FB 4.6 files are huge

[Biscuitcleaver]

Hi all,

I just exported my first 'Hello World' Android App with FB 4.6 captive runtime. The first thing I noticed is that the file size is huge for what this provides (over 20mb when running on the phone). This is a big concern for my application development, so I started digging into the .apk file (it's really a zip file) and found the largest file was /lib/armeabi-v7a/libCore.so (15mb) and was tied to the Air Captive Runtime functionality. Is there a way we can make this file size smaller? All of the apps I have installed and are complete run about 3-15mb when running. Our concern is that users will start noticing this large file size and will uninstall to keep things clean on their mobile device.

-Greg

[Riccardo_Moschetti]

Hi,

This has been discussed in other parts of the forum.

There is also a bug opened to Adobe (for iOS, actually), that has been closed as "deferred".

No-one so far has found a solution for making binary files smaller.

I believe this is the price to pay to have a "universal" platform that allows you to develop for different devices with the same code.

[Biscuitcleaver]

I hear you, I just think it'd be nice to have a captive runtime that only adds the necessary libraries the application is requiring, rather than all of them.

I ran my 'hello world' app on my old iPod touch, and it uses 98% cpu to switch between views (each view has one button to go back to a white screen with a few buttons). I love how Flash Builder Structures the View based application, and I hope there's a bright future ahead of it;but for me, if I were to develop with it at this point is to not care about the users who would use my app.  By the way, I am a flash developer - so it pains me to say all of this.

[Riccardo_Moschetti]

Great news!

from developer news page in Apple

Higher Limit for Over-the-Air Downloads

Mar 20, 2012

Great apps come in all sizes. If you happen to offer a larger app, we’ve made it even easier for App Store customers to get your app wherever they are. We’ve raised the Wi-Fi download requirement from 20 MB to 50 MB so customers can download apps up to 50 MB in size over their cellular data network.

[emstrange1]

Hello.

I know this is an old thread, but I'm having the same issue and haven't been able to find a solution. I've built two simple android applications in FB 4.6 and when I package them, the apk files never seem to be less then 9mb. Like you, when I explored the apk, /lib/armeabi-v7a/libCore.so was the largest file. Since you first posted, have you found a way to produce a smaller apk?

TJ

[Biscuitcleaver]

We ended up building our app natively. Our final decision came down to a few factors, but we ultimately weren't sure about the performance of our app once all the elements and sections were built out. Given we were under a tight deadline, we weren't confident using Flex would be a good fit for us for a large data driven app.  I think it was the right decision, because at the end of the day our app weighs in at about 12 mb.

We are re-evaluating using Flash/Flex for a simple mobile game, which I think will be a bit more successful. The reason for this is that our requirements had changed to having a similar experience on the web as well as mobile devices.  Hope this helps!