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Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

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Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

#171

Post by watermelon0 »

dylan604 wrote: post #75
wolvoleo wrote: post #67

Earlier 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…

Doesn't the Mimo app work for many devices not just your mic? While your mic might not need a lot of the code, someone using one of their other devices might not need your mic's code either. I can totally see why DJI would want a single app to control any of the DJI branded devices rather than dealing with multiple app store approvals. It would also be confusing for the end user as in "Which device am I using so whic…

Just for the comparison, Damn Small Linux is still around 700 MB, and contains Linux kernel, desktop environment, web browser, office suite, and other software.

Mimo app will never support as many devices as Linux kernel does.

Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

#172

Post by morcus »

tarentel wrote: post #112
kccqzy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iCloud Photo Library doesn’t have any public APIs that I know of. You simply can’t recreate the Photos app completely, regardless of app sizes. Apple values deep integration into the system more than it values giving third party developers a fair chance at cloning their app.

You can access iCloud from an iOS app, it has its own public framework called CloudKit, so you could create your own version of it. If you don't like that example Chrome and Edge are both forced to use WebKit on iOS but are still much larger so.

> You can access iCloud from an iOS app, it has its own public framework called CloudKit, so you could create your own version of it.

How is this relevant?

The point of having a Google Photos app is to access / back up your photos via Google Photos, not to make an alternative frontend for iCloud.

Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

#173

Post by jonny_eh »

jshchnz wrote: post #10
simonw wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right! I was looking forward to some insight into what's in that thing, but there was nothing. Why IS the Gmail app 700MB?

Emerge Tools has an old thread on why it's actually so big: https://x.com/emergetools/status/1810790280922288617

Looks like it's mostly strings, probably due to localization. They should consider compressing each localization/language, and decompressing the needed bundle on first startup (or language change). Even better: Download the language bundle when needed.

Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

#174

Post by stonemetal12 »

lxgr wrote: post #50
Aperocky wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is the question though, the question deserved to be asked. And Gmail deserve to be shamed for shipping almost a gigabyte of stuff for a mailbox. Wouldn't be surprised if they accidentally/intentionally built the whole youtube client in there.

I think this might be closer to the truth than you might think. Due to the absence of (cross-app) shared libraries on at least iOS, developers often end up building big company-internal libraries that then have to be shipped with all of their apps. Tree shaking isn’t perfect, and the result are these > 0.5 GB monstrosities.

On Android, Gmail reports as being under 200 MB. So I agree, they probably include way to much for portability.

Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

#176

Post by SapporoChris »

Kwpolska wrote: post #35
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #5

> why is the Gmail app almost 80x the size of the native Mail app? Apple Mail leverages libraries and frameworks already present on the device. Google uses libraries and frameworks very likely already present on say Android, but on iOS they have to ship a gigantic runtime that implements those things the app depends on; this way they only have to write the app once for several supported platforms. I’m just speculatin…

The Gmail app takes 175 MB on my Android phone. That’s better than iOS, but still a lot for an e-mail app.

To add to the comparisons. Protonmail is showing as 180 MB on GrapheneOS. Add in user data and cache and it's 495 MB. I don't consider myself a big email user so I am a bit appalled.

Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

#177

Post by loloquwowndueo »

miki123211 wrote: post #57
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #5

> why is the Gmail app almost 80x the size of the native Mail app? Apple Mail leverages libraries and frameworks already present on the device. Google uses libraries and frameworks very likely already present on say Android, but on iOS they have to ship a gigantic runtime that implements those things the app depends on; this way they only have to write the app once for several supported platforms. I’m just speculatin…

There's actually a bit more to it than that. A lot of what Apple apps actually do is hidden in frameworks made for that one specific app , which, unlike with 3rd-party applications, are part of the system, not of the app itself. Compare the size of Safari.app versus Safari Technology Preview.app (which actually ships all the frameworks it needs).

If you have those apps handy and could share the sizes it would be very useful. I don’t have a way to check this. (Or do I? All I have is an iPhone )

Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

#178

Post by vnorilo »

dylan604 wrote: post #75
wolvoleo wrote: post #67

Earlier 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…

Doesn't the Mimo app work for many devices not just your mic? While your mic might not need a lot of the code, someone using one of their other devices might not need your mic's code either. I can totally see why DJI would want a single app to control any of the DJI branded devices rather than dealing with multiple app store approvals. It would also be confusing for the end user as in "Which device am I using so whic…

When something is hundreds of megabytes, it is very unlikely to be mostly compiled code. A lot of that fits in each megabyte.

Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

#179

Post by tasty_freeze »

lucianbr wrote: post #144
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahead-of-time_compilation

Didn't this use to be called "compilation"?

Yes, but then JIT (just in time) compilation became commonplace, so now it is often useful to distinguish between AOT and JIT.

Re: Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?

#180

Post by nickff »

mckn1ght wrote: post #162
MBCook wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I often use the DJI MIMO app while out of WiFi, and would rather not download a large video separately. For the record, I do not like the DJI MIMO app (because it is the only app for their 'Pocket' products, and MIMO doesn't support tablets well), but I think this decision is a reasonable one.
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