Universal Binaries .. big files sizes

Why I am going to release Universal Binary, Intel and ARM separately? Read on…

When you code in Xcode, Universal Binaries are still relatively very small. But when coding in Xojo, you are dragging a complete framework and extra plugins along. This already made your .app big regarding file sizes. But when creating a Universal Binary with Xojo, it doubles up. Of course this is expected and nothing we can do about.

For example one of my apps is normally about 85MB. Universal is a whopping about 170MB

OK, nowadays large files are not ‘that’ problematic due to several reasons. Still, there are users that still find it important.
The reason why I decided to release Intel and ARM separately, is because in the 3 days my app is available as a Universal Binary I already received 4 mails from paying users who saw the big leap in file size and asked for a thin-out version. So users are aware of this (at least a portion).

Again, not a very big deal but you may think about it and also offer ARM and Intel as a separate download. You ‘may’ loose sales when not doing so.

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People will get used to it. And for you it’s much easier to only notarize one version.

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True and most people don’t care. Just wanted to inform there are users that do care about this.
I mean, when I received 4 mails in 3 days from users noticing the big file size leap, that’s not to take lightly I guess. I was quite shocked by these reactions and certainly didn’t expect this.

Anyhow … I was just pointing out that you may loose sales. It’s up to you to do some extra work or not. :slight_smile:

Here a mail of one my customers:

Hi,

I updated your program to the latest version but I noticed that the file was much larger. I understand that this is due to a universal file. But I would really appreciate it if you would make a separate version for Intel only. If you don’t do this, it shows laziness and laxity towards your paying customers.
Do something about it!

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By the way, what are we supposed to submit to MAS? ARM or UB?

UB, the  App Store has thinning capabilities (for iOS) so I am hoping they’ll use it for their Mac apps.

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I understand what this customer is say, although I do find it’s nature to be quite rude, especially when Apple are happy shipping Big Sur where Apple’s apps are UB, which is wasting customers disk space as you can’t lipo the ARM slices due to Apple’s increased security (you can, but it may not work).

One of the tech sites, if I find it, I’ll share the link, suggested that over 4GB is wasted on an Intel Mac, because Apple are showing laziness and laxity towards their paying customers.

BTW: This ability is coming to AW4, I just need to get the beta all wrapped up before I start adding new features :frowning_face:

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That’s interesting. I am going to update one of my apps on AppStore so I can test this. I really hope this is the case.

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Had one of these the other day too.
<paraphrased complaint: I bought your icecream maker because everybody says its great, but it doesn’t make pancakes, and I NEED that or it is rubbish>
followed by verbatim "refund the costs immidiately!'*

Really makes you want to help, doesnt it. :wink:

On topic: Im already concerned over the file size of a single target deliverable.
Text DLLs bumped it up.
HiDPI bitmaps added another big footprint hike.

So I’ll be wanting to ship single target stuff too.
So far, no customers have confessed to actually owning an ARM machine yet.

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Let these grumpy people vent. If they don’t whine about app size, they will probably complain about something else.

We had the same with universal binaries PowerPC-Intel. It is kind of inevitable.

But what you can do, if you really get that often, is to have two separate builds on your web site, so you can offer Intel or AS specific downloads.

I sometimes have MAS buyers needing a download. I then ask them to forward their receipt, and I give them access to downloads.

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Xojo IDE itself could be smaller if Xojo Inc. would strip some unused files from it. See case 62359.

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