Is It though? You won't get it on an embedded device (maybe) but you could install a thousand of these tools and barely even notice the space being taken up on most machines

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getcrunk 5 days ago | parent [-]

I think that’s a lame argument. First because it’s kind of a fallacy. Size is absolute not relative to something. Especially for software. No one thinks of software size primarily in the context of their disk space.

Further I think everyone keeps getting larger and larger memory because software keeps getting more and more bloated.

I remember when 64gb iPhone was more than enough (I don’t take pictures so just apps and data) Now my 128 is getting uncomfortable due to the os and app sizes. My next phone likely will be a 256

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hnlmorg 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I’m usually the first to complain about bloat but your counterpoints to the GPs “lame arguments” are themselves, fallacies.

> First because it’s kind of a fallacy. Size is absolute not relative to something. Especially for software. No one thinks of software size primarily in the context of their disk space.

That’s exactly how most people think about file sizes.

When your disk is full, you don’t delete the smallest files first. You delete the biggest.

> Further I think everyone keeps getting larger and larger memory because software keeps getting more and more bloated.

RAM sizes have actually stagnated over the last decade.

> I remember when 64gb iPhone was more than enough (I don’t take pictures so just apps and data) Now my 128 is getting uncomfortable due to the os and app sizes. My next phone likely will be a 256

That’s because media sizes increase, not executable sizes.

And people do want higher resolution cameras, higher definition videos, improved audio quality, etc. These are genuinely desirable features.

Couple that with improved internet bandwidth allowing for content providers to push higher bitrate media, however the need to still locally cache media.

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nicoburns 5 days ago | parent [-]

> That’s because media sizes increase, not executable sizes.

Part of it is app sizes on mobile. But it's apps in the 200mb - 2gb range that are the problem, not ones that single-digit megabytes.

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hnlmorg 5 days ago | parent [-]

200MB apps wouldn’t even make a dent on a 64GB device.

The 2GB apps are usually so large because they include high quality media assets. For example, Spotify will frequently consumer multiple GBs of storage but the vast majority of that is audio cache.

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nicoburns 4 days ago | parent [-]

I currently have 355 apps installed on my phone, so if they were all 200mb then they wouldn't fit on a 64GB device.

I agree that the largest data use tends to be media assets.

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hnlmorg 4 days ago | parent [-]

I’m intrigued, how many of them are actual 3rd party apps though? And how many are different layers around an existing app or part of Apple / Googles base OS? The latter, in fairness, consumes several GBs of storage too.

I’m not trying to dismiss your point here. Genuinely curious how you’ve accumulated so many app installs.

	▲	nicoburns 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's an interesting question. Some of them are definitely from the OS (either Google or Samsung). Looking through at categories of app where I have multiple, I'm seeing: - Transport provider apps (Airlines, Trains, Buses, Taxis etc) - Parking payment apps - Food delivery apps - Hotel apps - Payment apps - Messaging / Video calling apps - Banking apps - Mapping apps It's especially easy to accumulate a lot of apps if you travel through multiple countries, as for a lot of these apps you need different ones in different countries.

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ghosty141 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> No one thinks of software size primarily in the context of their disk space.

This is wrong. The reason why many old tools are so small was because you had far less space. If you have a 20tb harddrive you wouldn't care about whether ls took up 1kb or 2mb, on a 1gb harddrive it matters/ed much more.

Optimization takes time, I'm sure if OP wanted he could shrink the binary size by quite a lot but doing so has its costs and nowadays its rarely worth paying that since nobody even notices wether a program is 2kb or 2mb. It doesn't matter anymore in the age of 1TB bootdrives.

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dotancohen 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So bloated software is motivating you to spend more for the larger capacity phone?

What incentive does Apple have to help iOS devs get package sizes down, then?

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pxc 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Size may be absolute, but bigness and smallness are inherently and inescapably relative.