New Google Play Store Algorithm Shrinks And Shows Android App Update Sizes

In a blog post Android Developer, Google announced that it has added new algorithms to Google Play Store that will reduce the size of the update to the Android app, and users show the actual size of this update.

Last year, Android users downloaded more than 65 billion apps from the Google Play Store, according to a blog post. With such rapid growth, developers are encouraged to release more frequent updates to their applications to add new content, improve security and make other changes according to the feedback from users.

However, Google noted that specific user, as they are rarely connected to a Wi-Fi network, which is sensitive to the amount of data they download. This is the reason why the company looks to reduce the size of the installation and update of applications, while making transparent the amount of data downloaded.

For almost all application updates in the Google Play Store, only the changes, known as delta, downloaded and then joined the applications installed on the smartphone, which reduces the size of the update. A new delta algorithm called bsdiff make a further reduction in the size of updates by 50 percent, as it was designed to create a delta that is more efficient than the original library application.

The blog post noted two recent patch for the browser Google Chrome for Android. The M46 to M47 major update has a size of 22.8 MB, while the M47 minor update is 15.3 MB. With bsdiff algorithm, the update size is reduced to 12.9 MB and 3.6 MB, respectively.

Some applications require a download file expansion, the additional download for the main applications are much larger because it contains resource files of applications, such as content that used by mobile games. The algorithm also will begin to be applied to this expansion to reduce the file size by 12 percent initial installation and updates by 65 percent, on average.

In addition to the release of the algorithm bsdiff, Google Play Store will now display the amount of data required to download applications and updates. This includes the actual download size for users to access applications and the size of the update for an installed application, and not just the size of the APK file.

Users who have high-end Android smartphone with a large memory card and is usually connected to a Wi-Fi network may not see much difference from the Google Play Store update. However, for owners of Android are limited data plan and with little storage on their devices, this change will allow them to maximize the capabilities of their smartphones.