Description: Iphone App size is the biggest concern for iPhone app developers due to less internal storage. This post will give 3 top tricks to reduce your iPhone app size drastically.
Internal storage is a common concern for any smartphone user and that too for iPhone users it is no less than a life and death problem due to less internal storage. Out of all, the most infuriating notifications is “Phone storage is almost full. Please delete some files to free space.” Usually, every time users have to go to “Settings” option and delete a few files and other unused apps to free some space. The major reason behind this memory full notification, apart from music, photos, and videos is cache.
Generally, any iOS app is made of a hell of a lot of caches, especially if they do not delete cache. This is a must-do step for any kind of iPhone app development.
Let me put this in a different way. If you have an iPhone that has 16GB internal storage feature, then you would face too many limitations since already 4GB memory is consumed by Operating System and other in-built apps. Now, you have to get rid of any documents from storing, photos, and videos. In addition, there are certain limitations pertaining to images and record video. If you are an iPhone fan, then you have to compromise with the storage option. Apart from OS, you also would be needing a lot of GB for storing of your files.
This results in deleting a lot of apps that occupy too much space. No matter how good your app is, if it is consuming too much space then the user will likely delete your app. Moreover, this is a problem faced by iPhone 16GB users. There are more limitations for an iPhone 4GB user. Finally, it all comes down to app size. Now what about iPhone application development?
For that reason, we have listed the top 3 tricks for mobile app developers to significantly reduce the size of an iPhone app.
1. App Thinning
App thinning is fragmenting one code into multiple of codes. This process will assist the app developer in setting the segments of codes together for the mobile user to use in bits as needed. With the help of app thinning, space management and storage can be very well optimized.
By using this special feature, any iOS-based app can not only work faster but also responds quickly and offers the users a top-quality user experience. With the help of this app optimization, iPhone app development not only lets using minimum space but as well as offers more features to the users. However, iOS or above only will be able to get to access most of the features.
The other way that comes up in app thinning is asset slicing. In addition, it is one of the most convenient ways of taking advantage of app resource slicing is through asset bundles. This lets the distribution of various kinds of the iOS app by minimizing the load from the whole asset class. It offers feasible solutions for different targeted devices. App slicing can pile various assets into the first app bundle and still be available within the 100MB over-the-air download bound.
2. Bitcode
Organizing code as an intermediate portrayal is called as “Bitcode.” iPhone app developers need to send app for review or even upload a new version of the app in the Apple App Store. Moreover, Bitcode will link it directly to the App Store.
With smartphones all around, the code size is extremely important due to the mobile itself has less storage space when compared to a basic hard drive. The app developers can optimize and even re-optimize the app code without even sending the new version every time.
The new iOS 9 has Bitcode by default and is needed for watch OS apps. iOS 9 apps can switch off bitcode however if a developer picks to employ bitcode, all frameworks within the application require to contain it.
3. On-demand Resources
On-demand resources are app content that are actually hosted on the App Store and distinguish from the pertaining app bundle that you download. At least this is what Apple says. On-demand resources are either hosted by TestFlight or even your own web server.
On-demand resources actually take things one step ahead by downloading the relevant content you require when you initially begin utilizing an app including game levels, media, document templates, and many more.
Let’s say, when you try to download a new game from the App Store, it would only include the initial five levels and have it queued up the rest and waiting on Apple’s server. Once you finish the levels maybe 3 or 4 then the App Store would download the next levels of the game and delete the initial levels.
In other words, as and when the new content comes into your smartphone, the old goes out. All you can is the size of the app that may differ very slightly as you use it. But the good thing is you never have to save all of it at once.
The positive thing about app thinning is that it is completely transparent on the user’s side. Until the app developers keep developing apps that can be reduced in size, the Apple will take care of everything else.
iOS 9 is out and because of app thinning it has already made its place in the market. This new system has been installed nearly half of all Apple devices. App thinning is one of the major components of iOS 9’s enhanced efficiency. It is designed to optimize the installation of applications on iPads, iPhones, Apple watch etc. to take the most beneficiary of the device’s hardware and features and consume low space.
Source link http://www.imore.com/app-thinning-ios-9-explained
