One could argue that maybe the developers of the app were optimizing for the right things. Usability, performance, etc., as opposed to disk space.
That said, I don't think the difference between a 40MB app and a 400MB app is all that critical these days. Optimizing for development speed and user experience over an absolutely minimal download size is a reasonable choice.
It's tempting to think about the United app as something very simple:
- Search for flights
- Run through the booking flow for flights
- Look up existing bookings
- Change existing bookings
But this ignores a lot of scope that's actually critical for a company whose products are very complicated:
- ID verification for international travel
- Custom functionality for large institutional cu stomers (government, corporate)
- Functionality for ancillary services: in-air streaming entertainment, in-airport services like lounges and baggage checks, loyalty program, loyalty-tier-specific functionality like priority connections.
- ... etc.
In this case the lack of stripping symbols seems like a very easy win and definitely is an example of sloppiness, but the idea that the binary should definitively be < 100MB seems to ignore a lot of scope.
But please still make them available separately!