The new delta algorithm for Google Play rolled out recently

Jul 23, 2016 12:14 GMT  ·  By

Google Play has just received a new algorithm, with Google also announcing that Android users installed over 64 billion apps in the past year from the Store. Seeing how many developers push necessary updates to their apps and some users are concerned about storage and mobile data, Google's new algorithm is aimed at reducing the size of app updates.

The information about the new algorithm has appeared on Android Developers blog, together with tips on how app developers can reduce the size of their APK. Delta updates are more efficient ways of bringing improvements to applications. A delta update only updates certain files in the APK, without the need to update the whole APK. Google states that 98% of app updates are delta updates to the APK, which also helps users save data.

The new algorithm does much more than that. It's named Bsdiff, and it was created to make updates and app downloads smaller so that they wouldn't take that much out of data plans. Google has announced that the new delta update can reduce the size of patches by 50% or more. Bsdiff was created to produce more efficient deltas of native libraries and take advantage of ways in which native code changes between versions.

Information about data used and download size is displayed in a clearer way

The blog provides the example of Google Chrome, whose latest major update from M46 to M47 had a patch size of 22.8MB, which was reduced using Bsdiff to 12.9MB. The M47 minor update had a size of 15.3MB and was reduced to just 3.6MB.

But that's not all, APK Expansion Files allows developers to include additional large files up to 2GB in size, like high-resolution graphics or media files. Download size of initial installs can be reduced by 12% and updates by 65% in average.

Google Play store now displays information about data used and download sizes in a clearer way. Users can view the actual download size, not just the APK size. The changes have already started rolling out.

Google Play Store gets update (3 Images)

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Play Store shows new download size of APKPlay Store shows new update size of APK
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