Google recently made up its mind to make AAB the default app package in place of Android Package or APK application format for the Android Apps on Google Play Store. Google believes that this change will bring more efficient working capabilities and faster-operating speed in applications and data delivery.
This implies that starting in August of this year, all new and existing apps on Google Play Store must have the AAB format. Meanwhile, it’s not mandatory for the present apps with APK format to adopt the new format at the moment. But for starters, what is this new format all about?
What is the AAB application format?
Android App Bundle, also known as AAB, is a new publishing app format that delivers more enhanced benefits over another current most popular Android app format – APK (Android Application Package). The AAB offers a smaller app size, high installation rate, easy switching, customizable features, and so on.
Additionally, it allows adding multiple feature modules in the app project with the benefits of Play Feature Delivery (PFD). Furthermore, game developers with app bundle formate can use Play Asset Delivery to delivering large amounts of game assets with flexible delivery orders and high performance.
Working requirement to use
The AAB is an open-source app format and provides supports for various development engines like Android Studio, Gradle, Bazel, Buck, Cocos Creator, Unity, Unreal Engine, and others. Furthermore, Play Core Native, Play Core Java, and Kotlin SDKs offer advanced app bundle features regardless of your selected coding conditions.
What should we expect in August 2021?
Google is expected to have the APK format is replacing with the AAB on Google Play; the Expansion files (OBBs) will replace with Play Asset Delivery (PAD) and Play Feature Delivery (PFD); and the AAB will require the Instant app Zip for instant experience
These changes will be applied to the apps or files launching in the future. While the existing apps will remain the same as they before. After August 2021, the files with more than 150MB size can take the benefit of PAD & PFD with AAB format.
The future of Android apps is AAB
Android says that over 1 million applications with top 1000 apps on Google Play Store are using AABs. Google expects that this app distribution extension will grow more in the future. All the new Android apps on the Google Play Store will need to be in AABs in the future.
