Android App Bundles promise smaller application sizes
Google introduced AppBundles in Android Studio 3.2 Beta in June. Android Studio is the main development environment for Android developers and new functionality introduced in the developer software is adopted quickly usually by developers.
App Bundles can best be described as collections of Android APK files (apps) that are optimized for different smartphones. Google Play Store, the default Android Store, picks the best version for a customer's device from the list of available APK files in the bundle and delivers only that to the user device.
Previously, a single APK file that could include code for different smartphones was distributed to the user device.
Google ran some benchmarks on the effectiveness of App Bundles and reported recently that the size of applications pushed to user devices dropped by about 35% on average if App Bundles are used, and an additional 8% to 16% thanks to support for uncompressed native libraries that eliminate the "need to store multiple copies on the device".
Applications are delivered more quickly to user devices as a response. As a result, applications take up less space on user devices as well which should be beneficial. If you take the 8% average figure application's should use less space on the device.
The size of applications for Android grew by the factor 5 since 2012; developers needed to integrated higher quality images, and started to use additional functionality that Google added to Android.
While users with 128 Gigabyte of storage may not care about the change, users with devices with 8 Gigabytes or 16 Gigabytes of storage may certainly appreciate the development.
Google revealed as well that application size is a major factor in application uninstalls and that smaller application sizes therefore should reduce the number of uninstalls of applications that use the new App Bundles feature.
The figure above shows that the install success rate drops significantly for larger applications.
Downside to App-Bundles is that developers need to make use of the feature. Google outlines the process in the following way:
- Developers build their applications using Android Studio, Unity, or another IDE.
- The developer selects to build the app as an Android App Bundle.
- Developers sign the application for verification purposes-
- When the application gets uploaded to Google Play, the service processes it and slits APKs signed "with the app signing key for every possible device configuration and language that you support".
When users install the application from Google Play, only the part of the application that is best suited for the user device is delivered. Means, no extra language strings, no unsupported screen sizes or CPU architecture bits are delivered.
Content is delivered to the user device on demand if parameters such as the system language changes or when users want to use dynamic features.
Closing Words
Android users can expect to see a reduction in size for some of the applications offered on Google Play. Developers will start to use App Bundles as it provides direct benefits to them and their users, and users may notice that application's don't take up that much space anymore on the devices.
Now You: How many applications have you installed on your Android device?
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?