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I’m the founder of a YC company in the current batch focused on solving this exact problem! https://www.emergetools.com https://www.emergetools.com We parse Ob

I’m the founder of a YC company in the current batch focused on solving this exact problem! https://www.emergetools.com https://www.emergetools.com We parse Obj-C and Swift runtime metadata to determine size contributions of individual types and functions in your app. We use this analysis to post PR comments with granular size diffs to help devs write smaller, better code. I tried it out on the Uber app and immediately noticed a disproportionate impact from their code-gen dependency injection framework, Needle. The codegen is responsible for over 30k classes in the app binary, and contributes over 10mb! In general codegen is a common problem with Swift binary sizes, and the fewer reference types generated the better, it even helps with startup time! We’ve written a blog post with case studies about how 7 of the most popular iOS apps could reduce their size: https://medium.com/swlh/how-7-ios-apps-could-save-you-500mb-of-storage-a828782c973e https://medium.com/swlh/how-7-ios-apps-could-save-you-500mb-...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rememberlenny 6y ago
"The Lyft app has hundreds of duplicate files, the largest consumer of space is a single asset catalog copied 73 times in separate bundles. Another asset catalog that is virtually identical except for the timestamp at which it was created is copied 67 times. Each of these contain nothing but 482 colors (colors can be stored in asset catalogs to simplify management of dark mode). With each one taking ~250kb these quickly eat up 35mb." I read this as: Lyft installed Dark mode for 35mb. I can only imagine what my JavaScript modules are doing behind the scenes.
- trevor-e 6y ago
  My biggest complaint with iOS development is how confusing Xcode's build system is. Extracting code out to shared frameworks is a confusing process and I can understand how so many of the top apps get it wrong. Also, it's clearly not a priority for Apple because they don't provide easy inspection tools. Best case for them is the user buys a new phone with more storage.
  - rememberlenny 6y ago
    I’m curious - does React Native/Expo do any better job at this, with tree-shaking and package building?
    - jamil7 6y ago
      Expo produces ridiculously huge bundle sizes. I Would steer clear of it.
    - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
      Expo apps are notoriously enormous. But, I tend to bend the other way and I think programmer velocity is more important in 99% of scenarios than 30MB vs 100MB app size
  - sond813 6y ago
    Yep this is exactly the problem I'm trying to solve! A lot of large app companies have switched from Xcode to third party build systems like Buck or Bazel. This can make things faster but even more confusing. I've found analyzing the actual build products to be the best solution to make sure nothing unintended is happening.
    - tomasreimers 6y ago
      Interesting! Are you interested in going back into the build process to try and thin the app directly? Or just in helping developers identify the sources of app size?
      - sond813 6y ago
        Currently identifying sources and offering suggestions for how to make improvements. For many apps this can reveal a lot of opportunity!
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I agree that it's not necessarily the most straightforwards, but I would think that in the hundreds of engineers they have at least some have figured out how it works to the point to which they can do this…
dang 6y ago
Discussed here: Launch HN: Emerge (YC W21) – Monitor and reduce iOS app size - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26014180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26014180 - Feb 2021 (44 comments)
rrdharan 6y ago
Is the name a nod to Gentoo's emerge? (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Portage#emerge https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Portage#emerge) Just curious.
wodenokoto 6y ago
My first thought reading the headline was “wasn’t there recently a show HN about this exact problem?” Glad to see it near the top - saved me a search.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rememberlenny 6y ago

"The Lyft app has hundreds of duplicate files, the largest consumer of space is a single asset catalog copied 73 times in separate bundles. Another asset catalog that is virtually identical except for the timestamp at which it was created is copied 67 times. Each of these contain nothing but 482 colors (colors can be stored in asset catalogs to simplify management of dark mode). With each one taking ~250kb these quickly eat up 35mb." I read this as: Lyft installed Dark mode for 35mb. I can only imagine what my JavaScript modules are doing behind the scenes.

trevor-e 6y ago
My biggest complaint with iOS development is how confusing Xcode's build system is. Extracting code out to shared frameworks is a confusing process and I can understand how so many of the top apps get it wrong. Also, it's clearly not a priority for Apple because they don't provide easy inspection tools. Best case for them is the user buys a new phone with more storage.
- rememberlenny 6y ago
  I’m curious - does React Native/Expo do any better job at this, with tree-shaking and package building?
  - jamil7 6y ago
    Expo produces ridiculously huge bundle sizes. I Would steer clear of it.
  - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
    Expo apps are notoriously enormous. But, I tend to bend the other way and I think programmer velocity is more important in 99% of scenarios than 30MB vs 100MB app size
- sond813 6y ago
  Yep this is exactly the problem I'm trying to solve! A lot of large app companies have switched from Xcode to third party build systems like Buck or Bazel. This can make things faster but even more confusing. I've found analyzing the actual build products to be the best solution to make sure nothing unintended is happening.
  - tomasreimers 6y ago
    Interesting! Are you interested in going back into the build process to try and thin the app directly? Or just in helping developers identify the sources of app size?
    - sond813 6y ago
      Currently identifying sources and offering suggestions for how to make improvements. For many apps this can reveal a lot of opportunity!
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I agree that it's not necessarily the most straightforwards, but I would think that in the hundreds of engineers they have at least some have figured out how it works to the point to which they can do this…

dang 6y ago

Discussed here: Launch HN: Emerge (YC W21) – Monitor and reduce iOS app size - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26014180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26014180 - Feb 2021 (44 comments)

rrdharan 6y ago

Is the name a nod to Gentoo's emerge? (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Portage#emerge https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Portage#emerge) Just curious.

wodenokoto 6y ago

My first thought reading the headline was “wasn’t there recently a show HN about this exact problem?” Glad to see it near the top - saved me a search.