Google’s Android app-shrinking tool rolls out to all developers
Google introduced the Android App Bundle last year, a publishing format designed to shrink the size of app installs. It’s now out of beta and available to all developers, which means all apps now have the potential to be kinder to your phone in terms of storage and memory.
The feature comes with new delivery options: on-demand, which installs features only as they’re needed or in the background; and conditional, which controls which parts of an app to install based on the user’s country, device features or minimum SDK version. Instant experiences are now fully supported, too, so you only need to upload one artefact for your app and Google Play Instant experiences.
According to Google, some 80,000 apps and games using this feature are in production, with average size savings of 20 percent leading to an 11 percent install uplift. This obviously suggests users are more willing to download — and keep hold of — an app that puts less strain on their phone, and will go some way to eradicating that annoying “storage full” notification that plagues hardcore app fans.
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