Digital Turbine and Android App Bundles: 3 Awesome Things to Know

Recently, we gave an Update about Google’s timing of Android’s App Bundles where we mentioned how the change is “Good News for the industry, including users, developers, telcos and Digital Turbine”. And the reason we know this is because we’ve been working with App Bundles for awhile, not just this week. 

We got a few questions from our prior blog post, so we thought we’d add a bit more color in 3 areas where we’re super excited about this change:

1. A Better Consumer Experience: For consumers, the difference is that Apps will now only “unpack” what you need. As you can see in Figure 1 below, Google’s animation shows how in the Legacy APK the app will install all languages (aqua boxes), screen sizes (red boxes), and processor speed (blue boxes). However, in the new Dynamic Delivery, Android App Bundles will install only the language, screen size, and speed needed for that specific user and device. This speeds up the install times AND consumes less device storage. Think of it this way: when you go on a trip you could pack, literally, everything. But isn’t it better just to take specifically what you need? 

Figure 1:  Comparing the APK versus AAB Install Process

2. Great for the Ecosystem: Overall, this change reduces app installation time and overhead streamlining life for developers and OEMs alike.  While we don’t have concrete numbers on improved conversions yet, the install speed is demonstrably faster. This should absolutely result in an increase in conversion rates on one end, and a decrease in the time and resources needed to support an ever increasing set of devices on the other. 

3. And We Know, Because We’ve Been Doing It: Digital Turbine has been distributing Android App Bundles on all our on-device products since 2019, including SingleTap™, dynamic installs, Wizards, Notifications, and more. Across the board, things move faster with App Bundles. And our experiences aren’t just with a few apps… We’ve handled more than half a billion total App Bundles Installs in 30+ different app categories! 

If you still have questions, our team of experts is here to help. Contact us today! 

By Matt Tubergen

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