Android Apps Are Getting Even Smaller

Google is making some serious behind the scenes improvements to the Play Store. The company today announced some developer-focused improvements to the Play Store which will eventually improve your Android experience.

Google is making some sweet improvements to its Android App Bundle publishing format. Although the format is mostly recommended for really large apps, smaller apps can gain some decent improvements in download size as well. With the new updates to Android App Bundle, Google says app bundles will now be on average 8% smaller on download than before, and up to 16% smaller on device for devices running Android M or newer.

The format is getting updated to better support larger apps, with it now be ing able to support apps bigger than MB without the need of expansion files. It’s currently only available through early access, though.

Google is making some other improvements to the Play Store, with the company’s Play Instant technology expanding. Google Play Instant first launched months ago, and it was only limited to some games. And now, Google is making it so that premium titles and pre-registration campaigns on the store can offer an Instant Play version of their game even before it’s available. It’s a lot like how the Windows Phone Store allowed you to try apps before buying, but Google Play is offering more of the “light” version of a game before it’s available or before you even purchase it. It’s pretty cool.

The above improvements are just part of the much bigger set of updates Google is working for the Play Store. These updates are a lot more technical, so if you are a developer building Android apps, you should definitely give it a read here.