An application preloading method and apparatus, and a prediction model generation method and apparatus are described. Application preloading may include obtaining application usage state information of a terminal and contextual information of the terminal; inputting the obtained application usage state information and contextual information into a pre-generated prediction model that is configured for predicting application startup and for calculating at least one prediction value for the application startup; determining an application to be started according to the at least one prediction value, and preloading the application to be started. The prediction model may be pre-generated according to usage association information of applications within a predetermined time period and contextual information of the terminal corresponding to the usage association information.