Games is the one example that actually makes sense though. The game code size hasn’t really increased tremendously, but the uncompressed assets have only gotten more detailed and more numerous.

At least games make sense, as the graphics get better. Though in some cases, the compression is also better. Like PS5 games are smaller on average than their PS4 versions, even though they have higher resolution textures in most cases, just because the PS5 has better compression/decompression tech.

Isn’t it strange that a shop is demanding code?

Is their app big? fwiw on desktop, I just use their config with wireguard app, and that works quite well for me.

I think that’s to do with how permissions work.

Having wi-fi access can technically tell the app where you’re located so you need to give it location access

Which is stupid because it then also gets GPS access.

Generally maybe but for apps specifically, it’s the default choice of IDE, Android Studio, bundling tons of libraries for added functionality bound to Play Services.

Which would probably be illegal in EU now, if any judge had the tech see-through for it.

Mostly the latter. We don’t do any optimizations on our product whatsoever. Most important thing is to say yes to all the customers and add every single feature they want. Every sprint is spent adding and adding and adding to the code as much as we can and as quickly as we can. Not a single second is allotted to any discussion about performance or efficiency. Maybe when something breaks, but otherwise we keep piling on more crap at full speed non-stop. I have repeatedly been told “the fast way is the right way” followed by laughter. I was told to “merge this now” on multiple occasions even when I knew that the code was shit, and told the team as much. I am expected to write code now and think about it later.

As you can expect, the codebase is a bloated nightmare. Slow as shit, bugs galore, ugly inconsistent UI, ENORMOUS memory use, waaaaaay too frequent DB access with a shit ton of duplicate requests that are each rather inefficient themselves. It is a rather complex piece of lab management software, but not so complex that it should be struggling to run on dedicated servers with 8 gigs of RAM. Yet it does.

Much the latter.

Plus everything better work perfecly out of the box on any hardware, and there is a lot of different hardware. Compatibility layers are often built into the package.

Java, for instance, recommenda that you package the whole (albeit slimmed down) JVM inside the package for the target platform, rather than relying on the java runtime installed already.

The users arent expected to know any of that anymore.

64kb should be enough for anyone

Yeah, though the joke is funny, this is the real answer.

Storage is cheap compared to creating custom libraries.

Yep. Apps are 20x bigger with no new features…that you are using.

Let’s not forget that the graphics for applications has scaled with display resolution, and people generally demand a smooth modern look for their apps.

In terms of programming, absolutely some bloat there.

But I would wager a majority (or plurality) would actually be high(er) res media assets, embedded animations and video etc.

Tree shaking should fix this to a large degree though

That still wouldn’t account for it. The code to collect this is tiny and the data isn’t stored locally. The whole point is for them to suck it up into their massive dataset.

* legitimate telemetry data

Smaller textures, more assets, and worse audio mainly. Textures used to be like 512 for hero props. Now even random objects you see a few times get a texture 16 times larger. And they get up to 4 of those for each object/group of objects. Thanks to pbr and normals and whatever other masks and lightmaps may be required.

Im sure there are more reasons for size bloat but this is from us artists at least.

Less triangles and smaller textures. Crt monitors had less resolution and practically built-in anti-aliasing so they could get away with (and had to) “worse” assets.

Also since ssd-s have become mainstream unity uses less compression so it would load relatively faster.

Basically because monitors got better, standards got higher, competition got fiercer, storage got bigger and faster, etc.

And it’s not like there weren’t shitty games before, just everybody forgot about them.

I like how the game Banished is made. From a requirenments/looks ratio it is IMO great. One guy made it. Ghosts of Tsushima also looks amazing and is great from a techical perspective, but it is heavy.

Presumably less compression and fewer ways to install only necessary assets (such as only downloading audio for used languages)

Yeah but like, what new features do apps have which weren’t available in those times? Embedded videos maybe? Doesn’t justify the bloat.

You know we’ve reached peak bloat and stupidity when JavaScript web apps have a compilation step, and I don’t mean JIT.

You made me check it, and on my android device it’s 337 (just the app). Jesus Christ.

Check out the apps Hermit and Native Alpha. They make web pages run like an app. I’ve only run into a couple sites where they don’t work right.

Has to send a number to Apple’s server too! actually not even sure if that’s client side.