What is RenderScript and when should we (really) use it?

RenderScript is a framework for running computationally intensive tasks at high performance on Android devices[1][2]. It is designed for data-parallel computation, allowing work to be distributed among a device's available processors like multi-core CPUs and GPUs[3].

RenderScript is particularly useful for applications that perform image processing, computational photography, or computer vision[3]. It allows developers to express algorithms without worrying about task planning, as the RenderScript runtime handles distributing work across processors[3].

However, starting from Android 12, the RenderScript API has been deprecated[3]. Google recommends migrating away from RenderScript and using the cross-platform Vulkan API instead to fully utilize GPU acceleration[3]. If you don't migrate, y...