Hi @hdawc,
Thanks for posting about this. Unfortunately I can’t promise any immediate major reduction in app size as there is no silver bullet. But, I do want to go into a bit more detail about this issue.
First off, I do believe we want a universal apk experience (at the moment at least), even at the expense of apk size, in order to provide the simplest experience for the most users. For example, @jose pointed out that the most performant emulator requires the x86 instructions, and the emulator is used by a lot of people testing their apps. Additionally, I think we would like to support Chromebooks too even though it’s not a primary focus.
As for the 32 bit instructions for both armeabi-v7a and x86 I’d love to get rid of those as soon as it makes sense from a device support perspective. That’s a bit of a subjective line, but we’ll be watching for a good time to cut that fat, likely following the lead of Expo and React Native. Definitely reach out if you seem movement there!
We’ll certainly consider splitting APKs and providing multiple downloads but need to do a careful analysis of benefits vs costs of that additional complexity for our users. Longer term we hope Android App Bundle support will solve these issues by allowing Google to deliver the smallest possible APK automatically. I hope the managed play stores for internal business apps that you speak of can and will support Android App Bundle too but definitely let us know if you don’t see them ever providing support. I can’t provide a timeline as to when we’ll support Android App Bundle as it’s a big undertaking, but it’s definitely on our radar. Our companion app is no different from user’s app’s so we face the same warning from Google when publishing (which we do often) and are keen to remove it, but it will take some time.
FYI, the next version of our app will be a few megs smaller due to using a more efficient version of Expo. Someday we hope to be able to provide smaller builds by cutting out Thunkable code that your app doesn’t use but my guess is this would come after Android App Bundle support as it would rely on some additional support in Expo and React Native to make it more feasible.
Another development specific to Android coming down from React Native that will help with both app size and speed is Hermes. We’re excited about switching to it but don’t think it’s quite ready for us to take the plunge.
Bottom line there is a lot of things on the horizon to reduce app size but unfortunately no easy or quick fixes to provide a big drop in size without consequences. Definite keep engaging with us here and we’ll try to be as transparent as possible as to our progress.
Regards,
Mike