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Google Further Shrinks the Size of Android App Updates (engadget.com)
Google says it has found and implemented a new way to make app updates on Android smaller. From a report on Engadget: They're introducing a new approach to app updates that promises to radically shrink the size of updates with "file-by-file" patching. The resulting patches tend to be about 65 percent smaller than the app itself, and are sometimes over 90 percent smaller. In the right circumstances, that could make the difference between updating while you're on cellular versus waiting until you find WiFi. The technique revolves around spotting changes in the uncompressed files (that is, when they're not squeezed into a typical app package). Google first decompresses the old and new app versions to determine the changes between files and create a patch. After that, updating is just a matter of unpacking the app on your device, applying changes and compressing it again.
Get smaller patch sizes by compressing the things that people actually change... didn't git do something like this?
Now, if only there were a way to shrink the update further by transferring only the parts of files that have changed -- in other words, the information that's actually different...
Provided some simple apps can be north of 100MB, I very much welcome that you can update without redownloading everything. That is particularly true for apps that insist on being at the latest version to run.
Because even unlimited plans are limited......pick one and there's a cap (usually right around 22GB for some reason) where the speed will drop. If you hit that cap often enough, you'll be dropped from the carrier. It's in the fine print.
And they aren't "cheap" unless you're a single person making decent money or with few other bills to pay. Family plans save money vs a bunch of individual plans, but they still aren't cheap.
Unlimited data plans have been very cheap for several years now.
Not in Slashdot's home country.
In some more remote parts of the U.S., the only option for high-speed home Internet is satellite, and satellite doesn't have unmetered data during waking hours. In other remote parts, such as East Buchanan, Iowa, DSL is harshly metered as well.
Cellular carrier T-Mobile has introduced an unmetered plan, whose name reminds one of synthetic motor oil. But at $70 per month for the first of four lines on a plan, it's more expensive than metered plans, and it puts the subscriber at the back of QoS after using 25 GB in a month. Furthermore, in some parts of the U.S., Verizon is the only cellular carrier with adequate coverage, and Verizon has refused to offer unmetered plans.