I just moved from android to apple and the IOS apps are 2x - 5X larger
It's really a disgusting tax and I install a lot less apps as a result.
They could easily fix this by adding intelligence in the App store, to serve up the binary for my device's architecture, but no, I have to get the universal bloated binary pig.
Example: You're about to pay your bill at a restaurant. The server tells you that they have an app that will get you a discount/loyalty points. Your cell has a 4G connection. On android, the download size is 20-50MB. No problem. On IOS, the download size is 40-240MB. Problem!
Yes it matters. My current scenario right now is our internet is down. The fastest way to reach ISP support is through Twitter DM. Twitter is not an option since their app is way over 300MB. So I download Tweetbot for only ~20MB.
I am also an Android dev and maintaining APK size has always been part of the dev process from the start. Apple is just so bad in policing their IPA size. And it is getting worse.
The problem isn't the speed, it's the ridiculous bandwidth caps imposed by ISPs. Here in Canada a fairly simple 10GB data plan runs about $75/month, if a restaurant is offering me a discount and requires their 250MB app to get it, that discount has effectively cost me $2.
Yeah, I haven't considered data caps, as here in Hungary, unlimited data is around 27eur/mo, but even capped is not that expensive (just an example: 10GB is 10eur, 50gb is 20 eur)
I have a really hard time calling those plans "unlimited" when it becomes unusably slow after your full-speed allotment. I hope the waiter told you about their app discount before you ordered, because best-case scenario that 250MB app is going to take a little over an hour to download at the 512kbps they allow.
I just moved from android to apple and the IOS apps are 2x - 5X larger
It's really a disgusting tax and I install a lot less apps as a result.
They could easily fix this by adding intelligence in the App store, to serve up the binary for my device's architecture, but no, I have to get the universal bloated binary pig.
Example: You're about to pay your bill at a restaurant. The server tells you that they have an app that will get you a discount/loyalty points. Your cell has a 4G connection. On android, the download size is 20-50MB. No problem. On IOS, the download size is 40-240MB. Problem!