fscked.co.uk
Description: Writing about science, tech, and blogging by Dr. Richard Gaywood. @penllawen on Twitter.
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Lately there’s been a lot of posts along the lines of this one (which I found via Daring Fireball ) analysing the size of iOS app updates, and the potential impact on a user’s data caps from routine updates of large apps like Facebook.
The problem is, many of these are wrong. Any analysis based on adding up the amounts of data shown in the App Store update page on an iOS device, like below, is incorrect.
When I tap “update” the amount of data downloaded to update Facebook is not 246 MB. iOS is smarter than that and downloads a “delta” update ; the amount of difference between the Facebook app version I have installed right now and the new version. Exactly how big this delta is can vary wildly with the sophistication of the delta algorithm, the changes to the app in question, and the compression applied to the download itself.
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