Apple Increases App Size Limits for iOS and tvOS, Boosts On-Demand Resources

TapTechNews June 25 news, in order to prevent a single application from occupying too much storage space, Apple has been limiting the size of iOS and tvOS applications. However, as applications (especially games) continue to develop and become more complex, the required storage space also increases. For this reason, Apple has increased the size limit of iPhone, iPad and AppleTV applications.

According to the release notes of iOS 18 Beta 2 and tvOS 18 Beta 2, this update has increased the on-demand resource limit of third-party applications, which means that iOS 18 and tvOS 18 can run larger applications and games.

Currently, the maximum size of the iOS application installation package downloaded from the App Store is 2 gigabytes. With the update of iOS 18, this limit will be increased to 4 gigabytes. This means that developers can release larger applications without relying too much on on-demand downloaded resources.

TapTechNews noted that since iOS 9, developers have been able to split applications through the on-demand resources (ODR) method, so that users do not have to wait for the entire application to be downloaded to start using it. The system will prioritize downloading the core part of the application, and the additional content can be downloaded silently in the background or when the application is first opened later.

For example, a game can be listed on the App Store in a smaller installation package first, and then additional levels can be downloaded gradually as the player progresses in the game. This also helps to save storage space, because the game will only download more resources as needed and can be deleted from the device when no longer needed.

In response to this situation, Apple has also increased the on-demand resource limit. In iOS 17 and tvOS 17, applications and games can have a maximum of 40 gigabytes of on-demand resource storage space, and iOS 18 and tvOS 18 increase this limit to 70 gigabytes. In addition, Apple has also canceled the limit of 4 gigabytes of additional resources that users immediately download after installing the application installation package from the App Store.

There were reports last month that developers have been dissatisfied with the limitations of the AppleTV SDK, which only allows applications and games to permanently store 500 kilobytes of data. Unfortunately, it is not yet clear whether this limit has been adjusted, as Apple has not updated the relevant documentation yet.

Nevertheless, increasing the upper limit of on-demand resources will undoubtedly be beneficial to the development of console-level games landing on the iOS and tvOS platforms. Currently, iOS 18 and tvOS 18 are in the developer testing phase, and the public beta version is expected to be launched next month, and the official version will be released this autumn.