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I can only imagine that developers are adding assets for all the variations of Apple devices now, with retina everything. But that still shouldn't add up to hun

by atonse 9y ago

I can only imagine that developers are adding assets for all the variations of Apple devices now, with retina everything. But that still shouldn't add up to hundreds of megabytes, should it?

gnicholas 9y ago
iOS 9 was supposed to fix this asset bloat, with "app thinning". https://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/app-thinning-will-be-a-major-boon-for-8gb-and-16gb-iphones-and-ipads/ https://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/app-thinning-will-be-a...
- valuearb 9y ago
  App thinning works and works well if you use it.
  - gnicholas 9y ago
    Is there any way to tell if these apps are using it? On the one hand, big tech companies should definitely be taking advantage of this capability. On the other hand, it's possible that their procedures for releasing new versions — which they do very frequently - don't work as well with whatever the app thinning procedures are. Also, if their apps are super popular, these companies have somewhat less incentive to keep their apps small. If you need the uber app, you'll delete something else to make room.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      The problem is the download size doesn't match the store size, but customers can't see that. They also have differential updates, but again customer can't see that.
      - gnicholas 9y ago
        Huh, interesting. I got a banner message in the uber app yesterday saying I'll need to update soon. I declined to do so over cellular because of the apparent size of the app. Glad to know that's just the worst-case scenario, not the likely download size. I wonder how Apple could efficiently display the relevant download size to users based on device type and previously-downloaded version. I would imagine this would not be easy to do quickly and accurately, but most users would probably be happy just have a rough estimate of what the actual download size would be.
- htormey 9y ago
  Yep, makes a big impact: https://blog.halide.cam/one-weird-trick-to-lose-size-c0a4013de331 https://blog.halide.cam/one-weird-trick-to-lose-size-c0a4013... The problem in my book is being caused by AB tests and low incentives for pruning dead code aggressively.

by atonse 9y ago

I can only imagine that developers are adding assets for all the variations of Apple devices now, with retina everything. But that still shouldn't add up to hundreds of megabytes, should it?

gnicholas 9y ago

iOS 9 was supposed to fix this asset bloat, with "app thinning". https://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/app-thinning-will-be-a-major-boon-for-8gb-and-16gb-iphones-and-ipads/ https://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/app-thinning-will-be-a...

valuearb 9y ago
App thinning works and works well if you use it.
- gnicholas 9y ago
  Is there any way to tell if these apps are using it? On the one hand, big tech companies should definitely be taking advantage of this capability. On the other hand, it's possible that their procedures for releasing new versions — which they do very frequently - don't work as well with whatever the app thinning procedures are. Also, if their apps are super popular, these companies have somewhat less incentive to keep their apps small. If you need the uber app, you'll delete something else to make room.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    The problem is the download size doesn't match the store size, but customers can't see that. They also have differential updates, but again customer can't see that.
    - gnicholas 9y ago
      Huh, interesting. I got a banner message in the uber app yesterday saying I'll need to update soon. I declined to do so over cellular because of the apparent size of the app. Glad to know that's just the worst-case scenario, not the likely download size. I wonder how Apple could efficiently display the relevant download size to users based on device type and previously-downloaded version. I would imagine this would not be easy to do quickly and accurately, but most users would probably be happy just have a rough estimate of what the actual download size would be.
htormey 9y ago
Yep, makes a big impact: https://blog.halide.cam/one-weird-trick-to-lose-size-c0a4013de331 https://blog.halide.cam/one-weird-trick-to-lose-size-c0a4013... The problem in my book is being caused by AB tests and low incentives for pruning dead code aggressively.