Android mascots are lined up in the demonstration area at the Google I/O Developers Conference in the Moscone Center in San Francisco
Android mascots are lined up in the demonstration area at the Google I/O Developers Conference in the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, May 10, 2011. REUTERS

After Apple iTunes Store hit the milestone of 25 billion downloads, the guys over at Google bumped up the app size limit by 80 times. Now the maximum app size allowed by Google for developers on Android Market is 4GB, as compared to the traditional size of 50MB.

In a post on Android Developers blog, Google announced the fundamental change about breaking the 50MB limit barrier. But the apk file size is still limited to 50MB. Android phones have limited in-built storage. So the 50MB apk limitation is still there to ensure that a single app download should not consume up all the memory.

If the apk size is limited, then where will we see the change? The change is in form of two additional files. The size of single expansion file is limited up to 2GB. So, developers can attach 2 files with apk file, each with a maximum size of 2GB.

Before this change, the app size limit was a great problem, especially for game developers. They just provided small apk on the Android Market. The data for running the game was downloaded separately; making app development costs high as developers have to store the files on their own servers or pay for storing.

Now, Google will itself store the additional files required along with the apk file. Before, downloading the app, users will come to know the actual size of download. This will save developer from costs that occur while storing additional files on web servers as Google is providing them all what they needed.

Another note from developer say that the return time will not start until the whole additional file is downloaded. Not to forget that the return time is a small window of 15 minutes only. It would be more beneficial for users if Google also increases the return time limit too.

(Reported by Johnny Wills, Edited by Surojit Chatterjee)

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