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I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app

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Re: I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app

#351

Post by bttger »

pianoben wrote: post #319
nicksaroha wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outlook makes sense because they use React Native in their app. If you look at their License sections they are using a ton of libraries which is common.

React Native is one cause. Another is that they ship a tremendous amount of cross-platform c++ Office code, which is not small.

What I also find very annoying is that the Outlook app even embeds a whole browser (with GUI; is it Edge?). It makes me furious to be forced to use the embedded browser when opening links in emails instead of a preferred, already installed browser. I mean... what advantage has it to use an embedded browser? I lose my cookies/sessions, browser extensions, passwords, and the usability is worse than of my preferred browser.

Re: I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app

#352

Post by preinheimer »

tantalor wrote: post #67
mwcampbell wrote: post #57

I think the most effective way to fix this systemic problem would be for app stores to start charging developers for app size, both for storage and outbound transfer. And for desktop apps downloaded from websites, all hosting providers and CDNs should start charging for egress like the big cloud providers do, in acknowledgement of the fact that bandwidth isn't free. Yes, I recently migrated some of my company's infra…

If app sizes trend down, it might serve the users well, but it would depress iPhone sales as fewer users would need to upgrade storage. Which one do you think Apple cares more about?

With the iPhone now ~silently deleting apps you don't use that often, and re-installing on demand I don't think this is as big a push as it used to be.

Re: I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app

#353

Post by stjohnswarts »

aledalgrande wrote: post #181
dymk wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying anywhere, period, is a luxury

Flying in NA, with covid, is a luxury. Europe is a different story. Edit: why the downvotes? You can get flights for 50 bucks to go to different countries in Europe.

Downvotes because you seem to think there is something special about flying in Europe? lol. It is a similar size to the US within a reasonable estimation, let alone the whole of NA, which is probably what 3x as big?

Re: I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app

#354

Post by stjohnswarts »

hadlock wrote: post #257
tschwimmer wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the most relevant tradeoff. The United App is the only way to watch in-flight entertainment on many United Flights (esp. on newer planes without seatback screens). Every time I fly United, they make an announcement that says "Make sure to download the app before we take off because you can't do it once we're in the air!" and then I see everyone whip out their phones and tablets. Usually that's 10m or so b…

Also the only way to order adult beverages

Wait you can't order alcohol without their beast of an app? I haven't flown anythign but SW in a while (rewards card)

Re: I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app

#355

Post by spc476 »

gbear605 wrote: post #268
morcheeba wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying is far cheaper than Amtrak.

For a lot of trips, Amtrak is about the same as flying. Looking at a round trip from NYC to Chicago, on the arbitrary dates of March 26 to April 9, Amtrak costs $180 while Kayak shows the cheapest flights at $159. Of course, Amtrak takes much longer (20 hours) but is less hassle, and at that price the flight only lets you take one carry-on while Amtrak lets you bring two checked bags and two carry-ons. Adding checked…

NYC to Chicago probably has a decent customer base to support that price point. For amusement, try Miami/Seattle via Amtrak. It's possible, since I looked up the route [1]. One week transit time one way, at $2,000 (I don't recall if the price was round trip or just one way). And trying to work on the train was fun (too "swishy" to use the computer: http://boston.conman.org/2015/08/05.2). Totally not worth it for me. Sadly [2].

[1] For reference, I live near Miami (technically, I live in Boca Raton, but Miami is "close enough" at this scale). The company I work for is based in Seattle. I refuse to fly anymore for a variety of reasons.

[2] Riding in a private rail car really spoiled travel for me: http://boston.conman.org/2015/08/05.4 But way out of my pay grade.

Re: I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app

#356

Post by stjohnswarts »

Banana699 wrote: post #261
rvnx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrarian opinion here; I understand their logic. It looks like a rational trade-off that the engineers have done. Increase developer productivity at the expense of hardware. In this case, engineering is more expensive than hardware (because hardware is at the cost of the user). The smallest iPhone starts at 128 GB. This means the application takes 500/128000 blocks: 0.4% of the total device storage. Over time, the…

This bizarre reasoning puzzles and infuriates me so much. The linked post shaves more than 40% of an app's size in 5 minutes, by doing nothing but being curious about the half-gigabyte app and knowing how to use a couple of tools. This is not a case of "I have plenty of water so let the kids splash some in the playground to have fun", this is a case of "I have plenty of water so I will load 10000 liters in a truck an…

No doubt, there is something to be said for prioritizing concerns for your app but apparently they just gave up completely lol

Re: I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app

#357

Post by stjohnswarts »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #212
thaway2839 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could argue that maybe the developers of the app were optimizing for the right things. Usability, performance, etc., as opposed to disk space.

In this case, shipping symbols with the app is almost certainly an oversight. Stripping symbols of shipped binaries is standard good practice. That said, I don't think the difference between a 40MB app and a 400MB app is all that critical these days. Optimizing for development speed and user experience over an absolutely minimal download size is a reasonable choice.

I have lots of apps on my iphone. If they were all half a gigabyte I would have a lot fewer apps.

Re: I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app

#358

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

Until app stores start penalizing apps for their size, there is little incentive for developers to improve. And I guess the phone makers don't mind forcing people to buy new phones - although a shortage of space would also get people to stop buying more apps, so maybe that doesn't play into it as much as a desire to keep developers happy.

Notably, the Google Play Store doesn't even show the app size. I bet just showing it below the download button would already create significant pressure to reduce size. Both major stores used to have some form of limit - either a hard one, or a soft one where users would get warnings or the apps would only be downloaded over WiFi - which kept developer madness in check, but that seems to be gone now.

Some banking apps are the worst offenders, because banks know that few people will change their primary bank just because their app was too big so they don't care at all. Revolut is 200 MB (for comparison: Chrome - a complete browser! - is 50 MB), and that isn't the biggest one on my phone.

Re: I shaved 187MB off United Airlines' 439MB iOS app

#359

Post by [deleted] »

coldcode wrote: post #125

I spent the last ten years of my career building iOS apps, all but one you would likely known at the time, and whoever in charge of this app is an idiot. Shipping an app to the general public with symbols intact? Really? If they didn't know/didn't care, it tells me no one there likely cared about any other quality issue either. It's highly likely that any relevant lead person probably screamed about this daily, but h…

[deleted]
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