Hints for minimizing size of app?

sylvanr · Post by **sylvanr** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 5:26 pm

I have been working on an app that has quite a few photos and animated gifs and I am noticing that it is up to 9.9 mb which I think is pretty big. I am wondering about ideas to knock the size down? With the animated gifs, I am currently using 256 colors. With the photos, I'm saving them as medium size jpegs & then copy and paste them into the cards. They don't have to the highest quality jpegs but I don't want them the lowest quality either. I am not sure how much of the size is the coding or buttons themselves but I imagine most of the bulk is from the graphics? Any ideas on tightening this up a little and slimming down my app? Is size affected by the "saving as application" for distribution process? Suggestions?

I am also curious if there is a point at which others feel that an app is too big to be practical on the iPhone?

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 6:20 pm

Hi sylvanr,

well, 10 MB is really not much for a "modern" app

Some hints:
Gifs are OK with 256 colors!
Save the JPG images in the SAME size as they appear on the cards!
Then do NOT copy/paste them, but instead import them via menu:
File: Import as control -> Image file...
Scipts are just a bit of text, so this is not a problem!

Best

Klaus

jacque · Post by **jacque** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 6:37 pm

A bare-bones app for iOS comes in at about 1.5 megs. The size you are seeing is mostly due to your images, probably. The engineers at RR have said that it is not a good idea to import all images into the app, the OS is optimized to retrieve images from disk. My advice would be to import only a few images that you need to use for icons or other appearance purposes, and leave all the others in a folder that will be included with your build. Reference the images instead of importing them. You'll gain speed, memory, and your app will be smaller (though the total size of the bundle won't appear to change, since you have to include your images regardless.)

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 7:22 pm

jacque wrote:...The engineers at RR have said that it is not a good idea to import all images into the app, the OS is optimized to retrieve images from disk...

AHA! Good to know

Thanks!

jacque · Post by **jacque** » Fri Jul 22, 2011 7:30 pm

Klaus, I only posted to prove to you that I read the topic title 3 times before I answered, just to make sure I was talking about the right OS.

sylvanr · Post by **sylvanr** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 7:43 am

Thanks for the tips!

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 11:17 am

jacque wrote:Klaus, I only posted to prove to you that I read the topic title 3 times before I answered, just to make sure I was talking about the right OS.

Good girl!

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Hints for minimizing size of app?

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