Android App Bundles will be Required Starting in August

Android App Bundles will be Required Starting in August

What’s New In Technology

Article Reference: Developer Android

Starting in August 2021 new apps will be required to publish with Android App Bundle on Google Play. The Android app bundle is a new, and more effective publishing format to build and release your app. To break this concept down, it basically is creating a way to deliver a smaller app size, with the same great experience and features but helping with the app’s success.

In the past, Android apps were created through an IDE, such as android studio where developers would write the code. Once a developer was ready to release an app, they would build it as an APK, which is Android’s app format. When this APK gets built developers need to electronically sign the app which verifies it as theirs for security purposes. A developer would then upload their signed APK to the Google Play console testing, and Google Play distributes just as it was uploaded to each user that installs the app.

The issue that developers over the years have run into with this previous way of uploading an android app, is that apps are becoming larger. Over time creators of apps want to add updates, or add new features making their app bigger and bigger. Another thing that happens over time is that people lose space on their phone, and aren’t at all times able to download large apps making those apps install rates much lower. 

The solution to this problem is to create apps using Android App Bundles. Google Play has realized that this large app issue has created lots of problems and has made many developers have to compromise with how they are releasing their app. The Android app bundle helps developers test and release the app through this new publishing form, and “Google Play processes and generates split APK’s signed for every possible device configuration and language that you support.” This eliminates much of the coding that users wouldn’t need anyways therefore making app sizes smaller. These apps will take less time to download and eliminate extra resources not needed to enhance the experience of the app. 

“Thousands of developers of popular apps are using app bundles in production. Developers who are using the Android App Bundle have APK sizes that are on average 35% smaller than releasing a ‘universal APK’ (an APK packed with everything needed to support all device configurations and languages that the Android App Bundle supports).” 

For questions on building a mobile application for Android phones reach out to us here. You can also read our mobile app development page for information.