3 ms·

Talking of large things in the Mac App Store, the Xcode 4 experience is a joke. Even the most minor update requires it download the entire 4.5GB "Install Xcode

by frou_dh 16y ago

Talking of large things in the Mac App Store, the Xcode 4 experience is a joke. Even the most minor update requires it download the entire 4.5GB "Install Xcode.app" again. Further, you have to keep that installer around or you'll stop being notified of subsequent updates.

richbradshaw 16y ago
To be fair though, on a regular broadband connection that takes around 20 minutes, if you have the top end, its more like 12. Despite that, I do agree, seems an incredibly wasteful thing to do.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- 27182818284 16y ago
  http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/01/us-broadband-still-lagging-in-speed-and-penetration.ars http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/01/us-broadband-sti... The article is a year old, but 3.9mbps makes for a bit longer than 20 minutes. Downloading something near 4.5GB again and again would be OK if there weren't alternatives, but I feel like they could do much better.
  - singular 16y ago
    plus you don't always get anywhere near capacity. I could never get above about 100k/s (am based in the UK which might have an impact).
- singular 16y ago
  Err, except when the server throttles the download to 60-100 k/s. Took me 18 damn hours, not to mention that it failed several times before I could get it all. It's ridiculous. N.B. - for those having problems, I used this[1] script to download via wget, then after having downloaded everything minus 100megs before the dl failed, I was able to hand the script the -c flag for wget and continue. Lifesaver. N.B. II - this script isn't written by me, but rather the awesome 'derencius'. All credit to him :) [1]:https://gist.github.com/863511 https://gist.github.com/863511
  - msbarnett 16y ago
    I've never had Apple's server down-throttle me, and regularly see around 2M/s pulling down Xcode. Maybe your ISP is pulling one of those speedboost scams where the first N megs are at a high speed and then everything afterwards is throttled down?
    - singular 16y ago
      'tis possible, though judging by googling around on this I am not the only one having trouble downloading xcode in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe they should put it out as a torrent + simply seed the thing? Seems a perfect fit, given the size of the download + the number of people getting it.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    Are you using your ISP's DNS? I had this trouble after fiddling with Google DNS. Removed that from my network settings, all better now.
    - singular 16y ago
      Am using my ISP's standard DNS. It's fine with other downloads... margh!
r00fus 16y ago
This is one place where I think Apple's App Store is lacking: releasing incrementals. On a baseline MB Air (64GB), 4.5GB is not cheap. On most broadband connections, 4.5GB is a non-trivial % of your broadband cap. At least for Apple's apps there should be a way to download incrementals (with a choice to DL the whole thing if something broke).

by frou_dh 16y ago

richbradshaw 16y ago

To be fair though, on a regular broadband connection that takes around 20 minutes, if you have the top end, its more like 12. Despite that, I do agree, seems an incredibly wasteful thing to do.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
27182818284 16y ago
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/01/us-broadband-still-lagging-in-speed-and-penetration.ars http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/01/us-broadband-sti... The article is a year old, but 3.9mbps makes for a bit longer than 20 minutes. Downloading something near 4.5GB again and again would be OK if there weren't alternatives, but I feel like they could do much better.
- singular 16y ago
  plus you don't always get anywhere near capacity. I could never get above about 100k/s (am based in the UK which might have an impact).
singular 16y ago
Err, except when the server throttles the download to 60-100 k/s. Took me 18 damn hours, not to mention that it failed several times before I could get it all. It's ridiculous. N.B. - for those having problems, I used this[1] script to download via wget, then after having downloaded everything minus 100megs before the dl failed, I was able to hand the script the -c flag for wget and continue. Lifesaver. N.B. II - this script isn't written by me, but rather the awesome 'derencius'. All credit to him :) [1]:https://gist.github.com/863511 https://gist.github.com/863511
- msbarnett 16y ago
  I've never had Apple's server down-throttle me, and regularly see around 2M/s pulling down Xcode. Maybe your ISP is pulling one of those speedboost scams where the first N megs are at a high speed and then everything afterwards is throttled down?
  - singular 16y ago
    'tis possible, though judging by googling around on this I am not the only one having trouble downloading xcode in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe they should put it out as a torrent + simply seed the thing? Seems a perfect fit, given the size of the download + the number of people getting it.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  Are you using your ISP's DNS? I had this trouble after fiddling with Google DNS. Removed that from my network settings, all better now.
  - singular 16y ago
    Am using my ISP's standard DNS. It's fine with other downloads... margh!

r00fus 16y ago

This is one place where I think Apple's App Store is lacking: releasing incrementals. On a baseline MB Air (64GB), 4.5GB is not cheap. On most broadband connections, 4.5GB is a non-trivial % of your broadband cap. At least for Apple's apps there should be a way to download incrementals (with a choice to DL the whole thing if something broke).