<story><title>App sizes are out of control</title><url>https://trevore.com/blog/posts/app-sizes-are-out-of-control/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>habosa</author><text>I am surprised at all of the app developer shaming in this thread. Is it really likely that every developer working on a popular BigCorp app is an idiot who imports 10MB libraries every time he&amp;#x2F;she faces the slightest challenge?&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s much more likely that app developers are optimizing for many things, including app size, but reducing app size has a bad cost&amp;#x2F;benefit ratio. Here are some decisions that may bloat your app:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  * Want your network calls to be fast and reliable?  Better use that cool new HTTP library rather than writing your own. 

  * Want to keep everything secure?  Rule #1 of hacker news is never roll your own crypto so better import the best lib out there.

  * Want to delight your users and their fancy QHD screens?  Time to include some high res images and animations.  Oh and you can&amp;#x27;t use vectors, they kill performance. 

  * Want to access new markets?  Time to translate your strings into 80 common languages.  Oh and some of these may require custom fonts to look right in your app. 

  * Want your Android game to have blazing fast graphics?  Import that native library, and don&amp;#x27;t forget multiple architectures. 

&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
The biggest app I ever worked on was Google Santa Tracker.  It was about 60MB.  We spent a lot of time optimizing the app size in this year&amp;#x27;s version. We managed to drop 10MB while adding a few new games to the app.  I&amp;#x27;m proud of it, but if I didn&amp;#x27;t have the freedom to pursue app size I certainly would have taken the extra bloat to ship the new content.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;android-developers.googleblog.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;getting-santa-tracker-into-shape.html?m=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;android-developers.googleblog.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;getting-sa...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>drawkbox</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Is it really likely that every developer working on a popular BigCorp app....&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not to mention, rarely does app size register to clients, PMs, bizdev in terms of a worthy task.  Only when you end up at the top of the app sizes list is time given to optimize.&lt;p&gt;We work to keep down app sizes and offer line item tasks for app size optimization on updates, noone finds it needed until they start to risk being near the top of the app list on a users device when they want to delete some apps.&lt;p&gt;In games, many toolkits&amp;#x2F;engines like Unity and Unreal in mobile also add quite a large chunk. Building your own engine is rarely an option anymore in terms of competitive launch. Many games built with Unity&amp;#x2F;Unreal even with moderate assets can reach 200-300MB easily and easily creep up further on updates.</text></comment>
<story><title>App sizes are out of control</title><url>https://trevore.com/blog/posts/app-sizes-are-out-of-control/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>habosa</author><text>I am surprised at all of the app developer shaming in this thread. Is it really likely that every developer working on a popular BigCorp app is an idiot who imports 10MB libraries every time he&amp;#x2F;she faces the slightest challenge?&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s much more likely that app developers are optimizing for many things, including app size, but reducing app size has a bad cost&amp;#x2F;benefit ratio. Here are some decisions that may bloat your app:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  * Want your network calls to be fast and reliable?  Better use that cool new HTTP library rather than writing your own. 

  * Want to keep everything secure?  Rule #1 of hacker news is never roll your own crypto so better import the best lib out there.

  * Want to delight your users and their fancy QHD screens?  Time to include some high res images and animations.  Oh and you can&amp;#x27;t use vectors, they kill performance. 

  * Want to access new markets?  Time to translate your strings into 80 common languages.  Oh and some of these may require custom fonts to look right in your app. 

  * Want your Android game to have blazing fast graphics?  Import that native library, and don&amp;#x27;t forget multiple architectures. 

&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
The biggest app I ever worked on was Google Santa Tracker.  It was about 60MB.  We spent a lot of time optimizing the app size in this year&amp;#x27;s version. We managed to drop 10MB while adding a few new games to the app.  I&amp;#x27;m proud of it, but if I didn&amp;#x27;t have the freedom to pursue app size I certainly would have taken the extra bloat to ship the new content.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;android-developers.googleblog.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;getting-santa-tracker-into-shape.html?m=1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;android-developers.googleblog.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;getting-sa...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjmlp</author><text>For some reason reducing APK size talks have been a constant presence in the last three Google IO and WWDC as well.&lt;p&gt;If you need to advocate this, it tells a lot about how much app devs care about the issue.</text></comment>