How can I speed up loading time on Android?

Hello!

I'm creating an AIR app for Android and I've run into an issue with the loading time: when the user first clicks on the icon, there's 10 seconds of black screen before the first screen of my app appears. At least this happens on older Android devices. The delay is only a second or two on newer devices. I know this question has been asked before:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/764981

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4035208#4035208

http://zehfernando.com/2011/a-mobile-air-application-post-mortem/

But I haven't been able to find an answer that's worked for me. I've tried a a preloader and I've found that even loading the tiniest app takes around 10 seconds. This is how long it took me to load an app that was just a single frame with a simple rectangle image in it. From what I've read, the issue is that the Android device is loading the AIR runtime, and this takes time - no matter how small the actual app is. I should add that I'm using captive runtime.

I'm OK with the performance on new Android devices but, as far as I can tell, Android is so fragmented that many people are still running older devices and OS versions. So, I'd like to provide a good user experience on older devices. I think a ten second wait is just too long and will kill the entire experience for many people.

Is there any update on this? Does anyone have a solution?

If I can't improve the loading time, I think I'll try to only make the app available for newer devices.

I've heard people taking about creating 'native wrapper' and somehow embedding their swf file in native code that has a loading screen. Has anyone got something like this work? I'm currently reading up on Android splash screens in native code. They seem relatively simple to create. I hope I can somehow embed my swf in a native program with a splash screen. Any help is appreciated!

Thanks!

Damian