APK size too small?

Question

I am not sure if I can ask this here, but not sure where else to put it.

The question is about APK size, i am very new to coding. And i am coding on Flash AS3 on Flash Pro. The APK size is much smaller than the actual project data, which is ~100Mb (I imported a lot of PSD files in the fla). The size of the APK is only ~10Mb.

Is this normal?

Answer 1

When you compile the FLA file, Flash converts all the graphical raster data to JPEG format and all sounds to MP3, that way it takes less space.

The APK file (or anything else made with AIR) can be actually larger than the code + assets if you include the AIR player in the app, so that the person using your app does't need to download AIR manually.

Answer 2

When you publish from Flash, it converts/compresses all image assets.

The images are generally converted to PNG/JPG on the fly.

JPGs will be compressed using the quality setting under the project settings window. Or if you've defined compression settings for individual assets in the library, it will override this.

If you're publishing to mobile, it is important you get your app size down as low as possible. So pay attention to how you're using images.

If you want to ensure the best quality, always compress your images to PNGs/JPGs before bringing them into Flash and select 'Lossless' as the compression setting under each library item. (This will use the raw asset you imported). This will also result in faster publishing, as Flash doesn't have to do as much hard work.

PNGs will always be of larger file size than JPGs. So only use PNGs if you require transparency for an asset.