The Android app bundle is a significant change in Android app publishing since it makes app downloading and user experience seamless. Many popular apps like Airbnb, Dropbox, Clash of Clans, Dualingo, Jaumo, and Fandango have been published in the form of app bundles. And Interestingly, these apps have witnessed a great improvement in their app downloading and performance. So undoubtedly to say, the android app bundle is helpful for mobile apps.
For developers and app owners, the understanding and functioning of app bundles matter a lot so that they can efficiently and accurately utilize app bundles to achieve maximum ROI. Hence, let's understand how does Android app bundle work so that it makes app downloading and usage easier.
What is Android App Bundle?
Android app bundle is Google Play's app publishing format. This is an APK that contains all the app's compiled code, and resources, and defers APK generation and signing to Google Play. Google Play utilizes the app bundle to generate and implement optimized APKs for every device configuration.
It is basically a collection of predefined APK files and other resources. It means the code and resources which are required for a specific device are downloaded to run an app. There is no need to develop, sign, and handle various APKs to optimize support for different devices. As a result, it allows users to get smaller and more-optimized app downloads.
How Does Android App Bundle Work?
When a user downloads or installs a mobile app from Google Play Store, the app gets downloaded in the format of an APK file. This file includes everything which is essential to install and run the app on the user's device. However, before the release of Android Studio 3.2, the developer would generate one or more APK files utilizing Android Studio and then upload them to Google Play.
So to support various device types, locales, and screen sizes, this uploading process would require either the creation or upload of different APK files customized for each target device and locale. Or the creation of a large universal APK containing all of the different configuration resources and platform binaries within the single package.
Consequently, the creation of multiple APK files involves a great amount of development effort. This process must be repeated each time the app needs to be updated, imposing considerable time, work, and cost on the app launching process. This process of installing large APK files not only results in longer downloading times but also increases the app's storage use on the user's device.
Here, the Android app bundle solves these problems by giving an efficient way for a developers or Android app development company to create a single APK package from within Android Studio. Through Android app bundle, they only need to create custom APK files which are automatically generated by Google Play for each individual supported configuration.
Thus, an Android app bundle would be a ZIP file that contains all of the files essential to building and deploying APK files for devices and locales for which support has been offered within the app project. So, the app bundle process transfers only the appropriate and pre-generated APK files onto the user's mobile device or smartphone.
Final Words
Android app bundle is an intelligent and efficient way to publish Android apps on the Google Play Store. It is a collection of pre-generated APK files which are downloaded as per the user's device specifications. So, it not only makes app downloading faster but also increases app performance better.
As a developer or app owner, building and deploying an Android app bundle is critical since it determines your app approval on Google Play and its performance. Therefore, you should try to take assistance from an expert developer or top Android app development company that can assist you in taking full advantage of Google's Android app bundle.
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