Did you know that the Android App Bundle has become the gold standard for Google Play publishing? Investigate its advantages.
We were very excited when we first heard about this new upload format, the App Bundle! Many of the issues we developers faced, such as creating APKs for different API versions, device types, and so on, have now been resolved on Google Play.
From now on, developers will be able to use Dynamic Delivery to create optimized APKs that meet the needs of users' devices and are delivered at runtime for installation.
All of this is accomplished using the Android app bundle app distribution format. Let's take a look at Android's new official publishing format.
If you are looking for a custom mobile app development company, feel free to reach out to applify.co.
- What is Android App Bundle?
Android app bundles (.aab) is a new official publishing format that offers a more efficient way to build and release your app. It also allows you to easily deliver a great user experience in a small-sized app, improving installation success and decreasing uninstallation rates.
Android App Bundles are Google's preferred method for developing, publishing, and distributing applications across multiple device configurations.
Did you know that the Android app bundle has become the gold standard for Google Play publishing? Over 600,000 apps and games are currently being developed with the app bundle, accounting for more than 40% of all releases on Google Play, including Netflix.
Let's look at the advantages of app bundles now.
- Benefits Of Using Google Android App Bundle
- Size Reduction
App bundles help to reduce application size significantly! Developers have reported a 20% size reduction when compared to APK. Go to the Google Play Console's new app size report to see how much your app could save.
Did you know that Adobe reduced the size of Adobe Acrobat Reader by 20% using app bundle development? Not only that, but some of the size savings achieved by early adopters of app bundles are astounding. These outcomes make Android app bundles an excellent way to create Android Go apps.
- Increased App Installations and Decreased Uninstallations
Apps growing in size would be unimportant if we had unlimited storage on our devices. But, as we all know, this is not the case. The number of installations decreases as the size of an app grows!
As a result of the size savings provided by the Xamarin android app bundle, app installations will increase. This resulted in higher update rates and far fewer uninstallations.
- Higher Efficiency
Android app bundle development allows you to create a single artifact that contains all of your app's collected code, resources, and native libraries. As a result, you no longer need to create, sign, upload and manage version codes for multiple APKs. As a result, installing an android app bundle on your device improves efficiency.
- Faster Downloads
Google Play can efficiently tailor your app to each device, making downloading and installing the app faster.
- Integrated Codes
You can prepare for the 64-bit requirement using the android studio app bundle without increasing the size of your app. As a result, Play will deliver the necessary native code for each device.
- Increased Engineering Velocity
The entire process of developing an app is sped up from creating dynamic and independent modules to the product's design, testing, and release. The android app bundle unity significantly increases engineering velocity.
For example, the Book My Show app declared that their app builds time (for a completely new build, without any caching) was reduced by 70% because app bundles simply dump every resource into the bundle, rather than segregating them as APKs do.
- Reduced Manual Effort
Several manual tasks can be completely automated during the development of an Android app. When the development is finished, the link is automatically uploaded and shared on a specific Slack channel. There is no need for manual intervention.
- Dynamic Delivery Enabled
Dynamic delivery is a new concept introduced by app bundles. Conditional features can be delivered during installation based on device features (e.g., AR/VR), user country, or device version. Users can also install features on-demand rather than during the installation process, and they can even uninstall features that they no longer require.
This will allow users to tailor their experience to their specific needs. This is also useful if you don't want to increase the size of your app in the long run. This allows us to reduce our application's initial size and then offer extra features only to users who may use them.
- How To Build and Deploy Android App Bundles?
App bundles, instead of APKs, are a publishing format that includes all of your app's codes. As a result, it cannot be directly deployed to a device. Creating a project as a signed app bundle is as simple as a few clicks in Android Studio!
Follow these steps to create app bundles:
Step 1: Begin by downloading Android Studio 3.2 or later. It is the simplest method for creating app bundles.
Step 2: Add Play Feature Delivery support by including a base module, organizing code and resources for configuration APKs, and optionally adding feature modules.
Step 3: Begin creating an Android App Bundle in an Android application development company. You can even deploy the app from the app bundle to a connected device by changing your debug/run configuration and selecting the 'deploy APK from app bundle' option.
Step 4: The final step will be to test and publish your app bundle.
- Test Your App Bundle
When you've finished building the Android app bundle, you should test how Google Play will use it to generate APKs and how those APKs will behave when deployed to a device. You can test it using the following methods:
- Using the bundle tool, you can test your app bundle locally. It will create APKs from your app bundle and distribute them to a connected device.
- Send a link to your app. It is the quickest method for uploading your app bundle and sharing your app with your testers as a Google Play Store link.
- Set up a test that is open, closed, or internal. This is yet another way to experiment with custom delivery options, such as downloading app features on demand.
- Conclusion
The future holds many surprises for us, and it is up to us to keep up! Without a doubt, we can tell you that android app bundles are the way of the future. As one of the leading Android app development companies in UK, we can assist you in staying ahead of the competition.
