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Comment by hs86 | Hacker News Reader

May I add a follow-up question? Why is their Android app 'only' 70MB?

Are there fundamental differences between Android apks and iOS application bundles that cause these size differences? It seems to be a pattern that iOS apps are just bigger:

  - Facebook on Android is 70MB while on iOS it is 491MB
  - Twitter on Android is 74MB while on iOS it is 178MB.
  - Spotify on Android is 104MB while on iOS it is 164MB.
  - Dropbox on Android is 112MB while on iOS it is 228MB.

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Yes, Android has apk splitting ( https://developer.android.com/google/play/publishing/multipl...), which enables different packages for different devices. This means an mdpi arm6 device in India doesn't need to download and install a package with xxhdpi assets and arm7 code, leading to a smaller effective package for each user.

Also note that both platforms do delta updates but generally show the total size in the UI. So every update you aren't actually downloading that much over the wire.

Source: I used to manage the Android and iOS release engineering teams at Facebook

iOS has app thinning, which does essentially the same thing. However this only reduces the app size a bit, since most of the actual size comes from the app binary which is shared across devices.

If you enable Bitcode, each device will get their own binary though? Or does that only apply if they later change their architecture?

https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/devbbdc5ce4f

IIRC it's per architecture. So there will be a separate slice for ARMv6, ARMv7, ARMv7s, ARMv8, etc.

App thinning is not the same and not nearly as effective.

Not to be rude, but you are literally talking to someone who was in charge of this, looked at the graphs daily, and made the call when we went over the OTA limit on iOS. When I say multiple-apks are a large reason for the discrepancy, you should give me the benefit of the doubt. It's not the only reason mind you.

If you disagree with that, it might be good to provide a bit more context than “shut up I know what I’m talking about”.

As far as I was aware, the comment you were responding to was broadly accurate, but now I don’t know and have no additional information.

This was the reason for my downvote as well. “No it isn’t” is not very much to go on and saagarjha’s post didn’t merit pulling rank.

In a pseudo-anonymous forum you must provide facts - not rely on credentials. The answer to your “Do you not realize who I am” post is No, we have no idea.

https://m.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/update-on-...

Christan Legnitto, working at FB on release engineering, see his submission of this article in 2013.

Comments should stand on their own. Nobody learns anything with a “because I said so - just trust me” comment.

This a text book example of moving the goal posts, and I don't care to see it on HN. Android obviously allows more freedom to app developers than Apple, including the freedom to raid the cookie jar numerous ways.

Your original claim was that OP needed to substantiate their credentials; it was done (regardless of who).

HN Guidelines suggest we reply to the strongest argument being made and to give the benefit of the doubt, and that doesn't seem to be your approach.

Edit: I can't believe I'm defending FB or anyone that caused their increase in usage.

No, you misunderstand the whole point. Credentials don't matter in an anonymous setting. That's the whole point, people can converse on equal terms. The only "credentials" in common display is whether or not your account is new.

Its purposely designed that way to encourage conversation. Its not like at work where you may fear challenging someone at a higher level than you.

I am aware that app thinning is not as effective, but to my knowledge it does the same thing: strip out unneeded architectures from the binary and remove unused assets. I'm sure you have more to share, so I'm all ears on what the differences are.

> you are literally talking to someone who was in charge of this

Ouch. Hope this isn’t how you managed your teams.

Are you looking at the iOS size as listed in the app store? They don't show the 'thinned' size - the actual download size for your device can be much smaller. For Android, developers have to generate separate builds, which already have the final size.

Swift bundles?

That was my guess also, Swift apps are much heavier.

Facebook is all Objective-C++, if I recall correctly.

I just checked: On my iOS phone the Facebook App (Version 189.0) is 315MB. Plus 111MB of stored local data.

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