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A huge chunk of that probably goes to, well, videos or hi-res photographs to be used in building the UI. Hi-res splash screens plus a bunch of hero images plus

by vec 9y ago

A huge chunk of that probably goes to, well, videos or hi-res photographs to be used in building the UI. Hi-res splash screens plus a bunch of hero images plus 2+ prerendered sizes of each display element for different pixel densities plus a dozen 30 second tutorial videos can easily add up to a couple hundred megs of assets alone.

silassales 9y ago
I think a large factor is the ever increasing need to have different display sizes for different pixel densities, developers essentially have to create and package a couple versions of the same application into one package and that is alot of waste.
- masklinn 9y ago
  If the application is properly packaged, the appstore should be able to generate configuration-specific variants which only include the assets relevant to your device class (https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDistributionGuide/AppThinning/AppThinning.html https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/ID...)
  - silassales 9y ago
    This makes sense, a much better way to do things.
- potatolicious 9y ago
  At least in the context of this article (iOS app bloat) this is no longer the case - developers upload all assets for all pixel densities, but Apple repackages for each specific device, so that each device only gets one set of assets. Same goes for binaries for multiple architectures - each device only gets the binary for its specific CPU architecture. Also to the GP's point - Apple also now no longer supports splash screen images, so that element of bloat is no longer a factor (though some legacy apps have retained them pointlessly). I think for non-game apps assets are not the primary driver of bloat.
  - silassales 9y ago
    Interesting, thanks for sharing that. I didnt know this as the only mobile I have dabbled with has been game dev with android in which case assets are the main cause of bloat.
vanderZwan 9y ago
The worst part is that they probably use huge PNGs to make sure the flat graphics are clean. You know, the kind that are perfectly suitable for vector graphics.
- wott 9y ago
  Unless your graphic designer provides you with vector graphics embedding a vector for each pixel of the rasterised image of the original vector graphic. Sigh...
  - vanderZwan 9y ago
    That's almost as bad as the autogenerated SVG I once was sent that used hundreds of thousands of think horizontal lines to fill an area. Instead of, you know, a filled polygon. The sheer number of vectors could make any renderer I threw at it crash.
- crazygringo 9y ago
  Flat graphics are actually extremely compressible with PNG's. That's actually one of the positives from moving away from gradients and shadows everywhere, funnily enough.
  - vanderZwan 9y ago
    They are, but as soon as ther is anything that is not a rectangular gradient with a continuous delta, they're probably still bigger than SVGs
saagarjha 9y ago
Not for apps like Facebook. Their app binary is in the hundreds of megabytes.

by vec 9y ago

silassales 9y ago

I think a large factor is the ever increasing need to have different display sizes for different pixel densities, developers essentially have to create and package a couple versions of the same application into one package and that is alot of waste.

masklinn 9y ago
If the application is properly packaged, the appstore should be able to generate configuration-specific variants which only include the assets relevant to your device class (https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDistributionGuide/AppThinning/AppThinning.html https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/ID...)
- silassales 9y ago
  This makes sense, a much better way to do things.
potatolicious 9y ago
At least in the context of this article (iOS app bloat) this is no longer the case - developers upload all assets for all pixel densities, but Apple repackages for each specific device, so that each device only gets one set of assets. Same goes for binaries for multiple architectures - each device only gets the binary for its specific CPU architecture. Also to the GP's point - Apple also now no longer supports splash screen images, so that element of bloat is no longer a factor (though some legacy apps have retained them pointlessly). I think for non-game apps assets are not the primary driver of bloat.
- silassales 9y ago
  Interesting, thanks for sharing that. I didnt know this as the only mobile I have dabbled with has been game dev with android in which case assets are the main cause of bloat.

vanderZwan 9y ago

The worst part is that they probably use huge PNGs to make sure the flat graphics are clean. You know, the kind that are perfectly suitable for vector graphics.

wott 9y ago
Unless your graphic designer provides you with vector graphics embedding a vector for each pixel of the rasterised image of the original vector graphic. Sigh...
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  That's almost as bad as the autogenerated SVG I once was sent that used hundreds of thousands of think horizontal lines to fill an area. Instead of, you know, a filled polygon. The sheer number of vectors could make any renderer I threw at it crash.
crazygringo 9y ago
Flat graphics are actually extremely compressible with PNG's. That's actually one of the positives from moving away from gradients and shadows everywhere, funnily enough.
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  They are, but as soon as ther is anything that is not a rectangular gradient with a continuous delta, they're probably still bigger than SVGs

saagarjha 9y ago

Not for apps like Facebook. Their app binary is in the hundreds of megabytes.