In recent years, Google has been working to decrease the size of Android apps by optimizing the code and resources downloaded for the devices. The most recent initiative on this front is “Optimizing the installation of applications” on Google Play.
When you enable application installation optimization, Google can tell you which parts of an application you use the first time you open it after installation. When enough people do this, Google can optimize the app to install, open and run faster for everyone.
This crowdsourced feature does not collect your name, email address or any other personal information, in accordance with the company’s existing Privacy Policy. In addition, it “does not look at anything outside the application, like other applications or content on your device”.
It also does not collect information about content uploaded or downloaded in the app, such as images in a social feed or ratings on a leaderboard.
Your data is combined with that of other users to “find trends and identify which parts of the app are most important to everyone”. Google cites three benefits for optimizing the app’s installation, but doesn’t specify what the Play Store is actually doing with subsequent app downloads by new users after this data aggregation.
- Speed up installation of Google Play apps
- Reduce the time it takes to open and run applications
- Reduce pressure on your device’s CPU, battery and storage
Google is possibly prioritizing downloads feature by feature. For example, a social media application that most people use only to browse posts may not initially download content creation features (i.e., photo filters, video editing, etc.). This feature can only be installed when a user is actually going to use it or when the connection has improved.
Those who are not comfortable with the feature can disable it in the Play Store settings, but they “will still benefit from the data collected from others”. Optimizing the installation of the application is not yet available on the Play Store, but references to it are included in the latest version (version 24.5.13), while a support document is now available.
More about Google Play:
Dylan Roussel contributed to this article
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