Google announces new Android App Bundles to develop apps with small APK sizes

Google is making Android App Bundles available to developers realizing the need for smaller and faster apps.  The new app publishing format, Android App Bundle, will allow app developers to select the features to be included in the app instead of putting every asset and support for every user. This can reduce the size of the install files which can now be 50 percent smaller than their usual size. Google has already performed tests on some of its own and partner apps like LinkedIn.

Users often don’t download apps with large sizes, and as apps are being targeted on more and more countries, they need to have more and better features than ever. In order to enable this new feature, Google has redeveloped its app serving stack. Its Android team was aware of the idea since a while, and adapting to the changes in the Android platform didn’t cause much of an issue. As a result, with the standard APK format kept intact, users will get a somewhat customized app after installing it from Google Play.

Stephanie Cuthbertson, Google’s Director of Product Management for Android, said, “The initial testing of Android App Bundle helped LinkedIn save 23 percent and Twitter save 35 percent. If you’re wondering how many devices does that work on, the answer is 99 percent and that’s because it’s built on long-standing platform concepts like splits and multi-APK.”