It doesn't have to be an interpreter, the processor itself can be optimized for Java (or whatever bytecode you'd like), a point the article also missed.
This has been going on since 1996 ... http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/CIC/announce/1996/java-procs.h... (and the concept itself was first tried with the Lisp machines I think).
The difference between high-end phone makers, like Apple, and the low-end phone makers ... low-end phone makers cared and still care only about price, not about how snappy those Java apps run.
Again ... the article sets up a straw man.
Desktop Java applications are slow and ugly, but show me an open-source IDE that can compete with the breath and depth of Eclipse / IntelliJ IDEA and their plugin ecosystem.
There's some merit to Java in that ... open-source developers would rather spend their time working on the features they want, rather than hunting down memory-leaks or deal with all the shit that cross-platform development brings.
This is slower than compiling it to a more easily implemented ISA.
... Eclipse?
You can have GC and AOT compilation, as the post says in a footnote.
decent speed in return for a high-level programming language
High-level languages can be AOT compiled.
Java gained an extra advantage ... open-source libraries that are fucking top-notch
So maybe Android should have used Java, but compiled it direct to ARM rather than burning users' cycles on an interpreter.