Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

9to5mac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 138 posts

Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

#81

Post by onion2k »

mrtksn wrote: post #68

I have an app written in Swift and weights between 8-20Mb(depending on device and iOS version), which is not too far of from a typical website these days and the startup times are phenomenal(between 250-500ms, depending on the devıce). Writing in Swift is a delight and this is the feature I was dreaming about because having the user to install the App is not easy these days(100 impressions on Appstore Search would ge…

I can't remember the last time I installed an app that was only 20MB. Even the most simple things weigh in at 100MB and up these days.

The most ridiculous example I've seen lately is the mobile version of the Gwent card game from the Witcher game series. It's 2.7GB. For a card game.

Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

#82

Post by mrtksn »

fxtentacle wrote: post #76
mrtksn wrote: post #68

I have an app written in Swift and weights between 8-20Mb(depending on device and iOS version), which is not too far of from a typical website these days and the startup times are phenomenal(between 250-500ms, depending on the devıce). Writing in Swift is a delight and this is the feature I was dreaming about because having the user to install the App is not easy these days(100 impressions on Appstore Search would ge…

It's hard to imagine, but some DOS apps had I agree that your app is small and fast compared to what others are putting out there, but compared to what software engineering could do if people cared, this is still bloated and slow.

Oh I did not put any effort to optimize that.

I bet I can get this number lower with some lazy loading but what for? The app is loaded by the time the springboard animation ends, the user interaction isn't likely to start before that.

It's a new App that I try to iterate quickly, so I prefer to keep away of added complexity that optimizations would bring. If it feels quick enough on the lowest end device that I support(which is iPhone 6s because of iOS13) it's alright. The mobile devices are very powerful these days.

Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

#83

Post by jcelerier »

mrtksn wrote: post #82
fxtentacle wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to imagine, but some DOS apps had I agree that your app is small and fast compared to what others are putting out there, but compared to what software engineering could do if people cared, this is still bloated and slow.

Oh I did not put any effort to optimize that. I bet I can get this number lower with some lazy loading but what for? The app is loaded by the time the springboard animation ends, the user interaction isn't likely to start before that. It's a new App that I try to iterate quickly, so I prefer to keep away of added complexity that optimizations would bring. If it feels quick enough on the lowest end device that I suppo…

When you are used to desktop apps coming up and being useable literally in the next frame of you launching them, any interaction with mobile decices and webbpages with loading times everywhere is absolutely terrible. Makes me remember all the game consoles which would have loading time ms everywhere - it was terrible and frustrating when you were used to PCs

Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

#84

Post by mrtksn »

onion2k wrote: post #81
mrtksn wrote: post #68

I have an app written in Swift and weights between 8-20Mb(depending on device and iOS version), which is not too far of from a typical website these days and the startup times are phenomenal(between 250-500ms, depending on the devıce). Writing in Swift is a delight and this is the feature I was dreaming about because having the user to install the App is not easy these days(100 impressions on Appstore Search would ge…

I can't remember the last time I installed an app that was only 20MB. Even the most simple things weigh in at 100MB and up these days. The most ridiculous example I've seen lately is the mobile version of the Gwent card game from the Witcher game series. It's 2.7GB. For a card game.

The unnecessarily large apps probably use cross-platform tools that ship their runtime with each installation, losing out on Apple's optimizations or they have multiple ad tracking or 3rd party UI libraries.

I am not an expert in mobile dev by any means since I switched from web to native mobile development barely a year ago but when I was still resisting to learn the native way of doing things I was exploring the cross-platform solutions and libraries to "take advantage of my current skills", anything that goes beyond the demo todo list app quickly escalated in resource consumption and development complexity.

With these cross-platform tools, the moment you try to do something a little bit differently than everybody else, you find yourself stitching multiple 3rd party libraries together and these libraries add up to the binary size and loading times.

Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

#85

Post by camdenlock »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #75

So, apple don't want web app to be first class citizens and then reinvent web apps?

The web is the biggest threat they face to their App Store.

They see the writing on the wall with technologies like wasm blossoming, and with web APIs beginning to open up possibilities for “native”-quality apps.

So they’re interested in anything that can reduce the friction necessary to get into native iOS apps.

Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

#86

Post by jamil7 »

mrtksn wrote: post #84
onion2k wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't remember the last time I installed an app that was only 20MB. Even the most simple things weigh in at 100MB and up these days. The most ridiculous example I've seen lately is the mobile version of the Gwent card game from the Witcher game series. It's 2.7GB. For a card game.

The unnecessarily large apps probably use cross-platform tools that ship their runtime with each installation, losing out on Apple's optimizations or they have multiple ad tracking or 3rd party UI libraries. I am not an expert in mobile dev by any means since I switched from web to native mobile development barely a year ago but when I was still resisting to learn the native way of doing things I was exploring the cr…

I haven't used Flutter but I remember Expo being particully bad for this, a hello world app weighs in at 100mb.

Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

#87

Post by camdenlock »

enos_feedler wrote: post #11
diggan wrote: post #6

> this new API, we can say that it allows developers to offer interactive and dynamic content from their apps even if you haven’t installed them Also formerly known as Web Applications but now made by Apple with the added features of less control from the developers, a 30% mandatory fee if you accept any payments of any kind and locked to just one platform.

Pretty sure this would be enabled by an app's universal link. URLs already work with the QR code scanner today and invoke Safari. This would be under developer control. As usual, any attempt by Apple to live as an alternative to the open web is seen as an attack on it.

Indeed. I see no harm in several coexisting ecosystems.

Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

#88

Post by jamil7 »

fxtentacle wrote: post #74

The reason why this is needed at all is because a todo list regularly needs 20 MB updates. The problem is that there is no incentive for developers to keep their apps small. And since Apple makes money from selling larger phones, they also have an incentive to tolerate bloat. And lastly, your provider will be happy to charge you astronomical fees for downloading that critical update over mobile data. There's nobody m…

Well if the feature is successful and apple puts a hard limit on binary size for it then it might incentivise developers to ship less bloated apps.

Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

#89

Post by rubicon33 »

mrtksn wrote: post #84
onion2k wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't remember the last time I installed an app that was only 20MB. Even the most simple things weigh in at 100MB and up these days. The most ridiculous example I've seen lately is the mobile version of the Gwent card game from the Witcher game series. It's 2.7GB. For a card game.

The unnecessarily large apps probably use cross-platform tools that ship their runtime with each installation, losing out on Apple's optimizations or they have multiple ad tracking or 3rd party UI libraries. I am not an expert in mobile dev by any means since I switched from web to native mobile development barely a year ago but when I was still resisting to learn the native way of doing things I was exploring the cr…

> With these cross-platform tools, the moment you try to do something a little bit differently than everybody else, you find yourself stitching multiple 3rd party libraries together and these libraries add up to the binary size and loading times.

This.

I have tons of native iOS experience.

Started with react native a little over a year ago and was shocked at how difficult some things are. Easy things are easier. Hard things are harder.

Re: Apple is developing a feature for using apps without requiring full downloads

#90

Post by jamil7 »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #78
novok wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're big because of swift. Tweetbot is small because it's still only Objective-C.

That should be changing as more apps drop older iOS versions and stop bundling Swift.

Exactly, an app of mine targeting iOS13+ weighs in around 2mb.
Post reply on HN