
Show HN: How bloated is your favorite app? - tonyx
https://segment.com/mobile-app-size-calculator
======
MildlySerious
What are these apps that have 50+ MB in code built with? Or what counts as
code in that regard?

Snapchat for example is 95MB, 77MB code, and on my phone (Android, so not
directly linked, but probably similar) the most unresponsive, crashy and
painful-to-use app right along with Skype.

~~~
cantrevealname
I was amazed to find a C++ "Hello, World" program was several megabytes. It
turned out that it was due to statically linking in all of Unicode support. In
the particular build environment it was invisible to the programmer; i.e., you
wouldn't even realize it unless you went looking for it.

I'm wondering if the same kinds of things happen with Facebook, Skype, etc.
It's not the actual Facebook or Skype code that's so huge, but that they've
been around for so long and so many people worked on them that they have a
very complex build procedure and they're linking in all kinds of unnecessary
junk, but no one has the responsibility or desire to go prune it.

~~~
MildlySerious
Thank you, that's a good point, actually. Keeping things lean can be quite
tedious and tricky in some cases.

The first thing I had in mind was frameworks like PhoneGap, Exponent and the
likes. I wonder if these have a big impact on app size.

But it's certainly true that it's not always extra stuff to slap on that makes
things bloated. Could just as well be the stuff you don't go out of your way
to keep out.

------
wodenokoto
It's a pretty cool break down you do, but you should consider not including
hearthstone in your demo, as most of its image, video and audio assets are
placed in the "other" category. So it is a bad example of how your service can
help me understand my app, since your demo doesn't help me understand this
game.

~~~
collyw
When I got my first smartphone, the guy in the shop installed Whatsapp for me
without really asking. It was around 80mb, and chewed through a fair chunk of
my data allowance on the first day. Made me paranoid to use the data
connection for the first few weeks.

------
bitmapbrother
Facebook Messenger is 130MB. That's the very definition of "kitchen sink".

~~~
BoredDev
Maybe someone can clear this up for me. I'm struggling to understand why it is
that size. I'm not going to be silly and say it would it be a simple app
because I don't know enough about mobile to make that assumption.

However, I see plenty of other apps that appear to have way more complexity
than the Facebook app. They are all significantly smaller. I don't understand
what's happening there that requires that much bloat. The UI appears fairly
minimal. From an outside perspective (probably an ignorant one), it just
appears to be making API calls and throwing out the data.

Genuine question. Where is this bloat coming from? Is it just a pile of thrown
on band-aid fixes and kitchen sinks, or is there something that I'm missing.
Even third party applications do the same job, yet treat my battery and
storage with respect. They seem to be fully capable of the same things that
the official app is capable of.

Part of me wants to assume it's the whole, "move fast and break things"
approach.

~~~
mixedCase
Facebook is known for having fairly bad code standards in their mobile apps.
It's mostly a product of overengineering and feature creep.

This is a good blog post about it:
[http://www.darkcoding.net/software/facebooks-code-quality-
pr...](http://www.darkcoding.net/software/facebooks-code-quality-problem/)

And Facebook's own blog post about their Dalvik hacks and how clever they are,
which speaks volumes of their development culture:
[https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-
th...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-the-hood-
dalvik-patch-for-facebook-for-android/10151345597798920)

------
CharlesW
This seems like a very "woo woo" theory, because few users know how big their
apps are, or what a "good" size or a "bad" size for a particular app is.

So, let's assume Segment is right and there's a causal relationship between
app size and downloads. What am I missing?

~~~
tonyx
@CharlesW we mostly focused on the facts and running as controlled of an
experiment as possible without bias or drawing conclusion on exactly _why_
heavier apps get downloaded less. Though my personal guess from working years
in the mobile app space is that users are surprisingly conscious of data &
disk usage. Not everyone has unlimited data or 128GB storage iPhones.

~~~
minimaxir
If you are not modeling causality, then why do you have an "Impact on
Installs" metric next to each asset size?

~~~
tonyx
Impact can exist regardless of the underlying cause for impact. It may be
because someone's device is full, or does not want to download over cellular,
or any other myriad of factors. But you'll still lose an install statistically
speaking.

------
sotojuan
Would like to see this for web apps.

~~~
f2prateek
There is some good research already on how page load times can impact
conversions.

[https://www.quora.com/How-do-page-load-times-affect-e-
commer...](https://www.quora.com/How-do-page-load-times-affect-e-commerce-
conversion-rates)

------
laurentdc
I'd like to see that for desktop apps too. Particularly browsers and
productivity ones.

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mrmondo
Oh my gosh - this so, SO much. I think there's a lot of 'designers' thinking
they're 'developers', I've seen that first hand and that's how you get rubbish
like Drupal.

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jlarocco
This is the second or third time in about a month that a site posted to HN has
been blocked by my ad blocker.

According to Wikipedia, segment.com's sole purpose is to aggregate data for
marketing and advertising. Not a company I want to give page views to.

------
DigitalCannon
Is there something I'm missing here? Why wouldn't a larger app take longer to
install?

~~~
zanecodes
Install rate is referring to the percentage of users who install the app at
all, versus those who choose not to because the app is too big.

