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It would be really great if somehow, automagically, a downloaded app would trim away all the unneeded assets for the device it's installed on. My iPad 2 doesn't need 3x iPhone 6 Plus assets.

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Or if Apple could just pluck those @3x files out of the bundle before it downloads.

They can't do that without resigning it on your behalf, which would probably be bad.

I think a better solution is simply providing a bundle for each device type it should be installed onto. It would save a lot of space and could easily be automated when generating the bundles.

Developers can also do images in resolution independent ways for certain types of image assets used in the apps, like icons. You wouldn't be able to do these for photos, but it would help.

Also for our app, when it first loads we detect your screen size and then download assets that match for that screen size only when needed.

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