Google Play Will Halve Update Sizes For Your Apps

When it comes to mobile phones, the latest way to measure your usage is often the data that you’ve managed to eat through since your last bill. With unlimited texts and calls now able to go through the internet, your mobile phone often uses data all over the place with apps and messages flying from your phone on a minute by minute basis. Google Play is hoping to help cut the data usage you go through by using its new Delta algorithm to halve the size of your apps updates.

Originally created by Colin Percival the Delta algorithm, titled bsdiff, will go so far as to halve the size your apps will need to download to get the latest version of your favourite games. The blog post by Anthony Morris outlined that for around 98% of updates from the play store the new algorithm will only download the delta, the change in files, to your phone before merging the change with your currently installed app.

With the new modifications, users will now be able to store additional large files alongside their APKs. This means you could soon find up to 2GB of high-definition images or sounds included in your apps. With all these changes your apps could get bigger and better without any additional data eating up your phone bills.