Google Play updated, sizes of apps can now be seen before its downloaded

With over 65 billion apps being downloaded from the Google Play Store last year, Google had updated its Android app store last Friday to make the data cost more transparent to the users.

According to the Android Developers Blog, Google invested in improving Google Play to reduce the needed data for app installations and updates, as well as allowing users to see how big the app that they will be downloading before they download it. The update comes as Google sees more developers moving to update their apps frequently.

Google said that developers are providing users app updates frequently “to push great new content, patch security vulnerabilities, and iterate quickly on user feedback.” The company said, though, that a lot of users are sensitive to the amount of data they consume, especially if they are not on Wi-Fi.

But with the new update, users can now know how much data they will be consuming before they download an app. For users who already have the app, they will instead see the update size of the app.

Aside from being transparent with the download size, Google also provided a new delta algorithm called bsdiff, which further reduces the size of app updates by up to 50% or more. About 98 percent of Android apps only download changes to their APK files when updated and those new files merge with the old ones. But Google said that the bsdiff algorithm fixed that issue, thus reducing app updates.

Lastly, Google Play’s new algorithm will also be able to reduce the download size of 2-gigabyte files by up to 12 percent and its updates by 65 percent on average. Files with this size are usually popular with games.

Tech Times reports that the new update won’t be felt by users who own high-end Android smartphones with huge memory cards and usually uses Wi-Fi networks. But users who rely on limited data plans and small storage spaces will greatly benefit from the Google Play Store update, helping them maximize their devices capabilities.