New York: Google Play Store will make the actual size of apps more transparent to its users by displaying the information more clearly. Google, which initially only displayed the APK file size; will now show the actual file size in the Play Store and data used. The new data algorithm rolled out by Google will also reduce the size of app updates and allow users to optimise parts of APK to make them smaller.
Anthony Morris, SWE Google Play said “You can now see actual download sizes, not the APK file size, in the Play Store. If you already have an app, you will only see the update size. These changes are rolling out now.” For about 98 per cent of app updates, only changes to APK files are downloaded and merged with existing files. This reduces the size of updates. Now, Google’s new algorithm for Play Store will further reduce the patches by up to 50 per cent. The compression algorithms are capable of reducing the download size of initial installs of a file as large as 2GB by 12 per cent, and updates by 65 percent.