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Does app size matter for install rates? I suspect not on high end mobile but this accident should give some data towards this. Will throw a spanner into the 'w

Does app size matter for install rates? I suspect not on high end mobile but this accident should give some data towards this. Will throw a spanner into the 'we can't release that feature as it will increase app size' thinking that I've witnessed in my mobile dev career. I've never seen it actually impact metrics that much.

arcticbull 4y ago
They answer is yes, but only in some cases: - Getting warned about app size over cellular, which in iOS happens at 200MB. - In geographies where cellular data is expensive, slow or intermittent. - At the margin when you have many millions of users. The data bears out that it does have a small but measurable impact.
wlesieutre 4y ago
There's a 200 MB size threshold where users on cellular connections get prompted if they're sure they want to download it, so if this pushes an app over 200 MB I would assume yes some users will bounce off of that. And in some places 200 MB can still be a big deal, the whole world isn't on 20 GB data plans.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  200MB for a 3d game with a bunch of assests... sure... but somehow there are more and more >200MB apps, that are basically a packed webapp that should be below 10MB.
newaccount74 4y ago
There are A LOT of people who ran out of space on their phones and can't install anything anymore. So if your app is 500MB, they'll first have to find 500MB worth of stuff to delete. If they really want your app, they'll look through the storage settings on their phone, and start deleting their biggest apps. So if your app is too big, many people won't even install it, and if they do, it'll be the first app to go if they need more space.
mring33621 4y ago
YES! Size matters. I just moved from android to apple and the IOS apps are 2x - 5X larger It's really a disgusting tax and I install a lot less apps as a result. They could easily fix this by adding intelligence in the App store, to serve up the binary for my device's architecture, but no, I have to get the universal bloated binary pig. Example: You're about to pay your bill at a restaurant. The server tells you that they have an app that will get you a discount/loyalty points. Your cell has a 4G connection. On android, the download size is 20-50MB. No problem. On IOS, the download size is 40-240MB. Problem!
- ladberg 4y ago
  While there is a lot of unfortunate size bloat in iOS apps (like the one in the article), including unnecessary architectures is not one of them. See the app thinning section here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/doing-advanced-optimization-to-further-reduce-your-app-s-size https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/doing-advanc... (which is automatically done on all apps distributed through the App Store)
- pyr0hu 4y ago
  I don't know, downloading 40-240MB on 4G connection is not taking too much time. 4G is pretty fast
  - FractalParadigm 4y ago
    The problem isn't the speed, it's the ridiculous bandwidth caps imposed by ISPs. Here in Canada a fairly simple 10GB data plan runs about $75/month, if a restaurant is offering me a discount and requires their 250MB app to get it, that discount has effectively cost me $2.
    - happyopossum 4y ago
      That was the case several years ago, but Telus, Rogers, etc all have unlimited plans for that price now...
_aavaa_ 4y ago
High end or low end it doesn't matter. Poorly engineered is poorly engineered regardless. High end phones with lots of storage can (for now) get away with running apps that take up 2x more space than they need to. For an analogous problem try running poorly coded apps on old hardware, looking at you MS teams or zoom.
- AnotherGoodName 4y ago
  Sure but I've witnessed poor engineering from trying to keep app size down. A great example is 'make that feature entirely as a WebView to our site so we don't increase app size'.
  - _aavaa_ 4y ago
    Well hold on. That seems to be begging the question. If a whole feature can be replaced by a web view (and the site is already there), is an app actually required?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Someone 4y ago
      “A feature can be implemented as a web view” doesn’t imply “All features can be implemented as a web view” Some of the other features may require an app.
    - AnotherGoodName 4y ago
      The answer is the feature can't effectively be a WebView. Which is the entire problem here.
goldcd 4y ago
I'm not sure it affects install rates - but I know when I've been cleaning up my phone the apps that seem to occupy orders of magnitude more than their function would suggest, get culled first. Makes me feel old. I'm sure 20 years ago I could have told you say what app/game had been installed from floppies and which was "CD ROM only" My phone apps? Couldn't even guess as to their storage requirements. Probably a good thing that storage is so plentiful we normally don't care - but cynic in me thinks that a company selling storage with a massive markup, maybe doesn't have aligned interests. If 0.1% of people install an app, and it consumes a gig rather than 500Meg - and we sell millions of phones. That does turn into a real money pretty fast.
toast0 4y ago
Larger apps lead to more cycling behavior. Remove X and Y, install Z, then later remove Z to install something else. Biggest app that doesn't need to be installed at the moment gets removed first.
icev 4y ago
It used to matter in the past, but it seems like these days the effect is not very significant... Last year we ran a test which involved artificially bloating one of our IPAs from 160mb to 260mb* and compared the app performance metrics* before and after the change, we saw no meaningful difference between the two versions. By using the app thinning mechanism, you can create a different IPA sizes for different devices. * CPI, CPS etc.
flohofwoe 4y ago
I guess the main problem is that it's most often a boiling frog problem, not a drastic change like in this case. Users may put up with long install times because they've slowly getting used to it, and usually they also can't judge whether the install size is actually justified for the features the app offers (and I have the impression that most devs also don't have much of a clue or even care).

arcticbull 4y ago

They answer is yes, but only in some cases: - Getting warned about app size over cellular, which in iOS happens at 200MB. - In geographies where cellular data is expensive, slow or intermittent. - At the margin when you have many millions of users. The data bears out that it does have a small but measurable impact.

wlesieutre 4y ago

There's a 200 MB size threshold where users on cellular connections get prompted if they're sure they want to download it, so if this pushes an app over 200 MB I would assume yes some users will bounce off of that. And in some places 200 MB can still be a big deal, the whole world isn't on 20 GB data plans.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
200MB for a 3d game with a bunch of assests... sure... but somehow there are more and more >200MB apps, that are basically a packed webapp that should be below 10MB.

newaccount74 4y ago

There are A LOT of people who ran out of space on their phones and can't install anything anymore. So if your app is 500MB, they'll first have to find 500MB worth of stuff to delete. If they really want your app, they'll look through the storage settings on their phone, and start deleting their biggest apps. So if your app is too big, many people won't even install it, and if they do, it'll be the first app to go if they need more space.

mring33621 4y ago

YES! Size matters. I just moved from android to apple and the IOS apps are 2x - 5X larger It's really a disgusting tax and I install a lot less apps as a result. They could easily fix this by adding intelligence in the App store, to serve up the binary for my device's architecture, but no, I have to get the universal bloated binary pig. Example: You're about to pay your bill at a restaurant. The server tells you that they have an app that will get you a discount/loyalty points. Your cell has a 4G connection. On android, the download size is 20-50MB. No problem. On IOS, the download size is 40-240MB. Problem!

ladberg 4y ago
While there is a lot of unfortunate size bloat in iOS apps (like the one in the article), including unnecessary architectures is not one of them. See the app thinning section here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/doing-advanced-optimization-to-further-reduce-your-app-s-size https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/doing-advanc... (which is automatically done on all apps distributed through the App Store)
pyr0hu 4y ago
I don't know, downloading 40-240MB on 4G connection is not taking too much time. 4G is pretty fast
- FractalParadigm 4y ago
  The problem isn't the speed, it's the ridiculous bandwidth caps imposed by ISPs. Here in Canada a fairly simple 10GB data plan runs about $75/month, if a restaurant is offering me a discount and requires their 250MB app to get it, that discount has effectively cost me $2.
  - happyopossum 4y ago
    That was the case several years ago, but Telus, Rogers, etc all have unlimited plans for that price now...

_aavaa_ 4y ago

High end or low end it doesn't matter. Poorly engineered is poorly engineered regardless. High end phones with lots of storage can (for now) get away with running apps that take up 2x more space than they need to. For an analogous problem try running poorly coded apps on old hardware, looking at you MS teams or zoom.

AnotherGoodName 4y ago
Sure but I've witnessed poor engineering from trying to keep app size down. A great example is 'make that feature entirely as a WebView to our site so we don't increase app size'.
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  Well hold on. That seems to be begging the question. If a whole feature can be replaced by a web view (and the site is already there), is an app actually required?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Someone 4y ago
    “A feature can be implemented as a web view” doesn’t imply “All features can be implemented as a web view” Some of the other features may require an app.
  - AnotherGoodName 4y ago
    The answer is the feature can't effectively be a WebView. Which is the entire problem here.

goldcd 4y ago

I'm not sure it affects install rates - but I know when I've been cleaning up my phone the apps that seem to occupy orders of magnitude more than their function would suggest, get culled first. Makes me feel old. I'm sure 20 years ago I could have told you say what app/game had been installed from floppies and which was "CD ROM only" My phone apps? Couldn't even guess as to their storage requirements. Probably a good thing that storage is so plentiful we normally don't care - but cynic in me thinks that a company selling storage with a massive markup, maybe doesn't have aligned interests. If 0.1% of people install an app, and it consumes a gig rather than 500Meg - and we sell millions of phones. That does turn into a real money pretty fast.

toast0 4y ago

Larger apps lead to more cycling behavior. Remove X and Y, install Z, then later remove Z to install something else. Biggest app that doesn't need to be installed at the moment gets removed first.

icev 4y ago

It used to matter in the past, but it seems like these days the effect is not very significant... Last year we ran a test which involved artificially bloating one of our IPAs from 160mb to 260mb* and compared the app performance metrics* before and after the change, we saw no meaningful difference between the two versions. By using the app thinning mechanism, you can create a different IPA sizes for different devices. * CPI, CPS etc.

flohofwoe 4y ago

I guess the main problem is that it's most often a boiling frog problem, not a drastic change like in this case. Users may put up with long install times because they've slowly getting used to it, and usually they also can't judge whether the install size is actually justified for the features the app offers (and I have the impression that most devs also don't have much of a clue or even care).