For the past few years, Google has been working to make Android apps smaller by optimizing the code and resources downloaded to devices. The latest initiative on this front is ‘optimizing app installations’ in Google Play.
When you enable app installation optimization, Google can see which parts of an app you are using the first time you open it after installation. When enough people do that, Google can optimize the app to install, open, and run faster for everyone.
This feature with a large amount does not collect your name, email address or any other personal information, with the company’s current privacy policy. In addition, it “looks at nothing outside of the app, like other apps or content on your device.”
It also does not collect information about content uploaded or downloaded in the app, such as images in a social stream or rankings on a ranking list.
Your data is combined with that of other users to ‘find trends and identify which parts of the program are most important to everyone’. Google mentions three benefits for optimizing app installations, but does not specify what the Play Store actually does when downloading new users by new users to this data collection.
- Accelerate installation for apps from Google Play
- Reduce the amount of time it takes to open and run applications
- Reduce the voltage on your device’s CPU, battery and storage
Google may be prioritizing the download feature for feature. For example, a social media app that most people only use to browse through posts may not even download the content creation capabilities (ie photo filters, video editing, etc.). This capability may only be installed when a user is actually going to use it, or if their connection has been improved.
Those who are not comfortable with the capability can turn it off from the Play Store settings, but they will “still benefit from data collected from other people.” App installation optimization is not yet available in the Play Store, but references to it have been included with the latest version (version 24.5.13), while a support document is now available.
More about Google Play:
Dylan Roussel contributed to this article
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