Updating Androids apps has always been time consuming. As a solution to this problem, Google has updated an algorithm in its Play store app delivery system, to shrink the update size by as much as 50 per cent.
What has changed now? Only the required changes are downloaded to APK files and merged with existing files. This has reduced the size of updates, saving data consumption of users as well. When compared to the previous algorithm, the recently rolled out delta algorithm, ‘Bsdiff’, further reduces patches by up to 50 percent or more. For this improved and efficient system in place, native libraries are stored uncompressed.
As the number of app updates pushed out by Android developers has been on a rise, consumers of Android phones will be quite happy with this change. For example, previous patch size of 22.8 MB has been reduced to 12.9 MB with Bsdiff for M46 to M47 major update (patch description).
Google’s impressive new algorithm has also been expanded to APK Expansion Files – often used for large files in things like games – for the first time. This addition can reduce the download size of initial installs by 12 percent, and updates by 65 percent on average.
Though it sounds interesting, it will take some time for this changes to roll out to your devices. Read more here.
Updating Android Apps in Half Time
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