+1 for this idea. I still have an Android 2.3 device, but the Wikipedia app (and others too) is very slow and becomes more and more unusable, while it's agreat user experience on my Android 4.4 device.
If dropping 2.3 support means a faster development of the main Wikipedia app and the <2.3 users still have access to Wikipedia through a lite app (which will be faster and more usable) i would say: do it, it has advantages for both sides :)
Florian
Gesendet mit meinem HTC
----- Reply message ----- Von: "Dan Garry" dgarry@wikimedia.org An: "mobile-l" mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org, "Carolynne Schloeder" cschloeder@wikimedia.org, "Toby Negrin" tnegrin@wikimedia.org, "Lila Tretikov" lila@wikimedia.org Betreff: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app? Datum: Sa., Jan. 31, 2015 06:45
Hi everyone, Those of you who were at the Mobile quarterly review heard me mention Facebook Lite, an app that's designed especially for the developing world.
Notably, their app has a lot of optimisations which make it good for users in developing world: It's only 252kB, good for limited data plans.It supports down to Android 2.2, good for older devices.It's data-efficient, good for 2G connections and for people on limited data plans. From a development perspective, some advantages are: You no longer have to support older versions of Android in your main app. You can tailor the performance of the lite app to the older devices so it's faster.You can tailor the features of the lite app to the developing market.So obviously there are a lot of advantages for our users if we do this. And, selfishly, I can't stress enough how much dropping Android 2.3 from our current app would speed up development. As an example, almost all of the edge cases with lead images occurred on 2.3 devices, and they required quite a lot of investigation and hacking to fix them up. Obviously we've not dropped 2.3 so far because it's a very strategically important part of our user base, which I'm sure Carolynne can attest to!
I'd say that we should put some serious thought into whether we'd prefer to have a Wikipedia Lite app for the developing world, rather than our current "one app to rule them all".
Comments? Questions?
Dan
Dan,
I think this is really important and thank you for highlighting this.
Could you do rough sizing on what it would take to get something like this out? What if we did this with a pre-load?
Carolynne -- I recommend you start reaching out to Kim as you re-formulate your W0 strategy.
Lila
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 2:36 AM, Florian Schmidt < florian.schmidt.welzow@t-online.de> wrote:
+1 for this idea. I still have an Android 2.3 device, but the Wikipedia app (and others too) is very slow and becomes more and more unusable, while it's agreat user experience on my Android 4.4 device.
If dropping 2.3 support means a faster development of the main Wikipedia app and the <2.3 users still have access to Wikipedia through a lite app (which will be faster and more usable) i would say: do it, it has advantages for both sides :)
Florian
Gesendet mit meinem HTC
----- Reply message ----- Von: "Dan Garry" dgarry@wikimedia.org An: "mobile-l" mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org, "Carolynne Schloeder" < cschloeder@wikimedia.org>, "Toby Negrin" tnegrin@wikimedia.org, "Lila Tretikov" lila@wikimedia.org Betreff: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app? Datum: Sa., Jan. 31, 2015 06:45
Hi everyone,
Those of you who were at the Mobile quarterly review heard me mention Facebook Lite, an app that's designed especially for the developing world.
Notably, their app has a lot of optimisations which make it good for users in developing world:
- It's only 252kB, good for limited data plans.
- It supports down to Android 2.2, good for older devices.
- It's data-efficient, good for 2G connections and for people on
limited data plans.
From a development perspective, some advantages are:
- You no longer have to support older versions of Android in your main
app.
- You can tailor the performance of the lite app to the older devices
so it's faster.
- You can tailor the features of the lite app to the developing market.
So obviously there are a lot of advantages for our users if we do this. And, selfishly, I can't stress enough how much dropping Android 2.3 from our current app would speed up development. As an example, almost all of the edge cases with lead images occurred on 2.3 devices, and they required quite a lot of investigation and hacking to fix them up. Obviously we've not dropped 2.3 so far because it's a very strategically important part of our user base, which I'm sure Carolynne can attest to!
I'd say that we should put some serious thought into whether we'd prefer to have a Wikipedia Lite app for the developing world, rather than our current "one app to rule them all".
Comments? Questions?
Dan
-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation
Creating a separate app to optimize sounds like a good idea. We will check the market stats on Android versions, and I'll get the scoop from Facebook on their learning.
I was somewhat surprised that most OEM's we've talked to are shipping Android 4.x even on low-priced models targeted for developing markets. But I'll clarify what's happening and circle back with Dan on the distribution plan (preload vs. appstores). I'll also catch up with Kim.
I do love to see this attention given to our lower end handset users, thank you!
Carolynne
On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 9:30 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dan,
I think this is really important and thank you for highlighting this.
Could you do rough sizing on what it would take to get something like this out? What if we did this with a pre-load?
Carolynne -- I recommend you start reaching out to Kim as you re-formulate your W0 strategy.
Lila
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 2:36 AM, Florian Schmidt < florian.schmidt.welzow@t-online.de> wrote:
+1 for this idea. I still have an Android 2.3 device, but the Wikipedia app (and others too) is very slow and becomes more and more unusable, while it's agreat user experience on my Android 4.4 device.
If dropping 2.3 support means a faster development of the main Wikipedia app and the <2.3 users still have access to Wikipedia through a lite app (which will be faster and more usable) i would say: do it, it has advantages for both sides :)
Florian
Gesendet mit meinem HTC
----- Reply message ----- Von: "Dan Garry" dgarry@wikimedia.org An: "mobile-l" mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org, "Carolynne Schloeder" < cschloeder@wikimedia.org>, "Toby Negrin" tnegrin@wikimedia.org, "Lila Tretikov" lila@wikimedia.org Betreff: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app? Datum: Sa., Jan. 31, 2015 06:45
Hi everyone,
Those of you who were at the Mobile quarterly review heard me mention Facebook Lite, an app that's designed especially for the developing world.
Notably, their app has a lot of optimisations which make it good for users in developing world:
- It's only 252kB, good for limited data plans.
- It supports down to Android 2.2, good for older devices.
- It's data-efficient, good for 2G connections and for people on
limited data plans.
From a development perspective, some advantages are:
- You no longer have to support older versions of Android in your
main app.
- You can tailor the performance of the lite app to the older devices
so it's faster.
- You can tailor the features of the lite app to the developing
market.
So obviously there are a lot of advantages for our users if we do this. And, selfishly, I can't stress enough how much dropping Android 2.3 from our current app would speed up development. As an example, almost all of the edge cases with lead images occurred on 2.3 devices, and they required quite a lot of investigation and hacking to fix them up. Obviously we've not dropped 2.3 so far because it's a very strategically important part of our user base, which I'm sure Carolynne can attest to!
I'd say that we should put some serious thought into whether we'd prefer to have a Wikipedia Lite app for the developing world, rather than our current "one app to rule them all".
Comments? Questions?
Dan
-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation
A definite +1 for the idea of having a separate "Lite" app where we focus on optimizing for size and network usage for the developing world.
However, I'm afraid that having a Lite app would not automatically allow us to drop support for Android 2.3 in the "main" app. I'll be the first to attest to the number of headaches that supporting 2.3 has caused, but unfortunately this is just a routine part of Android development. Even if we drop support for 2.3, we would still need to use the Support (AppCompat) library which, for all its flaws, provides fairly great compatibility with versions all the way down to 2.1, practically for free.
After all, the Facebook app (the "full" version) is still very much available on Android 2.3, and provides an experience that's fully consistent with the experience on my 4.4 device.
By the same token, there are plenty of 2.3 devices that are still quite powerful even by today's standards, and surely deserve the experience of the full Wikipedia app.
So then, I agree with all the other motivations for splitting off a Lite app, but as much as it pains me to say this, dropping support for Android 2.3 shouldn't necessarily be one of them.
-Dmitry
On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 2:15 PM, Carolynne Schloeder < cschloeder@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Creating a separate app to optimize sounds like a good idea. We will check the market stats on Android versions, and I'll get the scoop from Facebook on their learning.
I was somewhat surprised that most OEM's we've talked to are shipping Android 4.x even on low-priced models targeted for developing markets. But I'll clarify what's happening and circle back with Dan on the distribution plan (preload vs. appstores). I'll also catch up with Kim.
I do love to see this attention given to our lower end handset users, thank you!
Carolynne
On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 9:30 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dan,
I think this is really important and thank you for highlighting this.
Could you do rough sizing on what it would take to get something like this out? What if we did this with a pre-load?
Carolynne -- I recommend you start reaching out to Kim as you re-formulate your W0 strategy.
Lila
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 2:36 AM, Florian Schmidt < florian.schmidt.welzow@t-online.de> wrote:
+1 for this idea. I still have an Android 2.3 device, but the Wikipedia app (and others too) is very slow and becomes more and more unusable, while it's agreat user experience on my Android 4.4 device.
If dropping 2.3 support means a faster development of the main Wikipedia app and the <2.3 users still have access to Wikipedia through a lite app (which will be faster and more usable) i would say: do it, it has advantages for both sides :)
Florian
Gesendet mit meinem HTC
----- Reply message ----- Von: "Dan Garry" dgarry@wikimedia.org An: "mobile-l" mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org, "Carolynne Schloeder" < cschloeder@wikimedia.org>, "Toby Negrin" tnegrin@wikimedia.org, "Lila Tretikov" lila@wikimedia.org Betreff: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app? Datum: Sa., Jan. 31, 2015 06:45
Hi everyone,
Those of you who were at the Mobile quarterly review heard me mention Facebook Lite, an app that's designed especially for the developing world.
Notably, their app has a lot of optimisations which make it good for users in developing world:
- It's only 252kB, good for limited data plans.
- It supports down to Android 2.2, good for older devices.
- It's data-efficient, good for 2G connections and for people on
limited data plans.
From a development perspective, some advantages are:
- You no longer have to support older versions of Android in your
main app.
- You can tailor the performance of the lite app to the older
devices so it's faster.
- You can tailor the features of the lite app to the developing
market.
So obviously there are a lot of advantages for our users if we do this. And, selfishly, I can't stress enough how much dropping Android 2.3 from our current app would speed up development. As an example, almost all of the edge cases with lead images occurred on 2.3 devices, and they required quite a lot of investigation and hacking to fix them up. Obviously we've not dropped 2.3 so far because it's a very strategically important part of our user base, which I'm sure Carolynne can attest to!
I'd say that we should put some serious thought into whether we'd prefer to have a Wikipedia Lite app for the developing world, rather than our current "one app to rule them all".
Comments? Questions?
Dan
-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation
-- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
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.
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.
-Toby
On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 11:15 AM, Carolynne Schloeder < cschloeder@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Creating a separate app to optimize sounds like a good idea. We will check the market stats on Android versions, and I'll get the scoop from Facebook on their learning.
I was somewhat surprised that most OEM's we've talked to are shipping Android 4.x even on low-priced models targeted for developing markets. But I'll clarify what's happening and circle back with Dan on the distribution plan (preload vs. appstores). I'll also catch up with Kim.
I do love to see this attention given to our lower end handset users, thank you!
Carolynne
On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 9:30 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dan,
I think this is really important and thank you for highlighting this.
Could you do rough sizing on what it would take to get something like this out? What if we did this with a pre-load?
Carolynne -- I recommend you start reaching out to Kim as you re-formulate your W0 strategy.
Lila
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 2:36 AM, Florian Schmidt < florian.schmidt.welzow@t-online.de> wrote:
+1 for this idea. I still have an Android 2.3 device, but the Wikipedia app (and others too) is very slow and becomes more and more unusable, while it's agreat user experience on my Android 4.4 device.
If dropping 2.3 support means a faster development of the main Wikipedia app and the <2.3 users still have access to Wikipedia through a lite app (which will be faster and more usable) i would say: do it, it has advantages for both sides :)
Florian
Gesendet mit meinem HTC
----- Reply message ----- Von: "Dan Garry" dgarry@wikimedia.org An: "mobile-l" mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org, "Carolynne Schloeder" < cschloeder@wikimedia.org>, "Toby Negrin" tnegrin@wikimedia.org, "Lila Tretikov" lila@wikimedia.org Betreff: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app? Datum: Sa., Jan. 31, 2015 06:45
Hi everyone,
Those of you who were at the Mobile quarterly review heard me mention Facebook Lite, an app that's designed especially for the developing world.
Notably, their app has a lot of optimisations which make it good for users in developing world:
- It's only 252kB, good for limited data plans.
- It supports down to Android 2.2, good for older devices.
- It's data-efficient, good for 2G connections and for people on
limited data plans.
From a development perspective, some advantages are:
- You no longer have to support older versions of Android in your
main app.
- You can tailor the performance of the lite app to the older
devices so it's faster.
- You can tailor the features of the lite app to the developing
market.
So obviously there are a lot of advantages for our users if we do this. And, selfishly, I can't stress enough how much dropping Android 2.3 from our current app would speed up development. As an example, almost all of the edge cases with lead images occurred on 2.3 devices, and they required quite a lot of investigation and hacking to fix them up. Obviously we've not dropped 2.3 so far because it's a very strategically important part of our user base, which I'm sure Carolynne can attest to!
I'd say that we should put some serious thought into whether we'd prefer to have a Wikipedia Lite app for the developing world, rather than our current "one app to rule them all".
Comments? Questions?
Dan
-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation
-- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder
You can actually release a total different app under the same version based on device and OS criteria with Play Store. http://developer.android.com/google/play/publishing/multiple-apks.html
So you could split the Android app into a full and a Lite version, and just serve up the Lite version to 2.3 and below devices automatically.
Note that this creates significant overhead in the release process however. Store releases always are a expensive piece of overhead, making more of them or more complicated ones should not be underestimated (but is usually quite constant).
DJ
On 1 feb. 2015, at 23:48, 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.
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.
-Toby
On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 11:15 AM, Carolynne Schloeder <cschloeder@wikimedia.org mailto:cschloeder@wikimedia.org> wrote: Creating a separate app to optimize sounds like a good idea. We will check the market stats on Android versions, and I'll get the scoop from Facebook on their learning.
I was somewhat surprised that most OEM's we've talked to are shipping Android 4.x even on low-priced models targeted for developing markets. But I'll clarify what's happening and circle back with Dan on the distribution plan (preload vs. appstores). I'll also catch up with Kim.
I do love to see this attention given to our lower end handset users, thank you!
Carolynne
On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 9:30 AM, Lila Tretikov <lila@wikimedia.org mailto:lila@wikimedia.org> wrote: Dan,
I think this is really important and thank you for highlighting this.
Could you do rough sizing on what it would take to get something like this out? What if we did this with a pre-load?
Carolynne -- I recommend you start reaching out to Kim as you re-formulate your W0 strategy.
Lila
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 2:36 AM, Florian Schmidt <florian.schmidt.welzow@t-online.de mailto:florian.schmidt.welzow@t-online.de> wrote: +1 for this idea. I still have an Android 2.3 device, but the Wikipedia app (and others too) is very slow and becomes more and more unusable, while it's agreat user experience on my Android 4.4 device.
If dropping 2.3 support means a faster development of the main Wikipedia app and the <2.3 users still have access to Wikipedia through a lite app (which will be faster and more usable) i would say: do it, it has advantages for both sides :)
Florian
Gesendet mit meinem HTC
----- Reply message ----- Von: "Dan Garry" <dgarry@wikimedia.org mailto:dgarry@wikimedia.org> An: "mobile-l" <mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org>, "Carolynne Schloeder" <cschloeder@wikimedia.org mailto:cschloeder@wikimedia.org>, "Toby Negrin" <tnegrin@wikimedia.org mailto:tnegrin@wikimedia.org>, "Lila Tretikov" <lila@wikimedia.org mailto:lila@wikimedia.org> Betreff: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app? Datum: Sa., Jan. 31, 2015 06:45
Hi everyone,
Those of you who were at the Mobile quarterly review heard me mention Facebook Lite, an app that's designed especially for the developing world.
Notably, their app has a lot of optimisations which make it good for users in developing world: It's only 252kB, good for limited data plans. It supports down to Android 2.2, good for older devices. It's data-efficient, good for 2G connections and for people on limited data plans. From a development perspective, some advantages are: You no longer have to support older versions of Android in your main app. You can tailor the performance of the lite app to the older devices so it's faster. You can tailor the features of the lite app to the developing market. So obviously there are a lot of advantages for our users if we do this. And, selfishly, I can't stress enough how much dropping Android 2.3 from our current app would speed up development. As an example, almost all of the edge cases with lead images occurred on 2.3 devices, and they required quite a lot of investigation and hacking to fix them up. Obviously we've not dropped 2.3 so far because it's a very strategically important part of our user base, which I'm sure Carolynne can attest to!
I'd say that we should put some serious thought into whether we'd prefer to have a Wikipedia Lite app for the developing world, rather than our current "one app to rule them all".
Comments? Questions?
Dan
-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation
-- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 tel:%2B14154077071 skype: cschloeder
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Also, can you see what percent of our GS traffic uses 2.3?
I think it will be worth it to get this from actual usage of the app. Google will report us downloads, but not activations and it is not infrequent that many users download an app that they do not use at all. Specially if a mobile web version is available.
Thanks,
Nuria
On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 2:48 PM, 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.
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.
-Toby
On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 11:15 AM, Carolynne Schloeder < cschloeder@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Creating a separate app to optimize sounds like a good idea. We will check the market stats on Android versions, and I'll get the scoop from Facebook on their learning.
I was somewhat surprised that most OEM's we've talked to are shipping Android 4.x even on low-priced models targeted for developing markets. But I'll clarify what's happening and circle back with Dan on the distribution plan (preload vs. appstores). I'll also catch up with Kim.
I do love to see this attention given to our lower end handset users, thank you!
Carolynne
On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 9:30 AM, Lila Tretikov lila@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dan,
I think this is really important and thank you for highlighting this.
Could you do rough sizing on what it would take to get something like this out? What if we did this with a pre-load?
Carolynne -- I recommend you start reaching out to Kim as you re-formulate your W0 strategy.
Lila
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 2:36 AM, Florian Schmidt < florian.schmidt.welzow@t-online.de> wrote:
+1 for this idea. I still have an Android 2.3 device, but the Wikipedia app (and others too) is very slow and becomes more and more unusable, while it's agreat user experience on my Android 4.4 device.
If dropping 2.3 support means a faster development of the main Wikipedia app and the <2.3 users still have access to Wikipedia through a lite app (which will be faster and more usable) i would say: do it, it has advantages for both sides :)
Florian
Gesendet mit meinem HTC
----- Reply message ----- Von: "Dan Garry" dgarry@wikimedia.org An: "mobile-l" mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org, "Carolynne Schloeder" < cschloeder@wikimedia.org>, "Toby Negrin" tnegrin@wikimedia.org, "Lila Tretikov" lila@wikimedia.org Betreff: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app? Datum: Sa., Jan. 31, 2015 06:45
Hi everyone,
Those of you who were at the Mobile quarterly review heard me mention Facebook Lite, an app that's designed especially for the developing world.
Notably, their app has a lot of optimisations which make it good for users in developing world:
- It's only 252kB, good for limited data plans.
- It supports down to Android 2.2, good for older devices.
- It's data-efficient, good for 2G connections and for people on
limited data plans.
From a development perspective, some advantages are:
- You no longer have to support older versions of Android in your
main app.
- You can tailor the performance of the lite app to the older
devices so it's faster.
- You can tailor the features of the lite app to the developing
market.
So obviously there are a lot of advantages for our users if we do this. And, selfishly, I can't stress enough how much dropping Android 2.3 from our current app would speed up development. As an example, almost all of the edge cases with lead images occurred on 2.3 devices, and they required quite a lot of investigation and hacking to fix them up. Obviously we've not dropped 2.3 so far because it's a very strategically important part of our user base, which I'm sure Carolynne can attest to!
I'd say that we should put some serious thought into whether we'd prefer to have a Wikipedia Lite app for the developing world, rather than our current "one app to rule them all".
Comments? Questions?
Dan
-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation
-- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
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
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
Don't preload apps still get over-the-air updates, often the whole app re-download?
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:39 AM, Carolynne Schloeder < cschloeder@wikimedia.org> wrote:
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
-- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
OEMs care about the size of their OS, as this is stored in a restricted read-only area (unless a device is rooted). Once the device is running, those limitations don't apply as an app has tons of space to update itself.
Quite like the network installer concept for desktop applications, OEMs prefer if the pre-install is a small package that in itself doesn't necessarily do much other than download the real app.
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:48 AM, Yuri Astrakhan yastrakhan@wikimedia.org wrote:
Don't preload apps still get over-the-air updates, often the whole app re-download?
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:39 AM, Carolynne Schloeder < cschloeder@wikimedia.org> wrote:
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
-- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
I'll be eager to see you guys write up your findings after the spikes are over.
thanks for moving that forward.
--tomasz
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 3:05 AM, Gautam Chandna gautamc@opera.com wrote:
OEMs care about the size of their OS, as this is stored in a restricted read-only area (unless a device is rooted). Once the device is running, those limitations don't apply as an app has tons of space to update itself.
Quite like the network installer concept for desktop applications, OEMs prefer if the pre-install is a small package that in itself doesn't necessarily do much other than download the real app.
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:48 AM, Yuri Astrakhan yastrakhan@wikimedia.org wrote:
Don't preload apps still get over-the-air updates, often the whole app re-download?
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:39 AM, Carolynne Schloeder cschloeder@wikimedia.org wrote:
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.
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
-- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
-- Gautam Chandna | Director - Technical Partner Management | gautamc@opera.com | +47-4567-1789
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Hi Dan -- did you get a chance to write up your findings?
thanks,
-Toby
On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 1:46 PM, Tomasz Finc tfinc@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'll be eager to see you guys write up your findings after the spikes are over.
thanks for moving that forward.
--tomasz
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 3:05 AM, Gautam Chandna gautamc@opera.com wrote:
OEMs care about the size of their OS, as this is stored in a restricted read-only area (unless a device is rooted). Once the device is running, those limitations don't apply as an app has tons of space to update
itself.
Quite like the network installer concept for desktop applications, OEMs prefer if the pre-install is a small package that in itself doesn't necessarily do much other than download the real app.
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:48 AM, Yuri Astrakhan <
yastrakhan@wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Don't preload apps still get over-the-air updates, often the whole app re-download?
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:39 AM, Carolynne Schloeder cschloeder@wikimedia.org wrote:
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.
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
-- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
-- Gautam Chandna | Director - Technical Partner Management |
gautamc@opera.com
| +47-4567-1789
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
On 2 February 2015 at 15:39, Carolynne Schloeder cschloeder@wikimedia.org wrote:
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]
Much of the size of the app is the various different images and icons that we need to include for different form factors. If we were making a version optimised for lower resolution screens (i.e. Wikipedia Lite!) we could likely drop a lot of these higher resolution icons and drop the size of the app substantially.
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.
Any compression by definition comes with a tradeoff somewhere else, such as reduced image quality or increased processing time for uncompression. If we're talking about compression across the board, then we should be very deliberate about that, especially since it may affect all of our API consumers and degrade the quality of the image experience.
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?
For Mobile Apps, I nominate Adam Baso. He's experienced with both the iOS and Android SDKs, so anything he learns about best practices for slow/lossy network connections he can relay to either the iOS or the Android teams. Plus he has tons of experience with Zero-related matters.
I'd also like to go if possible, but prioritise Adam over me.
Thanks, Dan
I've scheduled 30 minutes on Wednesday for myself and the tech leads (Adam, Dmitry) to scope out a Wikipedia Lite app.
Dan
On 2 February 2015 at 13:59, 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
sizing == development cost (in man hours)
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 4:04 PM, Dan Garry dgarry@wikimedia.org wrote:
I've scheduled 30 minutes on Wednesday for myself and the tech leads (Adam, Dmitry) to scope out a Wikipedia Lite app.
Dan
On 2 February 2015 at 13:59, 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
-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation