I'm not a huge fan of JavaScript (to say the least) but I'm not joking either. Most Android apps aren't exactly "software egineering at scale". Certainly no more so than a modern web app.
The first Dalvik versions didn't even have a JIT, so performance apparently wasn't the main concern. They could have added optional static typing to their JavaScript VM as well.
I think Google chose Java because many people know it and because the Java faction inside Google is powerful. But many people know JavaScript as well, and arguably the typical Java developer isn't exactly a UX guru. So JavaScript would have been a better fit for Android even though I (and you) don't like it.
Actually a lot of apps are every bit as complex as a typical desktop app. I'm not sure if you've done much app development but many of the apps I've worked on have been pretty large.
Unless you propose writing the entire OS in JS then there's also a huge advantage in using the same language for core OS and APIs and for application development.
In any case as some of the more modest Java replacements like Xtend and Kotlin mature I expect to see Java the language recede in importance for Android.
Sure but the bulk of the code above Linux + userland is Java and all the APIs are Java. In hindsight it might have been a better choice to just buy Mono but that ship has long since sailed, for better or for worse.
