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Qt Android 5.3 Application Size

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  • GianlucaG Offline
    GianlucaG Offline
    Gianluca
    wrote on last edited by
    #7

    If the size it's a problem for you, there is an alternative: use Ministro.
    Ministro is an android service that provides Qt libraries.
    In this case, your app will be very very small, and when someone install the app from google play automatically he/she will be asked to install also Ministro service.

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    • S Offline
      S Offline
      sonyericsson0819
      wrote on last edited by
      #8

      Yeah,I also think the size is too large.My app was about 7~8 MB ,when I used Qt5.2.1,but now I use Qt5.3.0 to deploy the same application,its size is about 8~9 MB,become larger.And I also find that it has a "white screen" when the application starts or quit,which is never appear in Qt5.2.1 application.

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      • GianlucaG Offline
        GianlucaG Offline
        Gianluca
        wrote on last edited by
        #9

        Just to continue the discussion about the size of an app: what's the problem if the app is something like 30Mb ? I really don't understand what bother you.
        I've never read a statistic telling that the users choose app depending on the dimension they occupy on their mobile phone. Typically the users doesn't care about the dimension of an app. And almost all mobile phone of 3-4 years ago have enough space to install hundreds of apps.

        Or I'm underestimating the size problem ??

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        • R Offline
          R Offline
          rschalch
          wrote on last edited by
          #10

          More size, more memory, less chance of the app run fine when other software is on. I think we cannot undersetimate the size at least for now

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          • GianlucaG Offline
            GianlucaG Offline
            Gianluca
            wrote on last edited by
            #11

            That's not true. (I think). Because the size is due to the Qt library that cannot be splitted at a very fine grained level... but that doesn't means that your app need to have all library symbols on memory (RAM) at the same time to run fine.

            If you did a very simple app that use only the 10% of exported symbols of the Qt libraries, that in memory (RAM) there will be only the 10% of the dimension totally occupied on the disk.

            So, If we want to discuss the problem of the size, we should really check how much is the effective needed RAM in order to run the app without affecting the performances.

            For Android I don't know how to check it, but for iOS Xcode display the RAM memory needed by the app at runtime.
            And for example, my app that on iOS is ~40Mb of .ipa, when it runs it occupies only ~5Mb of RAM.

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            • R Offline
              R Offline
              rschalch
              wrote on last edited by
              #12

              Yeah, perhaps who made the tests of the latest Qt on an average android device can tell us how the app reacts in a situation when other apps are open. If the performance still goes well I think we can forgive the size app.

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              • GianlucaG Offline
                GianlucaG Offline
                Gianluca
                wrote on last edited by
                #13

                My android devices as testbed are an LG L7 bought 4 years ago, and a 7'' inch tablet without brand imported from china one years ago and payed about 50€

                I didn't do performances checks because I don't know how to profile an android app regarding CPU and RAM usage.

                I'll came back after I did more tests and profiling.

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                • GianlucaG Offline
                  GianlucaG Offline
                  Gianluca
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #14

                  Some news about memory usage of the Qt app on Android.
                  Following this guide:
                  https://developer.android.com/tools/debugging/debugging-memory.html
                  I checked some usage of my application.
                  Consider that is an application using Qt Quick (Layout, Controls), Qt Network, Qt Multimedia, Qt Svg and all modules on which these depends on.

                  The memory on disk of this APK is about 40Mb.

                  When the app runs, the maximum space seen on the heap is 2966K/3468K (active_used / totally_for_the_app )
                  And the private dirty memory on RAM (the very important for keeping the phone reactive) goes up and down around the 6800K / 2100K (Native / Dalvik ).

                  So, this definitely prove my assumption that the RAM needed is very different from the space needed on disk.

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                  • R Offline
                    R Offline
                    rschalch
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #15

                    Yes, its reasonable. Thanks for the tests !

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                    • R Offline
                      R Offline
                      rjklindsay
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #16

                      I'm sorry, but such HUGE executables are completely unacceptable.
                      Keep in mind the entire Win95 operating system required only 55Mb of hard-drive space, which was already big and bloated, compared to RiscOS (4Mb). I see some apps in the Google Play app store are only 24kb or smaller. Now Gianluca is trying to convince us that a Hello-world app of more than x1000 that size is acceptable? I think not! I certaintly won't be using Qt for my next Android project, unless they can SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the APK size.

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                      • R Offline
                        R Offline
                        rschalch
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #17

                        I would say that for small apps we can go with pure Java, but man, developing in QtQuick is so much fun ... the main libraries may encapsulate all the things that we commonly dont use. but for a richer app, maybe the 32-33 mb can be acceptable

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                        • R Offline
                          R Offline
                          rjklindsay
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #18

                          I'm no fan of Java, which is why I'm looking for alternatives.
                          I must admit, I really like QtQuick, but the APK size makes it a non-starter. On my Samsung SII, a simple QtQuick app takes between 5 and 20 seconds to start, whereas a ADT+NDK app starts up in under a second. Also, Google Play has an APK size limit of 50MB, and a 'richer' app could easily exceed that limit. To make things worse, many devices have a 30MB download cache limit, so even if you get your 32-33 MB app uploaded to Google play, many devices would not be able to download it. Btw. FireMonkey on Delphi/C++ Builder is another excelent RAD tool for developing Android apps, but unfortunately it also suffers from over-size APK's. So, for now I see no choice but to stick to Eclipse ADT+NDK.

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                          • R Offline
                            R Offline
                            rschalch
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #19

                            Well, we still have the option of deploy the "small" app and have users to download Ministro from Google Play. None of this would be an ideal solution but answer me honestly: Whats better and more fun than QtQuick for development ? I think we can also believe in its future :)

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                            • H Offline
                              H Offline
                              hmbright
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #20

                              i can kind of see both sides. i understand how this may be a problem for some. for example in the US on some phone providers on some contracts, 30 mb of mobile-network data can incur a significant cost. and it can be quite slow.

                              on the other hand, Podcasting has become extremely popular in the US, and an ordinary podcast mp3 can frequently be 30MB to 50MB. Videos of course are much much more. i have a feeling most people download these podcasts over wifi to their phone and listen later. this is relatively speedy and works well for many people.

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                              • H Offline
                                H Offline
                                hmbright
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #21

                                i can kind of see both sides. i understand how this may be a problem for some. for example in the US on some phone providers on some contracts, 30 mb of mobile-network data can incur a significant cost. and it can be quite slow.

                                on the other hand, Podcasting has become extremely popular in the US, and an ordinary podcast mp3 can frequently be 30MB to 50MB. Videos of course are much much more. i have a feeling most people download these podcasts over wifi to their phone and listen later. this is relatively speedy and works well for many people.

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                                • R Offline
                                  R Offline
                                  rjklindsay
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #22

                                  honestly: Whats better and more fun than QtQuick for development ?
                                  Delpih / C++Builder XE6!

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                                  • R Offline
                                    R Offline
                                    rjklindsay
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #23

                                    honestly: Whats better and more fun than QtQuick for development ?
                                    Delpih / C++Builder XE6!

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