shrink apk

[mahibi]

https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/app-optimization/enable-app-optimization

Apk is too big (blocks v22.1.0RC1 release)

• Analyze which files made it so big (262 MB). Everything needed?

• shrink apk with

  isMinifyEnabled = true
  isShrinkResources = true
  

  • related Investigate and Fix Issues Related to R8 Code Shrinking & Optimization android#15993

---

From a first try with isMinifyEnabled and isShrinkResources for Android Talk:

Missing classes detected while running R8. Please add the missing classes or apply additional keep rules that are generated in /..../talk-android/app/build/intermediates/mapping/gplayRelease/minifyGplayReleaseWithR8/missing_rules.txt.

Missing class com.google.common.base.Objects$ToStringHelper (referenced from: java.lang.String com.github.filosganga.geogson.model.AbstractGeometry.toString() and 3 other contexts)
Missing class com.google.firebase.analytics.connector.AnalyticsConnector (referenced from: boolean com.google.firebase.messaging.FirebaseMessaging.shouldRetainProxyNotifications() and 2 other contexts)
Missing class org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder (referenced from: void org.slf4j.LoggerFactory.bind() and 3 other contexts)

[mahibi]

With adding

-keep class com.google.firebase.analytics.connector.** { *; }
-dontwarn com.google.firebase.analytics.connector.**

-dontwarn org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder

to proguard-rules.pro

and removing

    gsonBuilder.registerTypeAdapterFactory(new JtsAdapterFactory());
    gsonBuilder.registerTypeAdapterFactory(new GeometryAdapterFactory());

from TalkJsonNominatimClient (those are not needed for our app)

it will at least build while applying

isMinifyEnabled = true
isShrinkResources = true

but there is nearly no improvement of the app size (only 2 MB saved).

However the main problems for the current situation is the background blurring feature which adds libs that are too large. So background will be removed again for now.

[mahibi]

So unfortunately the big size of the talk app is caused by the background blur feature.
The model itself is not a problem (selfie_segmenter.tflite is "only" 249,5 KB).
But the dependencies

implementation 'com.google.mediapipe:tasks-vision:0.10.26'
implementation 'org.opencv:opencv:4.12.0'

will result in the shared object libraries

libopencv_java4.so
libmediapipe_tasks_vision_jni.so

and i guess also
libc++_shared.so

Together they are about 145 MB which explains most of the increased size.

Of course there are options to reduce apk sizes but this wont be able to compensate this high number.
One option would be to offer split apks or switch to AAB, but this would make the shipping complicated esp if we want to offer the app as direct downloads.
Build process will be more complicated, People will be confused which apk they have to use or how to get the downloaded aab as app on their phone, branding will be more complex, testing will be harder and so on...
So far i did not find any post from google for plans to require also existing apps to migrate to AAB, so apk should still be future proof.

One other option to reduce the size is to drop support for x86.
I tried this while keeping the background blur feature and ended up with
128 MB.
But as Google limits the upload size for apps to 100MB this may not help unless we further optimize with proguard etc.
We are already at 107 MB for the last releases that don't have the background blurring feature, so even without the feature we may have to act anytime soon, it was just luck google did not complain (maybe other calculation of MB's..).
Dropping support for x86 may be problematic for older ChomeOS systems but nevertheless they should still be able to use the app with arm translation: https://developer.android.com/topic/arc/device-support?utm_source=chatgpt.com#arm-translation.

From the numbers, dropping support for x86 should be fine (screenshot will follow. i don't think the "Unreported ABI" should contain many x86 devices?)

So while mentioning the dropping support for x86:
If dropping is an option AND we would remove the blurring feature as well, we should end up at about ~60MB apk size (did not test yet) which should be future proof for us.

There is also the option to use

    packagingOptions {
        jniLibs {
            useLegacyPackaging true
        }

https://developer.android.com/guide/practices/page-sizes?utm_source=chatgpt.com#agp_version_85_or_lower
I tried this and ended up with 140MB while keeping the blurring feature. So still too big and using the useLegacyPackaging is not recommended nowadays. It will most likely cause problems for the future, so it's not a good idea.

So to be honest i think removing the background blurring feature will unfortunately be the best option.

Ref:

• Background blurring 👤✨ #5387
• Improving background blur #5484
• Added background blurring AI model to assets/git tracked list #5563