After its Indie Games Accelerator, Google shared the tools that it provides to developers in making better apps. These were during the Google Playtime 2018 event in Singapore.
Within the bundle provided are tools designed to help make the apps smaller, in terms of file size. This ensures that apps are kept for longer, especially when any cleaning up occurs to make up space in a device that has its storage constantly filling up.
The Android App Bundle helps with this, and helps shrink file sizes by 35% on average. The App Bundle also makes it so that developers don’t have to make separate Instant Apps – free trials that you can use before actually downloading the app.
Also helping keep file sizes small is the dynamic delivery of files. Tian Lim, Google Play’s VP of UX and Product, used the Facebook app as an example, where multiple language packs are not downloaded until they’re used. This keeps excess weight out of the app until otherwise necessary.
Developers are also given access to a tool called Android Vitals, which helps developers run stability tests on their apps across a wide database of Android devices. Said database is called the Firebase Test Lab, which simulates a wide variety of devices and confogurations.
These two tools will help developers find out instances where their apps are likely to crash, so that they can iron out bugs before their apps go to users.
