I have an app that includes a pre-populated sqlite database, encoded in UTF-8. DB file size is 170 MB. I am using SQLiteAssetHelper to manage the database
Considering most Android Apps are less than 50MB, it is quite large. My current app size according to the Settings is 238MB.
Is there any way to make the downloadable app size smaller when user downloads it from Store? I have read that you can zip the sqlite database, but I haven't tried that yet. Will that make the app's download size smaller? Are there any other better options?
I am concerned about the app's download size, not the storage space. I do need the app to work offline, so web service is not an option.
I ended up using text files for the major lookup tables in my database. I added them in the assets folder, along with the smaller sqlite db. I kept only the small tables that I needed to do inserts/adds in the sqlite db.
And I was also able to easily encrypt the data in the file (which is not easy to do in sqlite)
I had to create indexes to index the file data, and used binary search to find by key or value.
That shortened the apk size, and it's about 30 MB now. Before it was about 76MB. and the app size was > 200 MB.