Google Reportedly Stops Generating Fat APKs, Making Sideloading Android Apps More Tedious

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Reportedly Stops Generating **** APKs, Making Sideloading Android Apps More Tedious

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

introduced the Android App Bundle (AAB) at the I/O 2018 event, enabling developers to build their applications as bundles as a more efficient way of delivering them to users. Courtesy of this change,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Play Store only downloaded the specific portions it needed on smartphones and other devices during app installation, potentially saving storage space. However, this only applied to those apps downloaded via the Play Store, with sideloading apps still requiring the installation of **** Android Application Packages (APKs). A recent claim on social media suggests that the process of sideloading may have got a bit more tedious due to recent changes made by the company.

Sideloading Android Apps

In a

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

on X (formerly

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

), Artem Russakovskii, the founder of APK hosting platform APKMirror, claimed that

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

had stopped generating **** APKs for many apps. This means users who wish to install APK files will need to download bundles. While **** APKs can be installed by simply downloading a large APK file from the official websites or third-party sources, bundles often require an extra step.

FYI since people email

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

about this several times a day… looks like

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

stopped generating **** APKs for many apps entirely all of a sudden, and only bundles will be available from now on.

To my knowledge, there’s nothing we can do about it.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

— Artem Russakovskii (@ArtemR)

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

To install these types of packages, third-party tools will now be required, such as Split APKs Installer (SAI). As per the claims, many of the apps will only be available in a bundle format, requiring users to download these tools before being able to install the APK on their device.

Why It Matters

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

to

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

, **** APKs carried compatibility for several devices depending on their screen size, CPU architecture and more. This enabled developers to create a single package file instead of having to release multiple packages for various device types. While bundling everything in a single **** APK was said to make it easier for users to download, it led to unused content occupying a chunk of storage space on the device which could have been used for alternate purposes.

This problem is

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

to be tackled by

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

’s AAB. Instead of cramming requirements for all devices in a single **** APK,

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Play Store only downloads a portion of the file it needs to run the program on that particular device, leading to a reduction in the space occupied by the application.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#Reportedly #Stops #Generating #**** #APKs #Making #Sideloading #Android #Apps #Tedious

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up