Challenges Faced by Public Sector Organizations towards Civic Participation

Despite being aware of the importance of civic participation, public sector organizations have encountered numerous challenges when it comes to effectively engaging citizens. These challenges include:

• Limited Resources: Public sector organizations often have limited resources to invest in community engagement efforts. This limitation can hinder their ability to reach a broad audience and provide meaningful opportunities for participation.
• Geographic Barriers: Physical distance can be a significant barrier to participation. Citizens may find attending in-person meetings or events challenging, especially if they live in remote areas or have limited mobility.
• Lack of Awareness and Interest: Many individuals are unaware of the opportunities for civic participation or lack the interest to get involved. Public sector organizations face the challenge of raising awareness and generating enthusiasm among citizens.
• Communication Gaps: Communication gaps between public sector organizations and citizens can impede civic participation. A lack of timely and accessible information about ongoing initiatives and decision-making processes can deter individuals from getting involved.

Fortunately, there is a way for public sector organizations to overcome these challenges. By deploying community engagement mobile apps, they can bridge the gap between citizens and the government, fostering a sense of ownership and collaboration among citizens. Community engagement mobile apps serve as a digital conduit through which citizens can connect with their local government, accessing many services, information, and participation opportunities. By leveraging the power of mobile technology, public sector organizations can overcome resource limitations, break down geographic barriers, raise awareness and generate interest, and improve communication with citizens.

Digital Experience Drives Civic Trust

A well-designed digital experience drives trust in local government by enhancing transparency, accessibility, and efficiency. Through user-centric platforms and services, citizens can easily access government resources, engage in open communication, and participate in decision-making. This fosters a sense of inclusivity and responsiveness, demonstrating the government’s commitment to serving the community’s needs. Here are some insights from the Deloitte Federal Trust Survey 2021:

• The more local, the more trusted: Trust in government varies dramatically at different levels of government.
• Digital experience drives trust: A citizen’s digital experience with a government agency was a strong predictor of their overall level of trust.
• Mission matters: The mission of various government agencies can greatly influence citizens’ perception of trust.

The Deloitte Federal Trust Survey 2021 further highlights the significant impact of digital experiences on citizen trust, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing user-centric platforms and services to establish and maintain trust in government at all levels. It is evident that investing in new technologies is imperative for organizations seeking to win citizen trust. By embracing well-designed digital experiences that enhance transparency, accessibility, and efficiency, governments can foster inclusivity, responsiveness, and a sense of commitment to the community’s needs.

Local Government Leaders need to Align and Streamline

Adopting a Community Engagement Mobile App for can be a gamechanger for local government. The statistics speak for themselves: 57% of government leaders believe that adopting a technology that integrates data across departments and aligns with cross-functional processes is crucial for collaboration. By embracing a mobile app, organizations can harness the power of data and drive better decisions around budget and strategic priorities.

Furthermore, 44% of local government leaders cite limited resources as their biggest obstacle. With the Community Engagement Mobile App, governments have an opportunity to do more with less by streamlining processes and reducing manual work. A purpose-built tech platform can significantly improve efficiency, freeing up valuable resources that can be allocated to other critical areas.

In addition, 67% of leaders are prioritizing strategic, transparent, and collaborative capital planning. With federal funding now available, there is a renewed focus on capital projects. By adopting a robust mobile app for citizen engagement, public sector organizations can enhance capital planning efforts, improve tracking and reporting, and ensure that investments align with community’s needs.

The Community Engagement Mobile App offers the tools we need to collect and utilize data effectively, improve operational efficiency, and enhance collaboration. It is time to embrace this technology and unlock the potential for better outcomes, streamlined processes, and greater transparency in our local government. Let’s seize this opportunity to lead our community towards a brighter future.

Transformative Potential of a Citizen Engagement Mobile App

Mobile applications provide an innovative solution to overcome the challenges public sector organizations face in promoting civic participation. Here is how a community engagement mobile app can unlock the power of civic participation:

• Accessibility and Convenience: Mobile apps are easily accessible, making it convenient for citizens to engage with their communities anytime and anywhere. Seamless accessibility breaks down geographical barriers and allows individuals to participate at their own pace.
• Real-time Communication: Mobile apps facilitate real-time communication between citizens and public sector organizations. Citizens can receive updates, notifications, and alerts about community initiatives, events, and decision-making processes. They can actively participate in discussions, provide feedback, and share ideas at their convenience.
• Inclusive and Diverse Participation: A mobile app can reach a wider audience, including individuals facing physical limitations or having busy schedules. It allows for more inclusive and diverse participation, ensuring that a broader range of perspectives is considered in decision-making.
• Data Collection and Analysis: Mobile apps enable public sector organizations to collect valuable data on citizen preferences, concerns, and suggestions. This data can be analyzed to gain insights into community needs and preferences, leading to more informed decision-making processes. By involving citizens in data collection and analysis, public sector organizations can ensure that policies and initiatives are tailored to meet the community’s actual needs.
• Enhanced Civic Education: A community engagement mobile app can serve as an educational platform, providing resources, information, and interactive features to educate users about their rights, responsibilities, and the workings of local government. By fostering civic education, the app helps citizens make informed decisions and actively participate in shaping their communities.

By embracing community engagement mobile apps, public sector organizations can facilitate a more inclusive and participatory approach to smart city development. These apps empower citizens to actively contribute to decision-making processes, provide feedback, and participate in community initiatives. By harnessing the potential of these innovative solutions, public sector organizations can unlock the full potential of citizen participation, leading to more successful and sustainable smart city initiatives.

Introducing CEMA: Mobile App for Connecting Communities

AgreeYa’s CEMA (Community Engagement Mobile App) is a comprehensive cross-platform mobile application designed to promote community engagement and foster greater civic participation. With powerful features and a user-friendly interface, CEMA provides a comprehensive solution for cities looking to increase engagement and create a more connected community.

For instance, the app includes a Community Events Calendar, ensuring users never miss a community event again. It also provides quick access to Links & Resources, making it easier for citizens to find relevant and valuable information about their community.

The app’s Polls and Surveys support feature allows cities to gather valuable insights and understand the community’s pulse. By actively engaging citizens through polls and surveys, CEMA enables local governments to make more informed decisions that align with community preferences.

CEMA keeps users updated with the Latest News and Announcements, ensuring that citizens are well-informed about important updates and developments within their community. Additionally, the app includes a Local Business Directory, which helps users discover and support local businesses and practitioners, fostering economic growth and community vitality.

To encourage meaningful conversations and feedback, CEMA incorporates a Comment and Feedback system, allowing citizens to engage in discussions and provide valuable input on community matters. The app also features Push Notifications, delivering important news and updates directly to users’ devices, ensuring they stay informed and engaged.

Developed by a team with extensive experience delivering innovative mobile solutions, CEMA utilizes the Flutter framework, known for its versatility, efficiency, and ability to create beautiful, high-performing, and scalable applications. This ensures that CEMA not only looks great but also caters to local needs across various aspects, empowering cities to achieve their goals of greater community engagement and participation.

In conclusion, the power of civic participation can be unlocked through the effective use of mobile apps. Public sector organizations need to embrace technology to ensure meaningful engagement with their communities. Mobile apps offer a convenient and accessible medium for communication, collaboration, and data analysis. AgreeYa’s CEMA provides a comprehensive solution that enables cities to engage citizens and foster a more connected community. By adopting mobile apps for community engagement, public sector organizations can enhance civic participation and create happier, more engaged communities.

The post Unlocking the Power of Civic Participation with a Mobile App appeared first on AgreeYa Solutions.

However, with this immense growth in the usage of Android apps, a never-ending competition can be experienced. Today’s app users are spoilt for choices, to grab their attention and make them use your app, you must come up with an Android app that is trending, which has a user-friendly interface, and matches the current bar of digitization. To do so, one must have a perfect knowledge of the technologies that can help create a user-friendly. modern and robust Android app. So, in this blog, we will take a close look at two recent exciting Android app development features that can transform your next mobile app. Let us start.

Google Play Instant

With Google Play Instant, Android users can start using an app or game without installing it. This feature enables app developers to showcase the capabilities of a new application. It delivers opportunities to increase engagement with your new Android app and gain more installs by surfacing your Instant app across the Play Store.

Instant apps aren’t new in development, but they have gained immense popularity recently. Instant apps are very useful for e-commerce apps and games. Such an app allows the user to try a particular app or game for a while without installing it. After the trial period is over, users can decide whether to download and install the game onto their device or not.

Google Play Instant enables native apps and games to launch on devices running on Android 5.0 (API level 21) or higher without being installed. You can build instant apps and games utilizing Android development tools.

How does the instant experience work?

Android users can tap on a button at Play Store, Google Play Games app, or a website banner to start using Instant apps or games without installing it on their device. However, before you checkout these new experiences, here are some pointers you need to keep in mind.

Instant “Try” Experience in the Play Store

Instant apps or games are shown with a “Try Now” button in the Play Store (as shown in the figure above). This type of experience is typically a smaller and trial version of the original app or game created to drive installs. For example, game developers may want to build the first level of their game as an instant experience and then prompt users to install the full game.

Conditions applicable for Instant App and Game Development

1. Instant-enabled app bundles can only use few permissions such as ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION, ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION, ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE, CAMERA, INSTANT_APP_FOREGROUND_SERVICE (only on Android 8.0 API level 26 and higher), INTERNET, READ_PHONE_NUMBERS (only on Android 8.0 API level 26 and higher), RECORD_AUDIO, VIBRATE, WAKE_LOCK
2. When developing an Instant app, keep in mind that it cannot interact with installed apps on a device unless one of the following is true:

• One or more activities within an installed app have set its android:visibleToInstantApps element to true. This element is available to apps running on Android 8.0 (API level 26) or higher.
• An installed app contains an intent filter that includes CATEGORY_BROWSABLE.
• The Instant app sends an intent using either the ACTION_SEND, ACTION_SENDTO, or ACTION_SEND_MULTIPLE action.

How to add dependencies?

To use the Google Play Instant APIs in your app, include the following declaration in your app module’s build.gradle configuration file: implementation “com.google.android.gms:play-services-instantapps:17.0.0”

Version code for Instant Experiences

The version code of your app’s Instant experience needs to be less than the version code of the installable app. This is because when users move from the instant app to the full-app installation, the Android framework considers this transition to be an app update.

Note: If a user has already installed your app on their device, that installed version will always run instead of your instant experience. This is true even if the installed app is an older version compared to your instant experience.

Updating for the Sandbox Version

Your instant app’s AndroidManifest.xml file needs to be updated to target the sandbox environment that Google Play Instant supports. You can complete this by adding the android:targetSandboxVersion attribute to your app’s <manifest> element, as shown in the following code snippet:

<manifest
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
...
android:targetSandboxVersion="2" ...>

Declare Instant-enabled app modules

You can declare that your app bundle supports instant experiences using the following method. Android Studio adds the following declaration to the module’s manifest:

<manifest ... xmlns:dist="http://schemas.android.com/apk/distribution">
    <dist:module dist:instant="true" />
    ...
</manifest>

Check whether an app is running Instant Experience

If some of your app’s logic depends on whether the user is engaged in your instant experience, call the isInstantApp() method. This method returns true if the currently running process is an instant experience.

Bubbles

Bubbles are available as a new preview feature in Android Q. With Android 11, you can pin conversations so they always appear on top of other apps and screens. Bubbles keep the conversation going — while you stay focused on whatever else you’re doing. Access the chat anytime or from anywhere without having to leave your current app. Bubbles simplify multitasking for Android users. You can simply drag conversations around or tap to open the chat screen. Bubbles enable users to multitask whilst chatting.

Bubbles feature is built into the Notification system of Android 11. It floats on top of other apps content and follows the user whatever app they might be using. Bubbles can be expanded to reveal app functionality and information and can be collapsed when not being used.

How to implement Bubbles?

Bubbles feature is created with the help of the Notification API. If you want your app’s notification to display as a bubble, you need to add some extra data to it. The expanded view of a bubble is created from an activity you choose. The activity needs to be configured to display properly as a bubble.

<activity
  android:name=”.bubbles.BubbleActivity”
  android:theme=”@style/AppTheme.NoActionBar”
  android:label=”@string/title_activity_bubble”
  android:allowEmbedded=”true”
  android:resizeableActivity=”true”
/>

The bubble must be resizable, embedded, and launchable in document mode, declare the following attributes for the activity in the manifest.

1. The first step is to create the PendingIntent and specify the bubble activity:

// Create bubble intent
val target = Intent(context, BubbleActivity::class.java)
val bubbleIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(context, 0, target, 0 /* flags */)

2. The second step is to create a BubbleMetadata object via Notification.BubbleMetadata.Builder and set the target intent.

val bubbleMetadata = Notification.BubbleMetadata.Builder()
.setDesiredHeight(600)
.setIntent(bubbleIntent)
.setAutoExpandBubble(true)
.setSuppressNotification(true)
.build()

3. The next step is to create the notification and add the BubbleMetadata by using setBubbleMetadata.

// Create notification
val chatPartner = Person.Builder()
.setName(“Chat partner”)
.setImportant(true)
.build()

val builder = Notification.Builder(context, CHANNEL_ID)
.setContentIntent(contentIntent)
.setSmallIcon(smallIcon)
.setBubbleMetadata(bubbleData)
.addPerson(chatPartner)

Note: The first time you send the notification to display as a bubble, it has to be in a notification channel with IMPORTANCE_MIN or higher.

Permissions required to activate Bubbles

When an app presents its first bubble, a permission dialog is shown that offers two choices:

• Block all bubbles from your app: Notifications cannot be blocked, but they will never appear as bubbles.
• Allow all bubbles from your app: All notifications sent with BubbleMetaData will appear as bubbles.

Now that you know about these two new Android features, you can build apps that utilize Instant experiences and Bubbles.

The post Everything you should know about Google Play Instant and Bubbles appeared first on AgreeYa Solutions.

“Consumer and business digital adoption has vaulted five years forward in only about eight weeks in light of COVID-19.”

The impact of the pandemic on businesses has sure been merciless, but it has also served as a springboard for many exciting technologies. The mobile app industry has benefited from the socially distant and digital-first business model adopted by organizations to tackle the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19. Amazing mobility solutions have enabled organizations and communities to overcome obstacles, build resilience, and contribute towards the fight against COVID-19.

As we head into 2021, the growth story of the mobile app development industry will continue. Organizations will want to address more complex requirements by investing in new-age apps. Like all previous years, there will be new trends that will push the envelope of what can be achieved through mobile app development. If you want to develop afresh or modernize your existing business apps in 2021, then below are some pioneering trends to watch out for.

Top Mobile App Development Trends in 2021

1: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

According to an IDC report, worldwide spending on Artificial Intelligence by the major tech companies will be nearly $98 billion in 2023.

The integration of AI and Machine Learning (ML) technologies with mobile apps have made lives easier for users. Organizations can seamlessly automate various complex business operations and increase productivity through such smart technologies. AI is enabling businesses to quickly identify user preferences, provide user-specific suggestions, and simplify online businesses. Additionally, developers are tapping into the potential of analytics, supervised learning, cognitive learning, and machine learning technologies, to include facial identification and object identification capabilities in mobile apps.

Because of these advantages, tech giants such as Google, IBM, eBay, and Facebook have started funding and acquiring startup companies that are adept at AI and ML.

2: IoT Powered Apps

Want to control devices with a single tap? The power of the Internet of Things (IoT) allows you to achieve this and much more.

As per predictions by IDC, spending on IoT is expected to surpass $22 Billion by 2022! This will directly impact the mobile app trends, as IoT devices are majorly controlled by Smartphones. Giants such as Microsoft are orienting their complete app ecosystems around IoT and various use cases enabled with its application.

IoT helps in establishing a network of interconnected devices where data is interoperable. The data is transferred through mobile devices which allows users to control the devices remotely. Adjusting air conditioners setting, switching lights on and off and monitoring appliances remotely are some examples of how IoT has simplified daily life.

3: Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

Augmented reality came in to focus with the release of Pokemon Go. This immersive technology submerges virtual objects in real surroundings allowing users to experience visually empowered surroundings. AR & VR have been revolutionary in the gaming and entertainment industry. Apps leveraging such technologies are quite famous among the youth due to their visually appealing characteristics.

Apart from the gaming apps, the application of AR/VR in mobile app development has been on the rise across all industries. The real estate sector is leveraging AR/VR tech to deliver a positive customer experience, while police officers in China are wearing smart glasses to identify the suspects. Various maintenance companies are also developing applications that could help detect the wear and tear in machinery through AR/VR.

According to Statista, the number of AR glasses shipments worldwide will reach around 22.8 million units by 2022. AR/VR technologies will be one of the important app development trends in 2021 and beyond. These technologies will open new doors of possibilities for organizations.

4: Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

One of the main goals for developers is to create a fast and user-friendly website that performs well on any device (especially on mobile devices). People leave sites that take too much time to load, and the same logic applies for applications too. While JavaScript is a powerful language enabling developers to modify various aspects of pages, but it may block the construction of DOM, which leads to delay in the rendering of pages. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) delivers new ways to tackle such problems. It allows asynchronous JavaScript which in turn leads to performance improvement in the rendering of pages.

AMP is an open-source library that provides a way to boost a web page’s performance and improve its load time. It was introduced some years ago and gained popularity among web developers because of its effectiveness. AMP can be integrated into mobile apps to deliver a fast browsing experience, enhance user engagement on a website, and also improve visibility over search engines, getting more traffic as a result. Hence, along with Progressive Web Apps (introduced by Google introduced in I/O 2017), AMP will certainly be one of the top mobile app development trends in the coming year.

5: Beacons

Beacons are wireless transmitters that utilize low energy Bluetooth technology to transmit signals that other devices can catch and act upon. A radio signal made of letters and numbers is broadcasted by Beacons. Real-life applications of Beacons can be seen in malls where they are tagged to either products or different sections. Users’ Bluetooth captures signals coming from the nearby Beacons and details about a product or section are quickly displayed on the mobile screen.

Integrated location-based service applications like Apple’s iBeacons and Google Beacon are already being used by app developers to transform their applications. In 2021, Wi-Fi usage will no longer be limited to hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, and health-care. This will lead to the rapid evolution of technologies that are dependent upon Wi-Fi. Beacons, being one such technology, will be widely integrated across mobile applications in the upcoming year. Organizations will utilize this technology to power their proximity and location-based applications.

5: Chatbots

A chatbot is an AI-powered messaging app that can engage in conversation with a user in natural language through messaging applications, websites, mobile applications, or calls. It is often described as one of the most advanced and promising expressions of human-machine interaction. However, from a technological point of view, a chatbot only represents the natural evolution of a response system to questions that take advantage of Natural Language Processing (NLP). There are various types of chatbots and virtual assistants available today, mentions should be made of Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, and Bixby.

Integrating Chatbot with a mobile app allows organizations to deliver excellent convenience to the customers and also acts as an essential marketing tool. Most online stores are utilizing this technology to tackle various user requirements. In 2021, more organizations would integrate Chatbots into their apps, to deliver instant support and problem resolutions. It will become a norm rather than a good-to-have feature.

There are more than 2.2 million apps on the App Store and more than 2.8 million on the Play Store. Through 2021 these numbers will dramatically increase. Apps will continue to simplify lives, minimize risks, and improve business outcomes. New technologies will enable organizations to build apps with awesome new capabilities. Hope our list of mobile app development trends will help you plan better for the upcoming year.

If you want to utilize any of the above-mentioned technologies in your next mobile app development project, we can help. AgreeYa has been transforming businesses with its next-generation mobility solutions for more than two decades now. Contact us to discuss a project.

The post 6 Anticipated Mobile App Development Trends for 2021 appeared first on AgreeYa Solutions.

But three years have waned since, and we are still waiting for any formal Google announcement on the release of this state-of-the-art OS. As years have passed, speculations around Fuchsia have grown. It makes sense then to investigate and clear the air.

Google and surprises often go hand in hand. So, when Google’s new operating system (OS) named Fuchsia made its first appearance in GitHub back in August 2016 there was a lot of conjecture in the technology circles. But three years have waned since, and we are still waiting for any formal Google announcement on the release of this state-of-the-art OS. As years have passed, speculations around Fuchsia have grown. It makes sense then to investigate and clear the air.

What is so special about Fuchsia?

Fuchsia gets its name from a hybrid color, between Pink and Purple, of the same name. Google wants to bring multiple smart devices under a uniform OS through Fuchsia. Over the years, Google has developed state-of-the-art operating systems for mobile devices (Android) as well as the web (Chrome OS). However, standing in the present era users demand a more sophisticated OS that can run uniformly on universal devices.

Google has always been quick in understanding their user’s requirements and that is why they have been quietly developing a sophisticated OS. Much like AOSP, Fuchsia is also an open-source OS, the difference lies in its capability to run on all types of devices – from smart home gadgets to laptops and mobile devices. This modular, capability-based operating system runs on modern 64-bit Intel and ARM processors.

Fuchsia’s Technology Stack

Unlike Android and Chrome OS, Google Fuchsia is not Linux based, it rather runs on Google’s new microkernel called “Zircon” (meaning “little kernel”). Zircon, which was previously known as Magenta, is intended for embedded systems (systems that perform a single job as a part of a larger mechanism). Zircon was developed by Travis Geiselbrecht, who also created the Kernel OS which powers Haiku OS.

Zircon is coded in C++, instead of C which is used to write Linux kernels. Essentially, this microkernel manages software-hardware interactions better and offers more efficiency in the utilization of resources such as processing power and network speeds. Unlike a Linux kernel, Zircon will be updated regularly, so that devices are instantly compatible with the latest updates. Google has even designed an update system named Amber and embedded it in Fuchsia OS. Amber will not only update system packages and installed applications but also the new microkernel and the bootloader.

Fuchsia is mainly written in Google’s brainchild language – Dart, with some portions done in Rust, Go, Python, C++, etc. This is in contrast to Android which is written almost entirely in Java.

Benefits of Fuchsia

• All under one OS: According to some sources, Fuchsia is built to create a user-friendly environment. Through Fuchsia, Google wants to create an operating system that would work seamlessly across all electronic devices (such as smartphones, smart speakers, wearables, laptops, computers, tablets & more) under one OS.
• Enhanced User Experience: Current Android OS has certain limitations while working on personal devices and gadgets. Lack of cross-device uniformity is hampering user experience, and this needs to be addressed soon. Through the development of Fuchsia, the engineering team at Google wants to overcome the existing limitations of Android OS.
• Better Features: Google has put together a team of 100 expert engineers to develop the new OS – Fuchsia. It is being designed to work better with voice interactions, as well as offering more robust and more frequent security updates. This OS is expected to look the same across a range of devices, from laptops to smartphones and everything in between. This cross-device OS will be independent of hardware specifications, providing a similar experience across all devices.
• Frequent Updates: Timely updates are vital for good user experiences. However, before the release of Treble (a patch to the latest Linux kernel), Android was heavily reliant on the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) putting in their hard work to update the facets of internal hardware, which most manufacturers ignored. Even after Treble, the problem has continued to plague Android users. Fuchsia OS avoids this pitfall by using a custom kernel, Zircon, which is designed to be more consistently upgradeable. To enable this, few applications are isolated from direct kernel access. This will provide an extra layer of security and prevent those applications from being incompatible after a system upgrade; an issue that has plagued the Android before.
• Voice-based Experience: Another major reason for choosing infant Fuchsia over an amended version of Android is that the new OS will be focused on interactions that leverage a voice-based experience, instead of one relying upon touch. This means Fuchsia will be suitable for devices with displays that may or may not support a touch interface.
• Swift Language Support: According to reports, Google may also provide support for Swift language in Fuchsia, making it apt for developing applications for Apple platforms as well.

Future of Fuchsia

Fuchsia OS is a grand vision of Google, whose work is still in progress. Fuchsia’s present mobile UI (called Armadillo) and its desktop version (known as “Capybara”), are still in their embryonic stages. A media report even suggests that Google could scrape this project anytime if Fuchsia is not able to provide the kind of cross-device experience anticipated. And that maybe one of the reasons why Google has refrained from announcing any release date for this OS. Recently, Google launched a website for Fuchsia developers. For now, we can just hope that this exciting OS is launched in the coming years and provides a smoother development experience for us and a better user experience for the end-users.

The post Google Fuchsia: Google’s Next-Generation Capability Boosted Operating System appeared first on AgreeYa Solutions.

Feature upgradation in Specification Version 2

Apple added a small update in Core ML’s second version by providing support for 16-bit floating-point weights. It helps in making the mlmodel files about 2X smaller. Other significant features that were added include: weight quantization for smaller mlmodel files (without any change in the inference speed), flexible input sizes, API added batch predictions and better support for dealing with sequential data.

Advantages of Android App Bundle

• Smaller sized APK as compared to the traditional approach, whereby less space is required for app installation.
• Single build artifact instead of multiple APK’s for different device configurations which is easy to manage at the Play store.
• Dynamic feature Modules means loads of on-demand features can be integrated into an application.

What is Dynamic Delivery?

Now, let us understand how Dynamic Delivery works for different device configurations. Dynamic Delivery is Google Play’s new app serving model that uses the app bundle to serve the APK for different device configurations with smaller downloads. With Dynamic Delivery, there is no need to build multiple APK’s to support different devices.

What is the Android App Bundle Format?

Android App Bundle needs to be uploaded in .aab file format on Google Play to support Dynamic Delivery. These are signed binaries that organize app code and resources into modules in a way similar to how we find in the APK. Once the .aab file is uploaded, Google play uses the App Bundle to generate the various APKs that are served to users, such as Base APK, Configuration APK, Dynamic Feature APK, and Multi APK (for the devices which do not support Spilt APKs). But what are the contents of these APKs? Let’s see:

• Base APK: Contains the common codes and resources.
• Configuration APKs:Includes native libraries and resources for specific CPU architecture, language, etc.
• Dynamic Feature APKs:Contains an on-demand feature, which loads only when it is requested by the user.

See the below diagram which represents a detailed breakdown of the App Bundle.

How are Android App Bundles deployed?

One of the major differences between aab and the traditional APKs is that it can’t be deployed on one device. It contains meta-data or configuration files that are organized as modules. So, once you upload a signed app bundle, Google Play will build and sign your app’s APKs, and serve them to users through Dynamic Delivery. You can explore your app bundle using the Bundle Explorer tab on the Play Store web portal. See below snapshot for your reference:

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