Probably because it has three embedded versions of libcef
Spot on! We tried to somehow reduce the libcef size in our B2B app - barely could do that. We had to employ some fancy compression techniques, but still this thing is huge!
Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?
161–170 of 403 posts
Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a few other apps that are ridiculously big. Like the DJI Mimo app. It's an app I need for my DJI Mic, to change 4 settings on it. It needs 800MB for that which is absolutely ridiculous. Also I need to sign up for an account to use it even though the Mic works completely locally and it just changes the settings over USB. It's absolutely fucking ridiculous to have an 800MB app for this and the reason is just ma…
Apps like that often contain (many?) short high resolution videos to show how to do an initial connection or something that can take up a ton of space. Gmail has no such excuse.
They could decouple the video download from the app download. Then they could even update the video independently if needed. Not everyone that downloads the app needs the videos, and even the ones that do I’m sure would be happier to reclaim the disk space after viewing them.
It’s lazy.
Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?
#163Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?
#164Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?
#165Maybe because it’s an Electron app? Sure, Electron does not come natively for iOS. But with tools like Capacitor, you can take a web app (even an Electron one) and package it for iOS/Android, adding native features and running in a native WebView, allowing it to be an “Electron for Mobile”.
usually electron apps are 150-300MB
Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?
#166You just need to check the version history for mobile apps to see what the developers are doing! It’s a wealth of information on new features and changes.
For example here’s the Facebook app for iOS:
543.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (2w ago)
542.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (3w ago)
541.1 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (1mo ago)
541.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (1mo ago)
540.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (1mo ago)
539.1 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (1mo ago)
539.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (1mo ago)
538.1 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (1mo ago)
538.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (2mo ago)
537.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (2mo ago)
536.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (2mo ago)
535.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (2mo ago)
534.1 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (2mo ago)
534.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (2mo ago)
533.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (3mo ago)
532.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (3mo ago)
531.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (3mo ago)
530.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (3mo ago)
529.1 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (4mo ago)
529.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (4mo ago)
528.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (4mo ago)
527.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (4mo ago)
526.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (4mo ago)
525.0.0 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (4mo ago)
524.1 — Our teams have solved many crashes, fixed issues you’ve reported and made the app faster. (5mo ago)Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?
#167My whole cat is, what, a couple gigs of DNA?
Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?
#168> For most of that period, the size of the Gmail app hovered around 12 MB, with a sudden jump to more than 200 MB near the start of 2017... The Gmail app, on the App Store, is currently 760.7 MB in size. With charts: https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/the-top-iphone-apps-are-tak... I had no idea common apps used to be just 10-30 MB. But are now hundreds of MB. Something like Gmail doesn't have massive hi-resolution bit…
> I had no idea common apps used to be just 10-30 MB. But are now hundreds of MB.
This is Android, but: 13+ years ago I had an HTC Desire. I was really struggling with internal storage space, regularly uninstalling and replacing apps just to be able to update others. Eventually I moved to custom ROMs just because they allowed some apps to be moved to the SD card.
I remember the biggest problem was WhatsApp, which was somehow over 7MB while the average was closer to 1MB.
On my current phone WhatsApp is 231MB. It's still pretty high up in the rankings, but doesn't stand out, and barely any apps are below that then-huge 7MB.
Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Static linking will do that. Imagine you have 400mb of binary objects your app depends on. Libraries your company uses for app analytics, SSO, 2FA, Corporate service bus api, etc. You statically link all those for your 50mb Swift UI app and bam, you’re in the 700mb range.
That's a lot of code, though. I can't imagine common libraries so big. The Linux kernel is less than 100mb.
That would be the source code. The default debian kernel is around 12 MB but it could be much smaller.
It doesn't bundle full random external libraries compiled with debugging symbols and "whatever other stuff".
Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a few other apps that are ridiculously big. Like the DJI Mimo app. It's an app I need for my DJI Mic, to change 4 settings on it. It needs 800MB for that which is absolutely ridiculous. Also I need to sign up for an account to use it even though the Mic works completely locally and it just changes the settings over USB. It's absolutely fucking ridiculous to have an 800MB app for this and the reason is just ma…
Apps like that often contain (many?) short high resolution videos to show how to do an initial connection or something that can take up a ton of space. Gmail has no such excuse.
800 MB High resolution video explaining how to connect a microphone is still bonkers. There's no justifying this garbage.