}}
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