Tested 20 national apps! Half a day, the volume increased by 865%

Tech Fox

2024-06-18 14:18Posted in Guangdong science and technology creators

quotation

Different types of apps have the same functionality.

Open the phone and you will find that the current software is the master!

Shopping software can swipe videos, video software can engage in social networking, social software can play finance, financial software can also order takeout, takeaway software can also cloud Genshin Impact...

With such a large and comprehensive function, it is not uncommon to take up a lot of space.

But does the ever-increasing resource usage really make the user experience better? Do you make the most of it? Is it an industry consensus or is there another reason why software apps are getting bigger and bigger?

In this issue, we have tested a lot of data, just to talk to you about these problems, the test is really time-consuming, and please give a small thumbs up.

To see how the app grows savagely, we have to start from scratch. Find a phone, factory reset it, delete the built-in apps, and install the 20 popular apps, as shown in the image.

These 20 apps include eight categories: chat and social networking, live video, travel and transportation, financial management and payment, audio-visual and audio-visual, e-commerce shopping, map navigation, and news and information.

There is also a common Apple Music at home and abroad in the software, I believe it can be more restored to the real usage, and we also use a new mobile phone number to register and log in to these APPs, as far as possible to unify the test standards.

Volume changes

First of all, let's take a look at the size of the installation package, among the 20 installation packages, WeCom has the largest size, 422MB.

Pinduoduo is the smallest, only 26MB, which is very unexpected, and I don't know how it was crammed into so many limited-time spike activities...

Although the difference between the maximum and minimum is 16 times, at present, the total of 20 installers is only a little over 3GB, which will not make you anxious about capacity at all.

However, after installing these 20 software, the situation has changed "100 million points".

AT THIS TIME, THE CAPACITY OCCUPATION HAS CHANGED FROM 3GB FOR ALL INSTALLATION PACKAGES TO 9GB FOR ALL APPS, WHICH IS 3 TIMES THAT OF THE FORMER.

The size of Apple Music's app is 1.71 times the size of its installation package, and Meituan's is 4.69 times.

Of course, the volume of the APP will certainly not stop at the newborn state that has just been installed.

Because when you open these apps for the first time and take them away from the precious little red dots in their "soft life", the app will unfold a series of threads in the background to enrich resources and expand modules, and the capacity will further change.

We open these apps one by one, log in to the newly registered mobile phone number, and then do nothing, idle for a period of time, (in order to avoid background killing apps, there are active access to the app to reactivate) The total capacity of the 20 apps has changed from 9265MB to 19268MB just installed, which is twice the original base.

What is this concept?

For example, WeCom is the only big brother whose capacity unit becomes GB after installation, but when you open all the software and idle it for half a day, (in order to avoid killing apps in the background, there are active users to enter the app to reactivate it halfway) There are 7 other software that go hand in hand with it and enter the GB level.

"Small and beautiful" WeChat is a foot in the enterprise WeChat under the feet, the only one broke through 2GB, but even so, you will find that you open this more than 2GB WeChat at this moment, its interface is still exactly the same as when it was just installed, we don't know what it did when it was idle, we don't dare to ask.

In order to simulate the user's situation more realistically, we also open each APP for 20 minutes each, and we only use the default loading to avoid active click-in.

What is active click-in?

THINGS LIKE OFFLINE MAPS, VOICE PACKS, DOWNLOADING HIGH-QUALITY SONGS, AND GAME APPLETS ARE ALL AVOIDED AND NOT USED TO USE THEM, SO AS NOT TO CAUSE AN APP TO OCCUPY TOO MUCH OF AN APP.

And the default loading is easy to understand, that is, when you open the short video, it will automatically play, and some of these resources will become cache files, so that you can ensure that as long as you use this software for a longer time than the 20 minutes I simulated, then basically your occupancy will be larger than mine.

Of course, different apps load different content, and the resulting cache size is also different, so the data is for reference only.

Then, in the 20 minutes of use of each software alone, a total of more than 6 hours of use, the total capacity of the app has increased from 19,268MB to 28,900MB last time, an increase of about 1.5 times.

But if you compare it with the total size of the original installation package, and add in the idle and the time spent using each software, that is, almost a day, the capacity has changed from 3,118MB to 28,900MB, an increase of 826.5%.

Can you believe it? This increase is close to 30GB of capacity, which can really sting the heart of every user who is still using a 64GB mobile phone.

REMEMBER, WE'RE JUST USING THIS LIGHTLY, AND EACH APP CAN BE USED FOR NO MORE THAN 25 MINUTES.

But even so, the volume of apps has risen dramatically.

If you're installing a few popular games, 128GB users also have a clear sense of crisis, maybe for 64GB or 128GB friends, clearing space is already the norm, if yes, please underline.

We also looked at the latest new phones, except for a few low-end phones and phones like the iPhone 15 that sell capacity as gold, and the 256GB capacity has become the standard for mainstream phones.

So, is 256GB enough?

We also counted the data of some of the company's partners. It is not difficult to see that our company's partners are born to work in the Holy Body, and it is the norm for WeChat to occupy 20 or 30GB.

As a boss, I need to check videos frequently, and the footprint of WeChat and WeCom is 52GB and 93GB respectively.

512GB like me needs to be cleaned up frequently, let alone for smaller users.

At this point, we can make a summary of this chapter: the volume of the installation package is very beautiful, the volume after installation is really a lot, the volume after idle is confusing, and the volume after use is full of pain and trouble.

According to this momentum, capacity storage never seems to be able to make up for the endless growth of software, I want to see, instead of buying a larger capacity mobile phone, it is better to urge these software businesses to do a good job of space optimization, do you agree?

Operational storage occupancy

OK, let's talk about the capacity first.

Then these 20 apps are all under the order, by the way, let's count their storage occupancy.

I'm crudely dividing these apps into non-generic and generic apps.

For example, WeChat, QQ, and Alipay can all use Ele.me applets, and Alipay, AutoNavi Map, and Baidu Maps can all buy plane tickets, which I count as commonality.

And among the 20 software, only station B can watch 4K HDR video, and there are no video ads, and other software can't achieve similar functions, even if it's non-universal.

Obviously, software with non-common characteristics consumes different resources according to different contents, and it is not easy to compare intuitively, so we focus on comparing software with commonality.

Of course, it should be noted that the common software presents more or less the same operation pages and tool properties.

But after all, it's not the same APP, the underlying layer is different, and the priority of resource scheduling is not the same, so the results are only for reference, and are limited to factors such as system version, software version, and manual operation, which only means that this is the case with our mobile phone.

Then if you use our phone to shuffle music. Among Apple Music, QQ Music, and NetEase Cloud Music, Apple Music occupies the smallest amount of memory, only 532MB, and it can also be seen through the Scene software that it has only one backend.

I think this may be due to the small memory of the iPhone and Apple's rich experience in optimization, so even when it comes to Android, Apple Music's memory is quite small.

The average memory consumption of NetEase cloud music is1694MB,Although it's just listening to songs,But it needs to load more resources to enter the software,There are also social functions。

And the memory footprint of about 1600MB is actually a normal level among the 20 software.

If you use AutoNavi Map or Baidu Map to book a plane ticket, the storage occupation of the two is also about 1600MB, but if you use Alipay instead, this memory overhead is a bit large. （2605MB）

Of course, the commonality of the above software is not so strong, and the ones that can further control the variables have to be the "small but beautiful" WeChat and the built-in Unreal Engine masterpiece QQ, both of which have small programs.

We use the same operation, enter the same fruit tea shop, order the same amount of sugar and ingredients, or look at the same product detail page.

Regardless of whether you use Ele.me, Meituan to order takeout, or JD.com or Pinduoduo to shop, the usage of WeChat after opening the Mini Program will skyrocket from 892MB under the "chat page" (no friends and no group chat, so the occupation is small) to 3000MB.

QQ's Ele.me Mini Program will be less, but JD.com and Meituan will have a little more, in general, compared to the 643MB of the chat page (no friends and no group chat, so it occupies a small area), the cost of the Mini Program is not insignificant.

And if we just use the apps of Ele.me, Meituan, JD.com, or Pinduoduo alone, none of them take up more than 1,800MB of memory.

So while I can't conclude that using a Mini Program is necessarily more stuck, I can conclude that if you just order takeout or shop, using the app will indeed take up fewer resources than the Mini Program.

Of course, the memory footprint of these 20 apps is actually not small.

Because we also made a simple comparison with Genshin Impact, after entering the game, just put a few skills, in the case of this simple load, the default image quality Genshin Impact's memory occupation is 1433MB, and the highest image quality is 1843MB, which is even smaller than some APPs.

ALTHOUGH WE DON'T GET INTO THE DUNGEON OR THE SCENE IS COMPLICATED, BUT EVEN WITH THIS KIND OF LIGHT OPERATION, THE MEMORY USAGE OF THE TOOL APP IS ALMOST THE SAME AS THAT OF THE GAME, ISN'T IT A BIT TOO MUCH? So try to get 16GB of RAM if you can.

APP is the "system"

If you only implement a few necessary functions, the capacity and memory occupation of the app cannot be so large.

But the status quo is,These APPs are all "able to be literate and martial", as far as I have experienced brushing each APP for 20 minutes before, in order to test the cache pressure as much as possible, I will click on each section of the APP for each function, as a collection of functions, I am dazzled.

Take WeChat as an example, I can swipe videos, including but not limited to "take a look" and "live broadcast" to swipe videos, I can also shop, read novels, read comics, listen to music, make virtual images, engage in document cloud disks, hey, but no one is looking for me to chat.

I can still understand how much Meituan is engaged in finance and reading novels, and I don't understand what the built-in cloud Genshin is operating, but I was shocked.

The good news is that using Meituan to play Genshin Impact memory only takes up 1449MB, and the bad news is that it only has a 30-minute trial period.

I also counted a statistic that among the 20 software, there are at least 14 built-in short videos and live broadcasts, at least 13 with mall shopping, and at least 14 software with loan functions.

In the speed version of the APP we said that you don't do a function, some people do it, even if only one person uses that function, people can at least one more user than you, software vendors are not stupid enough to smash all the eggs in a pancake fruit, and this is really effective.

In terms of application frequency, the total number of mobile phone tripartite applications of our company's small partners is mostly around 50 or 60, and more than 100 belong to the download without deletion, and the number of applications used at high frequency is mainly 5~18, no more than 22, how many are yours?

Although the amount of time people spend using mobile phones is increasing, there are only a dozen apps that can be used. THINK BACK, HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN SINCE YOU'VE DOWNLOADED A NEW APP? I should have two months.

In short, these apps are not only called apps, but can also be called "small systems", and the trend of large functions and all functions is inevitable for most software.

You may feel bloated with the software's large and comprehensive features, but the larger the game's capacity, the more excited you will be, because the software has stronger tool attributes and users want to achieve their goals quickly.

The entertainment attribute of the game is stronger, and players want rich content, so the space occupied by the game is very tolerant, and the recent Black Myth Wukong's 130GB of space is enjoyable.

However, higher tolerance does not mean that bigger is better, and it is more in line with the spirit of a programmer to be able to make a great experience in a smaller size without compromising on quality. And when we look back at the history of programming, this kind of god-optimized operation is the norm in the industry.

Programming history

The most classic and well-known is the "Super Mario Bros. Bros." on the red and white machine.

This game has 8 worlds, 32 levels, and many people haven't even passed the levels, but guess what its capacity is, it's only 40KB!

And limited by the 2KB memory and video memory of the red and white machine, programmers have been picking.

First, only half of the materials of Baby Chestnut and Mario are saved on the screen, and when used, they can be mirrored and put together, and then the same pattern but different colors are used to represent them, such as clouds and grass.

Musically, when a complete segment is too occupied, the programmer programmed individual notes into a program for the host to play on its own, synthesize different sounds, and generate new sounds at double speed.

ALTHOUGH THE HARDWARE ONLY TAKES UP 8BITS AND RENDERS 256 COLORS, PROGRAMMERS CAN CREATE EXCITING ADVENTURES LIKE SUPER MARIO, CONTRA, GREEN LEGION, PAC-MAN, AND MORE.

In addition to games, audio and the dynamic emojis we send every day are inseparable from the optimization technology of the bigwigs.

MP3 uses the nature of human hearing to remove details of sound that we are barely aware of, such as very faint sounds, and high-frequency and low-frequency parts that are beyond our hearing range.

While retaining most of the sound quality, the file size is drastically reduced. Since then, making music "small but beautiful" is an important invention in the era of digital music.

GIF, will identify the similarities between the pictures, and only record the first appearance of the picture and the part that changes after that, so it can achieve the purpose of smooth playback with a small file size, and it has become a must-have emoji for us to chat today.

Emojis go beyond the meaning of ordinary text symbols, fill the gap between static pictures and videos, and allow each of us to accurately and clearly convey our emotions, which is an indispensable part of online culture.

The reason for this

Old-timers can do their best to fit an entire Super Mario level, or a beautiful audio clip, or a ghostly animated emote in a tiny space.

Today's programming is done for the sake of business, with little to no consideration for performance optimization. The improvement of hardware by leaps and bounds has brought about worse and worse optimization of software and a reduction in the level of programming.

How low? For example, the national application of WeChat, for a long time before, when the user forwarded a file, the file will be directly copied, and in the long run, the user's storage will be filled with duplicate files, do you suffer from this?

Until this incident caused heated discussions, the WeChat team went down to fix it. It turns out that they can't do it well, but they won't do it until they have to.

The old boy of the main technology of station B UP used the reverse engineering WeChat installation package and found that the core function of WeChat 1.0 version was realized with only 199 files - chat.

By the time of the latest version tested, there were 12,639 files and the code had skyrocketed by more than 500 times, meaning that most of the files and code were used to implement other functions.

Nowadays, if you want to do anything with your phone, you don't need to download a corresponding APP.

From the perspective of software vendors, the purpose of APP is to expand more content and functions to occupy more user time.

But the app is not impossible to be small, the Apple Music tested earlier is a good example, the size after a period of use is only a few hundred MB, the number of background threads is only 1, and the memory occupied when listening to songs does not exceed 600MB.

There are no malls, live broadcasts, finance and other sections that have nothing to do with listening to songs, although you have to pay, but it also shows that software providers are fully capable of making the APP more healthy and embarking on a right path.

It's just that most software vendors are reluctant to increase the debugging time and the salary of the program ape.

To do this, I also consulted a programmer with a high surname, who did not want to give his last name.

He said that there are not many logical codes that occupy space in the APP volume, and most of the space occupied are resource files (icons, audio and video, etc.) and then there are third-party AAR libraries and SDKs, and the volume of the SDK accounts for several MB.

In addition, some application vendors will store the data that should be stored in the cloud in our own mobile phones, which is distributed in the physical sense, so the application cache is getting higher and higher.

In addition, decision-makers like to stuff a lot of irrelevant functions into the APP, if they don't plug it, it means that product managers, designers, developers, and testers have nothing to do, and what awaits them is to be laid off to save labor costs, so the APP is getting bigger and bigger.

GETTING BIGGER AND BIGGER, BUT NOT OPTIMIZING WELL, SEEMS TO HAVE BECOME THE DEFAULT CONSENSUS IN THE APP INDUSTRY FOR A LONG TIME.

But has it always been that way, is that right?

Occupy more storage space, and there will be no conflict with the interests of mobile phone manufacturers, hardware companies can sell large storage higher, software companies can be more brainless, only the world of consumer injury has been achieved.

WHEN APPS BECOME "MONSTROUS BEASTS" AT A RATE THAT FAR OUTPACES THE PERFORMANCE AND SPACE OF MOBILE PHONES, EVEN THE WELL-KNOWN ANDY BEALE LAW IS NOT ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY IT.

The benefits and needs carried by the APP have exceeded the convenience it brings to life.

This also leads to many people returning to the basics to use feature phones, some people want the APP to adopt modularity, what feature phones need to be downloaded, some people propose that the APP should be taxed by volume, maybe only when it comes to the interests of software vendors, they will really work hard.

If you continue to go your own way, the bloated app that has swallowed up too much space and time may suddenly explode one day in the future and usher in a backlash.

Well, thank you for seeing this, if you agree with our point of view, or the content in it is useful to you, please also like and share it, it is really helpful for us. If you have any ideas, please feel free to discuss them in the comment area, so let's speak out together and help the APP be healthy.

Resources:

Some of the screenshots come from the Internet

Editor: Fai Tsai

View original image 4K

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