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Why are downloaded applications bigger than what it says on the Android Market???

ap3604

Android Enthusiast
Feb 9, 2010
571
78
I did a regular google search and searched the forum but cant see that anyone has asked it yet:

Why do android applications double in size once you download them?

For example... in the Android market - Documents to Go says the application is only 3.59mb BUT once I download it and look under Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications to see what real size it is the application jumps to 8.05mb!!! :eek:

It seems like every single application is doing this. Why are these applications bigger than they actually are? :thinking:

Thanks for your help on this guys :)
 
That's really a bad way to determine size then. Who cares what size the installer is when the limiting factor is storage space on the phone? Being able to move it to the relatively unlimited space of the sd card is new to froyo so they couldn't have been counting on that this whole time... Perhaps we should all suggest to the market that listed app sizes must be the actual installed size?
 
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Hopefully this indicates a learning process in terms of predictive text - does it get better, the more you use it?

It must store the additional data it gathers, I guess.

I suppose the dictionary would take up space, but 5MB seems like a little much.

The predictive text is pretty good. It displays way more words than other keyboards, so you have more options when typing, rather than just one or two.

My only gripe is that it doesn't add a space when you select a predicted word and continue typing. Other than that, it's very slick.
 
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Touchpal was the best keyboard on windows mobile in my opinion. It was super fast and the ability to swipe on each key for alternate functions was awesome. It sucks that this one feels gimped in comparison. I do miss being able to resize the keyboard as well.

Not to stray too far off topic from the OP, but the feature I miss most was the "quick text", where you can program various sentences and have them quickly pasted into your chat application or email app. I'm sure they will make it just like the WM version in the future.
 
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