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Hi guys I have a media heavy app for the iPad and my archive is ~370mb. For what I'm doing, that isn't unreasonable. If i view the xcarchive in finder it is ~391MB, the .ipa is ~388mb, which roughly corresponds to the size of all my assets uncompressed.

So I double-checked the actual usage on my test device and it is 755 megs! This is similar to the "estimated app store" size shown in organizer.

I checked usage on several other test devices and it is the same.

I read the other posts about the organizer estimate tending to be inaccurate, but does that translate to the usage indication on the iPad itself? Shouldn't the iPad just report how much actual space is being used?

370 mb (double) of extra usage can't be anything to do with the executable not compressing, and this shouldn't be a result of PNGs being somehow expanded, I use a ton of jpegs because they are so much smaller.

And the whole compressed/uncompressed discussion feels like a red herring because if I simply get info on the uncompressed assets folder in finder, it is ... 355 mb. So I can't understand how compressing and then uncompressing a bunch of images would double their size.

My only theories are: - The usage on the development iPad is for some reason no indication of final app size

  • All my jpegs are somehow being converted to PNGs inside the ipad itself ... ??? really how is that possible??

  • I have two video files, they could somehow be automatically converted to another format .. ??again, really?? that sounds impossible

  • the app has in-app purchase capability, it could be somehow allocating disk space in anticipation of future purchases?

I hate all of those theories because none of them make sense. Any of you ever run in to this before?

BradleyDotNET
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whiddershins
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  • What you are experiencing is totally normal; it's the way in which a submitted app is uploaded to apple - the double size contains both your entire project and .app file PLUS the "archived" .ipa of the project. When on the Appstore, the size of the app will be approximately half, or the size of the sole .ipa file. – Luke Sep 03 '12 at 09:46
  • The first thing to do is @hpique's answer, for sure. – David H Sep 03 '12 at 14:49
  • I will try David H's answer soon. Meanwhile s what Luke is saying accurate? It is a hypothesis that explains the data ... does apple recompile my app as part of their evaluation process? – whiddershins Sep 03 '12 at 18:39

2 Answers2

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So write some code in your app that after launch uses nsfilemanager to walk your complete app on the device (or simulator)and tally the totals and log it. This way you will know exactly. Also recall that the file system uses discrete disk blocks of fixed size so 1 byte files actually consume more, but this is probably not your problem.

Also zipping media rarely results in space savings.

David H
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  • Why not just check the archive contents? Xcode is telling him that the archive actually is around 755 megs. – hpique Sep 03 '12 at 08:54
  • He said actual usage is double on the device - look at question again. – David H Sep 03 '12 at 12:56
  • Not sure: 'So I double-checked the actual usage on my test device and it is 755 megs! This is similar to the "estimated app store" size shown in organizer.' – hpique Sep 03 '12 at 13:21
  • clarification: xcode organizer tells me the "estimated app store size" is ~750 mb. Viewing "usage" on the device shows approximately the same number. Viewing the archive in finder gets me the smaller number ~370mb, which is ~the same as the uncompressed assets in finder. – whiddershins Sep 03 '12 at 16:38
  • Well, as I suggested, log the sizes and folder sizes in code. Something is going on that makes very little sense to us now without this information. You should be able to grap some code by searchin on SO on how to talk your bundle - NSFileManager makes this all really easy. You might want to keep a global value around for cumulative total too. – David H Sep 03 '12 at 19:46
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This is similar to the "estimated app store" size shown in organizer.

You can check out why by examining the contents of your archive:

Open Organizer, select Archives, select your app, right click on your archive, Show in Finder, right click on the file, Show Package Contents, open Products, open Applications, right click on your app bundle, Show Package Contents.

Also, Xcode might combine retina and non-retina images into a single multipage TIFF file. Check out this answer for more details.

Community
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hpique
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