+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" &lt;dgarry(a)wikimedia.org&gt; An: "mobile-l" &lt;mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;rg>, "Carolynne Schloeder" < cschloeder(a)wikimedia.org&gt;gt;, "Toby Negrin" &lt;tnegrin(a)wikimedia.org&gt;rg>, "Lila Tretikov" &lt;lila(a)wikimedia.org&gt; 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 &lt;lila(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: -- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l

On 1 feb. 2015, at 23:48, Toby Negrin &lt;tnegrin(a)wikimedia.org&gt; 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 &lt;cschloeder(a)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 &lt;lila(a)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 &lt;florian.schmidt.welzow(a)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" &lt;dgarry(a)wikimedia.org <mailto:dgarry@wikimedia.org>> An: "mobile-l" &lt;mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org>>, "Carolynne Schloeder" &lt;cschloeder(a)wikimedia.org <mailto:cschloeder@wikimedia.org>>, "Toby Negrin" &lt;tnegrin(a)wikimedia.org <mailto:tnegrin@wikimedia.org>>, "Lila Tretikov" &lt;lila(a)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(a)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.

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.

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 &lt;dgarry(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: -- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l

On 1 February 2015 at 14:48, Toby Negrin &lt;tnegrin(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: 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 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(a)wikimedia.org&gt; wrote: _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)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 &lt;gautamc(a)opera.com&gt; wrote: itself. yastrakhan(a)wikimedia.org&gt; what they our easy Wikipedia beyond wrote: wrote: world. the cost for probably things Android TACKLE better. to see if gautamc(a)opera.com