In 11 years, it has expanded 575 times. Why is the mobile app installation package getting bigger and bigger?

This original article comes from WeChat public account: DT Finance (ID: dtcaijing), text: Zhang Chenyang; editor: Tang Yeqin; visualization: Qi Tongzheng; Yunying: Su Hongrui; Supervision: Tang Yeqin.

Some time ago, the old boy of the main technology of the UP station B in the video mentioned that he found that the WeChat 1.0 version released in January 2011, the Android APK installation package is only 457kb, the current WeChat installation package is 257MB, which is equivalent to 11 years expanded. 575 times.

Not only WeChat, but in the comment area, people have spoiled almost all mobile app installation packages in these years, and they are growing rapidly and occupying memory.

(B station UP Main Technology Old Boy "Reverse Engineering WeChat Installation Package, 11 years of expansion 575 times the update?")

In order to make more specifically the changes of the APP installation package in recent years, we have checked the historical version of the commonly used app in pea pods (a market that provides Android software, Android applications and Android games download resources).

In June of this year, QuestMobile announced 58 mobile apps with more than 100 million users in the first half of 2022, of which 50 APPs could find historical version data in pea pods.

The following is an analysis of these 50 APPs.

Download the commonly used app, the light installation package must occupy 7 G

In 2017, Aurora data released the APP memory report. According to statistics, the average number of APP installed in domestic mobile phones has reached more than 50. By the third quarter of 2020, this data increased to 56.

However, according to our statistics, now it is just downloaded all the 50 commonly used apps, and the volume of the light installation package has reached 7180.51MB, which is 7.01G.

However, if the initial size that can be counted on the pea pod can be calculated, the initial installation package of these apps only requires 1143.46MB, which is 1.14g.

If you only look at the top 20 apps, their installation package volume and from 0.58GB to 4.98GB are about 8 times the original.

Not only that, in the Android Application Mall, the displayed packages displayed are all compressed file packages. There will be a process of decompressing the app to the mobile phone. In addition, many apps will automatically write the default information during the download process. This means that there is more space for downloading more than APP installation packages in the mobile phone to successfully download.

Under normal circumstances, an APP occupation space is 1.5 to 3 times that the size of the package is installed. Taking WeChat as an example, the size of the WeChat installation package in the application mall is 230MB, but it becomes more than 500 MB after decompression.

Calculated according to the occupation space = installation package size*2.5, about 17.6G is required to put these 50 commonly used apps, which does not include various caches brought by the app, nor other niche you need to use. App.

In 8 years, QQ installation package increased by 37 times, and Douyin Speed ​​Edition increased by 79% per year

Among the 50 commonly used mobile phone apps, who takes up the most space? Who changes the most?

We first found the top five apps in the size of the installation package, and counted the changes in the installation package size in the years since the launch. The large -volume installation package is mainly game apps and social apps.

From the perspective of the annual average growth rate of the installation package, the ranking is different.

Douyin Speed ​​Edition has the fastest growth rate in installing packages. On September 2, 2019, the Speed ​​Edition APP came out. After three years of launch, the size of the installation package increased from 13.13MB to 75.11MB, an average annual increase of 79%.

Followed by the Agricultural Bank of China to the bank, QQ, UC browser and vibrato.

The growth of different types of apps is different.

The installation package of the game app is usually not small in initially, and the update iteration is not slow. Take the glory of the king of mobile games as an example. When it was launched in 2015, its installation bag was 207.02MB, because the new heroes and new skin were continuously launched, new gameplay, and models, plus optimization of the game experience, etc., 7 years later, now, now, now, now, now, 7 years later, now, now, now, now, 7 years later, now, now, now, now, 7 years later, now, now, now, now, 7 years later, now, now, now, now, 7 years later, now, now, now, now, 7 years later, now, now, now, now, now, 7 years later, now, now, now, now, 7 years later. There are 2 G in the installation package in the glory of the king.

The initial installation package of the social app is relatively small, but the update is frequent.

Taking the qq of 37 times the volume of the 8 -year installation package as an example, the main change of each update of QQ lies in the increase in function. Take the version of QQV8.4.18 in 2020 as an example. Compared with the past, its main change is:

Added "my mood" online status, pass the mood signal to friends, and share the happy time;

New characters in group chat, draw card collection characters, light up and wear more cool;

Group chat messages can be selected as group essence, and displayed in group chat card cards, which is more convenient to view;

Qun Tiao added the record of the king.

(QQ historical version displayed on the pea pod)

Unlike social software, the fastest Douyin Speed ​​Edition has only two major functions since its launch. One is to swipe short videos, and the other is to do tasks (such as watching videos) to receive gold coins. It basically does not increase additional functions. Almost every time it is updated to improve the speed of video and optimize the viewing experience.

The bank -class APP function is more vertical. The reason for the change in the volume of the installation package is the increase in actual demand and the development of the Internet. Human face recognition, APP side link with related mini -programs, etc. APP from "small and different" to "large and similar"

Installation package changes greatly means the optimization of functional updates and experience.

However, these increases and optimization really need it for users?

Take the WeChat commonly used as an example.

Zhang Xiaolong described WeChat as a "small and beautiful" app. When WeChat 1.0 was 1.0 in 2011, the Android APK installation package was only 457kb. In 2014, the WeChat installation package was less than 25MB. By 2022, the WeChat installation package had exceeded 250MB.

We have compiled the main new features of WeChat in the past 11 years:

It can be seen that from 2011 to 2015, WeChat's main development and perfect merits were surrounded by social networking. The core is the chat function: WeChat group, emoticons, voice, shake, etc. Later, it gradually increased the functions of payment, receipt, video, and video numbers. There are also some controversial functions, such as: the chat message is withdrawn, and a shot ...

"Small and beautiful" WeChat now becomes "large and complete": the payment function makes WeChat become "moving wallet", the video number makes it "another Douyin", the small program makes it N kind The collection of mini games and commonly used apps ...

The old boy of the main technology of station B used the WeChat installation package of the WeChat in the reverse engineering, and found that in the WeChat version 1.0 version only achieved the core function with 199 files -chat. On July 8.0.24, 2022, there were 12,639 documents, and all code increased by more than 500 times.

In other words, most files and code are used to achieve other functions: videos, games, taxis, takeaway, courier ...

(B station UP Main Technology Old Boy "Reverse Engineering WeChat Installation Package, 11 years of expansion 575 times the update?")

Today, if you want to do anything with your mobile phone, you may not be downloaded a corresponding app.

If you want to buy vegetables, in fact, you don't need to download APPs such as Hema, Meituan, Ding Dong, and Ding Dong, you can enter directly from the WeChat Mini Program or Alipay interface.

This reduces the trouble of downloading another app to a certain extent, but the problem is that although WeChat limits the size of the applet (2MB), it does not solve the cache that will occur as long as the applet is activated.

In addition, for those who can't help but have the functions of WeChat social functions but do not need mini -programs, video numbers and other functions, the "update iteration" of WeChat is the burden of mobile phone space.

If you observe carefully, you will also find that many apps with a large speed of installing bags are actually derived from the head of the head of the head, or they are controlled by them: Tencent has WeChat, QQ, King Glory, QQ music ... Alibaba has Taobao with Taobao , Alipay, Nailing, UC browser ... The byte beating has vibrato, today's headlines ...

On the one hand, it is because of the rapid development of technology and normal iteration; on the other hand, the APP is constantly updated and revised, increasingly larger, more and more, and a large part of the reason is the robbing and retention of users.

So you can see that the vibrato of the short video, the little red book famous for planting grass, all have group chat functions; music software QQ music, there are "bombs a bombs" game; shopping software is a lot, originally at the bottom, there are at the bottom of the bottom, there are at the bottom of the bottom. A "recommendation" entrance has become a "Duoduo Video" at the beginning of this year ...

Perhaps as netizens said: "One day your mobile phone space is not enough, you can only delete some apps, but the first time you want to delete it is definitely not a newly -needed software like WeChat. For example, there is a video number in WeChat. You will uninstall the Douyin. For example, your Meituan has a food, buying a movie ticket, a bicycle -sharing, and a taxi.

*Data source: Pea pod, WeChat official website manually organize

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