Hi, yes app size and yes optimization :-)
App size does matter OEM's are sensitive to the size of the app for preload. They were satisfied with our last version that was under 3MB; we'll find out what they will tolerate. And we will likely push appstore promotion as part of our deep dive.[1]
Couple of thoughts on optimization: Yuri already worked to compress images on mobile web, only deployed on zero partners so far. Rolling out the image compression could be an easy start to reduce the page load.
In a couple of weeks, we will get into Facebook/Ericsson's network simulation lab in Menlo Park, where we can experience our UX on low end devices and slow networks.
Dan and Maryana, can you help me organize who should go to the lab?
Thanks --
Carolynne
[1] The Wikipedia Zero team is getting together with product, UX, comms and GLEE to go deep in one country, to understand the context for Wikipedia usage and how we can unlock growth in underserved market segments - beyond just making data free. More info in our QR notes https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews/Wikipedia_Zero/January_2015 .
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 1:59 PM, Dan Garry dgarry@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 1 February 2015 at 14:48, Toby Negrin tnegrin@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dan -- can you please limit the scope to sizing the android app? I think that's more relevant to reaching people in the developing world.
I think that depends. In a world where we're focussing on preloads, the size of the app is pretty immaterial as the user isn't paying the cost for downloading it. In that world, the best optimisations to make are probably reducing network traffic and improving performance on slower devices, things where there's lot of room for improvement in our code base. Also, our Android app is also an order of magnitude smaller than Facebook's Android app, so that's less of an issue for us. Facebook evidently decided to TACKLE ALL THE THINGS with Facebook Lite.
Also, can you see what percent of our GS traffic uses 2.3? Google has it
at about 10% globally but we need to understand our target market better. You might also want to check in with your new contact at App Annie to see if they have useful GS data.
Absolutely.
Dan
-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation