The size of Android's large applications is one of the biggest problems for users of relatively low-capacity phones. Over time, app sizes continue to increase overall. According to Google, the statistics show that the probability of a user installing an application decreases according to the size of the application. The larger the application size, the less likely the user will install it.
To solve this problem, Google announced at its annual Google I / O 2018 a new tool for application developers to help them dramatically reduce the size of their apps based on devices, called Google Android App Bundle.
To understand how this technique works, we first need to understand how APKs are currently being used. To support the different types of devices in terms of screen resolution, language, or processor architecture, the developer needs to provide all resources that are compatible with different types of devices within its application. For example, if the application contains five icons, the developer should supply the application with up to five different versions of each icon, each version different in size and accuracy to ensure that it appears correctly on all phones and tablets. This means that the APK file will contain 25 image icons, but what will actually appear to the user is only five, the five appropriate for the accuracy and measurement of screen. If the application supports multiple languages, the developer will also need to provide application-specific files in all languages.
The Android App Bundle works in a different way. Developers will now upload compiled code and source files (such as images and language files) to the Google Play Store. When the user downloads the app, the app will select the appropriate source files for the user's device and generate an APK containing only This is not the case for developers to generate an APK (which contains everything!) On their PC and then upload it to Google Play Store.
To prove its importance, Google explained that the tool available through the Android Studio 3.2 development platform is capable of reducing application sizes by up to 50 percent. It has been tested on some original Google applications as well as partner applications such as Microsoft's LinkedIn application, By 23 percent, and the size of the application of Twitter by 35 percent.
In the following picture, Google displays an example of the current (old) method on the left, and the new dynamic way to download APKs.
This course has a wonderful feature, which is one of the features that make you wonder how it has not been available for a long time? But in turn may limit the scalability of APKs to participate. For example, if you asked your friend to extract an APK for a particular application from his phone and send it to you to install it manually, you may find that the accuracy of the application icons will appear on your phone too badly assuming that the screen resolution of your phone is higher than the screen resolution of your friend's phone, Download it from the store contains only the appropriate sources for his device.
Google certainly does not encourage downloading applications from external sources for user safety, but some trusted app stores or download sites will now have a hard time providing multiple copies of APKs that fit all available devices.
