minimum application size for my iphone application? - iphone

i am developing a application which contains many images which appear on different buttons click and has an mp3 file too..When i checked the size of my .app file it is around 6.8 mb which i think might be too large?? is there any way i can reduce the size of my .app file though i think reducing the size of my images(already around 15kb) wont be the solution.

6.8mb is fine and is small enough that people can downloaded it over 3G (the limit is 20Mb; you need wifi if it's more)

One thing to keep in mind is sales! On any app you do now or in the future you will want to keep the total size under 20mb.
Think about how many users want to "instinctively buy" your app. They saw a friend with your app and want to download it right then and there, but ohh wait... cant do it till ya get home! LOST SALE - More than likely that person will forget by the time they get home.
In your case 6.8mb is nothing compared to many apps that are games. I've seen 200 - 300mb apps that take a while to download on wifi. (WSOP Poker , Gamebox)
Good Luck my friend!

Related

iOS: Application in production. Which Size?

I am developping my first application on iOS. I am on this language since few days and I am going to share this application in Apple Store ASAP. But I have a big question around architecture.
Currently, I have with about 40 different type of Views, others components and a lot of PNG (30x30). I know that I can reduce considerably the number of Views through the development of a small framework but as it's my first learning-by-practice application, I wanted to move on quickly about all standards components and to start this development without architecture, reusables class or design pattern ... without think too hard.
To be short, I am wondering about the real size of applications in production and the performances. Have we got some constraints with:
Apple Store (upload apps)
Ram Capacity of iPhone during using
Download application from apple store for the user
etc...
Basicly, is it acceptable to have with about 40 screens for an iPhone Application?
Best regards.
There is a limit of 50 MB for over-the-air downloads.
Number of screens is probably not going to be a problem. The amount of executable code associated with each screen is probably not going to be significant. The bigger issue is how much PNG data you are going to have embedded in the app. A single 30x30 PNG isn't very big. 40 of them probably won't very big (depending on how well they compress). But if you have dozens of them per screen, or if you have a big hi-res background image for each screen, then the total amount of data could get big.
My advice would be to just start developing everything in the most straightforward way you can. Don't worry about sizes until you have some evidence that it may be a problem. And do a lot of testing on an actual device (don't rely on the Simulator) running whatever the oldest OS version is that you are willing to support.

iOS application size - How to reduce or download more after

I am after some suggestions on how to reduce the final app size that gets submitted to apple?
Or is there any way to have stuff download after the app is isntalled? so that we can keep the app under 20 meg, but then the app downloads the rest of the program after the user has installed it and run the application?
ta
Daz
If your application uses a lot of image resources, your application could download those images instead of building them into the application.
Theoretically possible. Your app can access the file system, so it can make and save, and later read files.
The deal-breaker I see is that for most purposes, Apple probably wouldn't allow it.
They test the program as-is when you submit it, and they'll notice that it just sits there and tries to download a bunch of stuff from your server. If this takes more than, say, 30 seconds, they'll reject it for usability problems.
If the content downloaded could have been bundled with the program, they'll probably have a problem with that. If you could argue that the downloaded content changes rapidly and is a feature of your app, it might fly, but only if you keep it small..
Sure this is totally possible. Since it is most likely some sort of media that is causing a large file size, either images, video, or audio, you could definitely download them after the fact or supply a download button for users to add these features as "extra" content, if they are not critical to the operation of your app.
One thing to consider is that some users are not on an unlimited data plan. So for politeness, they should know what you are doing.
Also, if you are just over the limit, you might also be able to ship the application with the resources in a zip archive and then decompress the archive in the Documents directory.
In many applications images take lion share of the download size, and they can be greatly reduced with ImageAlpha and ImageOptim.
Check out this case study halving download size of Tweetbot by converting images to a more efficient PNG variant.

What's the limit for the size of iPhone apps?

I have an app which is quite huge. It has tons of images and sounds. In total it's 30 MB in size.
1) Is there an official limit for the app size?
2) Are there other "practical" limits I should consider?
Reading around, there are reports that the absolute maximum size for an application is 2GB (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1605342).
Other than that, if your app is over 10MB, users will only be able to download it over a wifi connection, having the impact that users won't be able to download your application easily when they are out and about.
This might sound obvious, but there are two size limits to keep in mind here - neither are absolutely defined.
One is the limit for the application bundle. I don't know if there is a real limit (other than the device's flash storage limit), but this should rarely be an issue. Keep in mind the 10Mb threshold that the other Phil mentions though. There may be something in the 2GB limit too, I don't know.
The more important limit is on the size of the loaded binary image and it's runtime memory usage. The iPhone is obviously a constrained device in this area. The original iPhones and iPod touches had 128Mb of total RAM, with no paging. Current models have 256Mb, but it's a bit early to limit yourself to that subset of the installed base if you can help it.
Assuming 128Mb, of that a fair chunk is used by the system itself and its background tasks (and people want user background tasks too!?!).
In a conversation with an Apple Engineer he said that apps should be written to use no more than about 25-30Mb! Up to 60Mb may be available but cannot be counted on (but you could use this extra for caching stuff that you can purge as necessary).
1) I believe that you shouldn't ask for maximum size, as you have to aim for minimum possible size for your apps. As iPhone has limited memory (both storage & RAM), you should not create a huge app. (I doubt an app > 200MB can pass through Apple's app check.)
Yeah, Phil is right, when you app is over 10MB, it can only be downloaded via wifi or iTunes. Quite a lot users may want to download anywhere they like using 3G networks, so >10MB is not recommended.
Also, take care those users with iPhone 2G. If you produce a >10MB app, it takes them a day to download your app (if they are lucky enough to have no disconnection at the middle of download...)
2) practical limit ... K.I.S.S = Keep It Simple and Small.
That's it. Hope it helps.

Question about IPhone app bundle reasonable size for App Store. Storage memory!

I plan to submit my new app to App Store. App consist of a lot of image resources (animation) - more than 40M.
Is there any formal limits at App Store of the app bundle size? I never see such condition and think it will be ok. Is it right?
My major question is..
Is there any negative aspects for usability in case app is a huge?
-increase user traffic
-problem with installation
-etc...
Should I try to reduce my app size as much as I can? (actually I've done it already but size still big)
I have no statistic on this point. What is the average app size at app store and how many exclusion with big size?
Thanks, Mike/
The only limit that I'm aware of is that if your app is larger than 10 megabytes, you must download it over wifi when installing via the App Store on the phone.
There are some huge apps that I've installed, including:
Apple's Hold em: 172.8 MB
Spore: 68.5 MB
Oregon Trail: 52.6 MB
and 10 more that are over 40MB
I'd venture to guess that the upcoming Tom Tom app with the maps will be very large.
I don't think most people look at app size when downloading via iTunes or even on the phone when on Wifi. Smaller applications will install faster, but at that point they've already bought the application.
If you somehow have the ability to get your app under 10MB, then I'd say shoot for it. I don't have any actual numbers, but I would guess it certainly wouldn't hurt. However, if you can't get down to 10MB, I would spend only a reasonable amount of time getting your application size down. The decrease in download time and disk space I doubt will raise sales that much.
I don't know of any limits, but remember that anything larger than 10 MB requires a wifi connection to download. Under 10 MB can be downloaded over 3G.
At least these are the limits today, they could change soon.
iTunes Connect developer guide says there is a hard limit of 2 GB.
App Size Tips (For iOS Apps Only)
■ Apps can be as large as 2GB, but be aware of download times.
■ Make efforts to minimize file size.
■ Remember there is a 20MB limit for Over the Air downloads
https://itunesconnect.apple.com/docs/iTunesConnect_DeveloperGuide.pdf

What is a reasonable size for an iPhone App?

I'm wondering what's a reasonable size for iPhone Apps. Right now I'm working on an iPhone game, and of course it loads fast into my device since I'm connected directly to it through a USB cable, but I've no idea how long it would actually take to download from the App Store.
In my case it's about 2mb in size, which is reasonable for a desktop or even a flash game, but I've no idea if this is reasonable size for the iPhone.
My other concern is what's the non-wifi download limit of the App Store? Occasionally there are Apps that won't download unless you've got a wifi connection. And personally I've never downloaded such apps, since it gives me a bad impression. So I'd definitely want to stay below that limit.
Also since I'm already asking about app sizes, it would be probably be useful to collect good sizes for other types of apps as well.
Thanks!
Looking through some of the games i have on my phone they weigh in around 7 or 8 mb a pop. I think your 2mb will be fine.
One thing i can tell you for sure is that if you want to be distributable over the cell network your application has to be under 50 mb. If you exceed this it will have to be downloaded using wifi or itunes on a computer.
The 3g network is fast. I wouldn't limit your development based on this - do exactly what you need to do to make your game as good as it can be, and people will download it even if it takes a tiny bit longer. I've downloaded 10MB+ applications from the store over 3g and it might as well be a slow wi-fi connection, it's just that fast.
Also remember that many people purchase on their computers (hence a fast connection) and then just sync to the iPhone, especially those that are in areas with slower cellular networks.
Bottom line, size won't affect downloads, ratings will.
Besides the resonable numbers being somewhat lower the limits:
Maximum app size ist 2GB
Application larger than 20MB won't be downloadable over a cellular connection
I would try and keep it as small as possible. The app-store could probably support, say, a 100MB application, but it wont be nice to install for users.
The problem is installing via the phone - all you get is a simple progress bar, and most people have their phone auto-lock after 1 minute.. So, ideally the app would download in under a minute on an average connection..