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Not mentioned: their product is incomprehensibly simpler than FB. Besides having 100 times less features, they probably skipped all the a11n, i18n, multitasking

by Jyaif 9y ago

Not mentioned: their product is incomprehensibly simpler than FB. Besides having 100 times less features, they probably skipped all the a11n, i18n, multitasking, etc... They mention not doing A/B testing and that sort of things because it's "their philosophy". Obviously for their size it doesn't make sense to spend a week A/B testing to possibly increase usage by 0.5%, but for FB any change like this represents millions of USD.

scarface74 9y ago
How complicated should the FB client side app be * ? The Facebook app doesn't seem to do anything that can't be done in a web view besides notifications. In fact, I usually use the mobile site instead of the native app. The whole point of the total rewrite that they did a few years ago was to make it more efficient. They seem to have forgotten that. * Yes I'm aware of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect)
GuB-42 9y ago
Still, 400MB is just huge. To put it into perspective, the entire storage of the Nexus One is 512MB. The current Facebook iOS app is larger than an entire smartphone OS with the 2011 Facebook app installed. People don't seem to realize how big a megabyte actually is. Just look at the size of oldschool games (ex : 8MB for Super Mario 64), or what size coders manage to archive now (see demoscene 64k/4k intros). And you might say that it was the past, things are much more complex now, blah blah blah... Well, it's partially true but modern platforms allow savings that we couldn't have back then. Realtime vector graphics, better compression algorithms. And considering the trend towards minimalist graphics as opposed to real-life images, assets shouldn't exceed a few kilobytes. Libraries? The OS has plenty of libraries and assets you can use for free, this should be another size saving compared to the old times. And if you insist on packing your own libraries, I suspect sizes would be much smaller if development tools were smart enough to get rid of everything not needed. Essentially, the real reason apps are so huge nowadays is because we have enough storage space to be lazy.
- bluedino 9y ago
  >> Essentially, the real reason apps are so huge nowadays is because we have enough storage space to be lazy. Exactly. In the early days of gaming, if you came up with creative ways to pack more levels, graphics, or characters into that same 64k of RAM or 2MB of ROM, you'd likely end up with the more advanced game and sell more copies. Pushing hardware to it's limits was the pride and joy of programmers back then. The barrier to entry is so much lower now. Anyone can create a phone app. All you need is a Mac and watch some YouTube tutorials, that's why 90% of the App store is garbage. In the old days you have to have development kits and licenses and you would need to have an actual idea/product, expensive hardware to test and develop on, etc. And I'm really doubting that there were many arcade or console programmers that weren't "clever". Sure, there were bad games back then but mostly do to bad design, graphics, horrible movie license tie-ins...

by Jyaif 9y ago

scarface74 9y ago

How complicated should the FB client side app be * ? The Facebook app doesn't seem to do anything that can't be done in a web view besides notifications. In fact, I usually use the mobile site instead of the native app. The whole point of the total rewrite that they did a few years ago was to make it more efficient. They seem to have forgotten that. * Yes I'm aware of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect)

GuB-42 9y ago

Still, 400MB is just huge. To put it into perspective, the entire storage of the Nexus One is 512MB. The current Facebook iOS app is larger than an entire smartphone OS with the 2011 Facebook app installed. People don't seem to realize how big a megabyte actually is. Just look at the size of oldschool games (ex : 8MB for Super Mario 64), or what size coders manage to archive now (see demoscene 64k/4k intros). And you might say that it was the past, things are much more complex now, blah blah blah... Well, it's partially true but modern platforms allow savings that we couldn't have back then. Realtime vector graphics, better compression algorithms. And considering the trend towards minimalist graphics as opposed to real-life images, assets shouldn't exceed a few kilobytes. Libraries? The OS has plenty of libraries and assets you can use for free, this should be another size saving compared to the old times. And if you insist on packing your own libraries, I suspect sizes would be much smaller if development tools were smart enough to get rid of everything not needed. Essentially, the real reason apps are so huge nowadays is because we have enough storage space to be lazy.

bluedino 9y ago
>> Essentially, the real reason apps are so huge nowadays is because we have enough storage space to be lazy. Exactly. In the early days of gaming, if you came up with creative ways to pack more levels, graphics, or characters into that same 64k of RAM or 2MB of ROM, you'd likely end up with the more advanced game and sell more copies. Pushing hardware to it's limits was the pride and joy of programmers back then. The barrier to entry is so much lower now. Anyone can create a phone app. All you need is a Mac and watch some YouTube tutorials, that's why 90% of the App store is garbage. In the old days you have to have development kits and licenses and you would need to have an actual idea/product, expensive hardware to test and develop on, etc. And I'm really doubting that there were many arcade or console programmers that weren't "clever". Sure, there were bad games back then but mostly do to bad design, graphics, horrible movie license tie-ins...