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MY app on Android has a new major module added to it which changes the app size from ~10Mb to ~100Mb. The plan is to implement "Application Licensing" and allow app to a) be installed on SD card, b) download heavy bits (video) from inside the app when needed after installation. My question is: what will happen to previous users? On their devices the app is installed in internal memory from the start due to Copy Protection. Will an update automatically move the app to SD?

JasonMArcher
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Smith
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If you are downloading the bits after installation, you can allow the user to continue to choose where to put the application (I assume it remains 10MB for the base application?), and any additional content is downloaded to the SD card by you in-app. As long as you hold a reference to the location of the video, so as you know whether it exists or not (by doing a check of the file system at the expected location), you can determine whether it needs downloading or not.

Might also be worth, for complete understanding, to have a look at the features that the Play Store offers for large applications - you can set applications to require additional downloads hosted by Google Play, with the user being informed of the total application size.

Of course, if you are going to increase the size of the main application and have it left on the internal memory, some users may have problems with the new file size. They will be informed that it couldn't be installed when it updates, and will have to move it to SD card.

biddulph.r
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  • Thanks a lot for your answer. Yes, the base app remains ~10Mb. Doing initial planning here and was unaware of the fact that I can store larger pieces of the app on SD card while the core APK in the internal memory. – Smith Jul 04 '12 at 09:22
  • By the way, does App size on Google PLay show core app size or the one with expansion files? My app will not require those videos per se but it may have additional functionality upon user request. Don't want to scare people off by having huge app size! – Smith Jul 04 '12 at 09:26
  • It has recently been changed to show the size with included extension files. It used to just show the base size. If you were to implement your own "expansion files" i.e storing the video on a server you host and downloading it to SD card when the user clicks a button, then that extra file size won't be included – biddulph.r Jul 04 '12 at 09:31
  • Will it stop user from installing the app then if they do not have enough space for expansion files? LEts say I have 10Mb free on internal memory but not enough space (neither internal nor external) for expansion files. – Smith Jul 04 '12 at 09:37
  • p.s. I was planning to add two expansion packages: one with higher resolution and one with lower (for different devices/space limitation/etc) so i do not want app not being able to install because of the 'total size'. – Smith Jul 04 '12 at 09:39
  • You can add separate APK files for different devices now on Google Play. See http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens-distribution.html#MultiApks for more info – biddulph.r Jul 04 '12 at 09:41
  • THanks I do know about that. Was just wondering whether i can give user an option to choose between video size (for example if he/she are running low on space and do not really care about video quality). In that case I am afraid that huge AppSize will just block them from installing an app in the first place. – Smith Jul 04 '12 at 09:47
  • If you want to choose between different size videos, then you can upload the different videos as the extension files, so on less capable devices the filesize will be different as the extension files are a different size. Or you can host on your own server, keep the filesize down to 10MB, and the user can select which sized video to download from your server as per their wish – biddulph.r Jul 04 '12 at 10:06