5 ms·

I've dabbled in Android development for a rather simple app, and am fighting to keep it in the single digit MB size. I was shocked that even after as much build

by z2 5y ago

I've dabbled in Android development for a rather simple app, and am fighting to keep it in the single digit MB size. I was shocked that even after as much build optimization as possible on libraries, a DEX analysis shows a handful of built in icons and menu translations into just 5 languages occupies over 40% of the package. As an aside, I dug out an old 16GB Nexus 5 phone to use as a security camera monitor. With exponential app bloat, the basic camera app was a 300MB download, and ate 80% of the phone's free space. All that for a glorified video stream player. The rest of the phone with its outdated apps actually feels quite usable as a modern Android phone--what exactly did today's 10x size get us?

xook 5y ago
Another aside: I believe part of the argument for moving to "flat design" (Material) was lower file sizes since it's all CSS or SVG, as opposed to possibly dozens of raster images at different resolutions for the multitude of screens. Yet here we are, with our flat design, but apps now gobble up precious storage space because of bloated shipped libraries.
- _jal 5y ago
  > I believe part of the argument for moving to "flat design" (Material) was lower file sizes If it was, that was a sucker-play. Just like with CPU, RAM, and traffic lanes, any resource optimization will simply make room for something else to occupy. The steady-state of storage media is full.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Does your camera app really use over 1 GB of storage? Mine uses about 12 MB, still pretty obnoxious but nowhere near what you're describing.
- z2 5y ago
  Camera app as in a required smart home app to access the WiFi camera. About 300MB installed. It does do push notifications on motion detection so maybe that's 50MB there?
- bluescrn 5y ago
  Is the size of the camera app really significant when, on a modern high-end device, it's going to be taking 10+ megapixel photos or recording 4K video at up to 60fps?
  - kasabali 5y ago
    of course. you can store photos in sd card or cloud, but not the camera app
TrianguloY 5y ago
I'm an android developer with apps around 100Kb, or 0.1Mb. The secret? Don't use android app compat, or rather, don't use any external library. Just plain old java. The apps are ugly (no themes) but they work extremely fast and to the point.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=6280449025308262041 https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=628044902530826204... In case anyone else was wondering where to get such apps. Probably on F-Droid too?
  - TrianguloY 5y ago
    Unfortunately no, or rather not yet. I guess it should be easy to publish most of them, as they are on GitHub already. (Except my most popular app by far, because in the past I had some issues with clones so I decided to kept its code private)
    - seniorivn 5y ago
      links please
      - TrianguloY 5y ago
        To the apps's source code? I guess the best list is on my blog [1] but each app in the play store should have the corresponding link [1] https://triangularapps.blogspot.com/p/apps.html https://triangularapps.blogspot.com/p/apps.html
- TrianguloY 5y ago
  Extra: maybe it was a bug or something, but when I tried one of my apps on an android 12 emulator, it reported a negative app size! (user data to be precise) https://ibb.co/TPjH5gh https://ibb.co/TPjH5gh
- fouric 5y ago
comeonseriously 5y ago
> --what exactly did today's 10x size get us? A/B testing. Tracking. Things like that.
- bluescrn 5y ago
  We've also had massive increases in screen resolutions. 12 years ago, the iPhone 3GS was cutting edge. With a 480x320 screen. That's just 0.15 million pixels. There are now Android phones with full 4K screens. That's 3840x2160, a little over 8 million pixels. That a 50x increase in pixel count. Anything using bitmap graphics (games being an obvious example) is going to be much bigger now. (And in that same period, it seems that the average Windows PC desktop resolution has remained pretty much unchanged for most users...)
  - hyakosm 5y ago
    We have phones with 300 dpi screens, but we can't find any 200 dpi monitor for PC on the market right now, it's insane.
butz 5y ago
I've tried using new Android Jetpack Compose libraries to rebuild my old Android app. Basic application with single activity is a bit below 6MB, optimized for release. This is really bad, compared to my original application, which apk is a bit smaller at 4MB, and includes offline maps and additional routing data. It's probably impossible for Google to keep all shared libraries on devices, as there are millions of those not getting updates, so only way is to keep everything duplicated in each app. Now I'm considering converting app to PWA, even if it means that UI will look out of place and potentially will have more accessibility issues. At least I hope to keep app size as small as possible.
hawski 5y ago
I may be late to the party, but I recommend RTSP Camera Server. It is what it says on the lid. I used it a few years ago as a baby monitor with a camera and it worked really good. I'm not sure in which state it is now. Simple, small and no bullshit. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miv.rtspcamera&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miv.rtspca...

by z2 5y ago

xook 5y ago

Another aside: I believe part of the argument for moving to "flat design" (Material) was lower file sizes since it's all CSS or SVG, as opposed to possibly dozens of raster images at different resolutions for the multitude of screens. Yet here we are, with our flat design, but apps now gobble up precious storage space because of bloated shipped libraries.

_jal 5y ago
> I believe part of the argument for moving to "flat design" (Material) was lower file sizes If it was, that was a sucker-play. Just like with CPU, RAM, and traffic lanes, any resource optimization will simply make room for something else to occupy. The steady-state of storage media is full.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Does your camera app really use over 1 GB of storage? Mine uses about 12 MB, still pretty obnoxious but nowhere near what you're describing.

z2 5y ago
Camera app as in a required smart home app to access the WiFi camera. About 300MB installed. It does do push notifications on motion detection so maybe that's 50MB there?
bluescrn 5y ago
Is the size of the camera app really significant when, on a modern high-end device, it's going to be taking 10+ megapixel photos or recording 4K video at up to 60fps?
- kasabali 5y ago
  of course. you can store photos in sd card or cloud, but not the camera app

TrianguloY 5y ago

I'm an android developer with apps around 100Kb, or 0.1Mb. The secret? Don't use android app compat, or rather, don't use any external library. Just plain old java. The apps are ugly (no themes) but they work extremely fast and to the point.

Y_Y 5y ago
https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=6280449025308262041 https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=628044902530826204... In case anyone else was wondering where to get such apps. Probably on F-Droid too?
- TrianguloY 5y ago
  Unfortunately no, or rather not yet. I guess it should be easy to publish most of them, as they are on GitHub already. (Except my most popular app by far, because in the past I had some issues with clones so I decided to kept its code private)
  - seniorivn 5y ago
    links please
    - TrianguloY 5y ago
      To the apps's source code? I guess the best list is on my blog [1] but each app in the play store should have the corresponding link [1] https://triangularapps.blogspot.com/p/apps.html https://triangularapps.blogspot.com/p/apps.html
TrianguloY 5y ago
Extra: maybe it was a bug or something, but when I tried one of my apps on an android 12 emulator, it reported a negative app size! (user data to be precise) https://ibb.co/TPjH5gh https://ibb.co/TPjH5gh
fouric 5y ago

comeonseriously 5y ago

> --what exactly did today's 10x size get us? A/B testing. Tracking. Things like that.

bluescrn 5y ago
We've also had massive increases in screen resolutions. 12 years ago, the iPhone 3GS was cutting edge. With a 480x320 screen. That's just 0.15 million pixels. There are now Android phones with full 4K screens. That's 3840x2160, a little over 8 million pixels. That a 50x increase in pixel count. Anything using bitmap graphics (games being an obvious example) is going to be much bigger now. (And in that same period, it seems that the average Windows PC desktop resolution has remained pretty much unchanged for most users...)
- hyakosm 5y ago
  We have phones with 300 dpi screens, but we can't find any 200 dpi monitor for PC on the market right now, it's insane.

butz 5y ago

I've tried using new Android Jetpack Compose libraries to rebuild my old Android app. Basic application with single activity is a bit below 6MB, optimized for release. This is really bad, compared to my original application, which apk is a bit smaller at 4MB, and includes offline maps and additional routing data. It's probably impossible for Google to keep all shared libraries on devices, as there are millions of those not getting updates, so only way is to keep everything duplicated in each app. Now I'm considering converting app to PWA, even if it means that UI will look out of place and potentially will have more accessibility issues. At least I hope to keep app size as small as possible.

hawski 5y ago

I may be late to the party, but I recommend RTSP Camera Server. It is what it says on the lid. I used it a few years ago as a baby monitor with a camera and it worked really good. I'm not sure in which state it is now. Simple, small and no bullshit. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miv.rtspcamera&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.miv.rtspca...