Santa Tracker - Moving to Android App Bundle

Every year, Google releases the Santa Tracker app to millions of users across the world, wanting to track Santa over the holiday season. Chris will talk through how they managed to get the install APK from 60MB to 10MB, using Dynamic Feature Modules, asset compression and other things.

Transcript

1. Moving to Android App Bundle Chris Banes @chrisbanes
6. Goals for 2018 ★ Convert more classes over to Kotlin (from 26%) ★ Bring our download size to 10MB ★ 2017’s APK was 60MB
7. Android App Bundle Official Android app publishing format Average size savings of ~35% Enables dynamic features
8. Deliver only what’s needed Languages Screen density Announced at I/O ‘18 CPU architecture
9. Base App Bundle
10. Base xxxhdpi xxhdpi xhdpi hdpi mdpi ldpi App Bundle
11. Base xxxhdpi xxhdpi xhdpi hdpi mdpi ldpi x86_64 arm64 x86 arm App Bundle
12. Base xxxhdpi xxhdpi xhdpi hdpi mdpi ldpi x86_64 arm64 x86 arm pt fr en de zh ja App Bundle
13. pt Base xxxhdpi xxhdpi xhdpi hdpi mdpi ldpi x86_64 arm64 x86 arm fr en de zh ja Santa + Samsung Galaxy J5: en, arm, xhdpi
14. Mrs Claus + Pixel: en & fr, arm64, 560dpi pt Base xxxhdpi xxhdpi xhdpi hdpi mdpi ldpi x86_64 arm64 x86 arm fr en de zh ja
15. Mrs Claus + Pixel: en & fr & pt, arm64, 560dpi pt Base xxxhdpi xxhdpi xhdpi hdpi mdpi ldpi x86_64 arm64 x86 arm fr en de zh ja
16. hdpi x86_64 mdpi x86_64 xhdpi x86_64 xxhdpi x86_64 ldpi x86_64 xxxhdpi x86_64 hdpi x86 mdpi x86 xhdpi x86 xxhdpi x86 ldpi x86 xxxhdpi x86 hdpi arm_64 mdpi arm_64 xhdpi arm_64 xxhdpi arm_64 ldpi arm_64 xxxhdpi arm_64 hdpi arm mdpi arm xhdpi arm xxhdpi arm ldpi arm xxxhdpi arm Galaxy Nexus: hdpi, arm. Pre-Lollipop
17. APK APK Before After (M+) Compressed native libraries Wasted space! Uncompressed native libraries Uncompressed native librariesNew!
18. ▼16% size on disk ▼8% download size Uncompressed native librariesNew! * On average
19. Uploading an AAB saved us 20% Down to 48.5MB! Go try it! ./gradlew bundleRelease Dynamic delivery
20. ➔ Allow you to split your app into separate downloadable modules Feature modules
21. <manifest package="com.example.santatracker" split="elf_jetpack" ...> </manifest>
22. <manifest package="com.example.santatracker" split="elf_jetpack" ...> <dist:module dist:title="@string/elf_jetpack_title"> </dist:module> </manifest>
23. <manifest package="com.example.santatracker" split="elf_jetpack" ...> <dist:module dist:title="@string/elf_jetpack_title" dist:onDemand="true"> <dist:fusing include="true" /> </dist:module> </manifest>
24. # Dynamic feature module, "elf_jetpack" apply plugin: 'com.android.dynamic-feature' android {...} dependencies { implementation project(':base') ... }
25. # Base module: "base" apply plugin: 'com.android.application' android { dynamicFeatures = [':elf_jetpack'] ... }
26. Google Play Servers Play Core library Responsible for: • Installing on-demand modules • Managing modules
27. ➔ First install == base install ➔ Each game == feature module Feature modules
29. ➔ All of the game modules were coupled and messy ➔ Had to spend a lot of time breaking them apart ➔ Testing is difficult. Need to upload to Play Store to test What was hard?
30. Internal test track Byte-for-byte what Play delivers Upload to Play Console and have it served immediately to your QA team.
31. Wait for processing Internal test track Alpha and Beta tracks * After first upload
33. For our final 2018 release... Results Base install: 9.21 MB (from 60MB) In total, saved roughly: 42 TB of storage and transfer
34. 85% smaller than 2017
35. For more information, we recently published a Medium article: medium.com/androiddevelopers Thanks!