Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
Hi Dan -- did you get a chance to write up your findings? thanks, -Toby On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 1:46 PM, Tomasz Finc tf...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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 gaut...@opera.com wrote: OEMs care about the size of their OS, as this is stored in a restricted read-only area (unless a device is rooted). Once the device is running, those limitations don't apply as an app has tons of space to update itself. Quite like the network installer concept for desktop applications, OEMs prefer if the pre-install is a small package that in itself doesn't necessarily do much other than download the real app. On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:48 AM, Yuri Astrakhan yastrak...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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 cschloe...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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. On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 1:59 PM, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 1 February 2015 at 14:48, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org 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. 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 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. Absolutely. Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation -- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l -- Gautam Chandna | Director - Technical Partner Management | gaut...@opera.com | +47-4567-1789 ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
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 gaut...@opera.com wrote: OEMs care about the size of their OS, as this is stored in a restricted read-only area (unless a device is rooted). Once the device is running, those limitations don't apply as an app has tons of space to update itself. Quite like the network installer concept for desktop applications, OEMs prefer if the pre-install is a small package that in itself doesn't necessarily do much other than download the real app. On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:48 AM, Yuri Astrakhan yastrak...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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 cschloe...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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. On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 1:59 PM, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 1 February 2015 at 14:48, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org 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. 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 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. Absolutely. Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation -- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l -- Gautam Chandna | Director - Technical Partner Management | gaut...@opera.com | +47-4567-1789 ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
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 dga...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 1 February 2015 at 14:48, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org 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. 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 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. Absolutely. Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation -- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
sizing == development cost (in man hours) On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 4:04 PM, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org wrote: I've scheduled 30 minutes on Wednesday for myself and the tech leads (Adam, Dmitry) to scope out a Wikipedia Lite app. Dan On 2 February 2015 at 13:59, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 1 February 2015 at 14:48, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org 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. 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 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. Absolutely. Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
I've scheduled 30 minutes on Wednesday for myself and the tech leads (Adam, Dmitry) to scope out a Wikipedia Lite app. Dan On 2 February 2015 at 13:59, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 1 February 2015 at 14:48, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org 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. 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 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. Absolutely. Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
On 2 February 2015 at 15:39, Carolynne Schloeder cschloe...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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] Much of the size of the app is the various different images and icons that we need to include for different form factors. If we were making a version optimised for lower resolution screens (i.e. Wikipedia Lite!) we could likely drop a lot of these higher resolution icons and drop the size of the app substantially. 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. Any compression by definition comes with a tradeoff somewhere else, such as reduced image quality or increased processing time for uncompression. If we're talking about compression across the board, then we should be very deliberate about that, especially since it may affect all of our API consumers and degrade the quality of the image experience. 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? For Mobile Apps, I nominate Adam Baso. He's experienced with both the iOS and Android SDKs, so anything he learns about best practices for slow/lossy network connections he can relay to either the iOS or the Android teams. Plus he has tons of experience with Zero-related matters. I'd also like to go if possible, but prioritise Adam over me. Thanks, Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
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 cschloe...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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 dga...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 1 February 2015 at 14:48, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org 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. 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 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. Absolutely. Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation -- Carolynne Schloeder Director Global Mobile Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation +14154077071 skype: cschloeder ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
Also, can you see what percent of our GS traffic uses 2.3? I think it will be worth it to get this from actual usage of the app. Google will report us downloads, but not activations and it is not infrequent that many users download an app that they do not use at all. Specially if a mobile web version is available. Thanks, Nuria On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 2:48 PM, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org 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 cschloe...@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 l...@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 florian.schmidt.wel...@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 dga...@wikimedia.org An: mobile-l mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Carolynne Schloeder cschloe...@wikimedia.org, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org, Lila Tretikov l...@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 skype: cschloeder ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
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 florian.schmidt.wel...@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 dga...@wikimedia.org An: mobile-l mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Carolynne Schloeder cschloe...@wikimedia.org, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org, Lila Tretikov l...@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 ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
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 l...@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 florian.schmidt.wel...@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 dga...@wikimedia.org An: mobile-l mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Carolynne Schloeder cschloe...@wikimedia.org, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org, Lila Tretikov l...@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 skype: cschloeder ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
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 cschloe...@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 l...@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 florian.schmidt.wel...@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 dga...@wikimedia.org An: mobile-l mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Carolynne Schloeder cschloe...@wikimedia.org, Toby Negrin tneg...@wikimedia.org, Lila Tretikov l...@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 skype: cschloeder ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
I also like the idea, but I think Android is a much better initial target, as it is much more common in the low bandwidth market from what I gathered. On Jan 31, 2015 8:52 AM, Brian Gerstle bgers...@wikimedia.org wrote: Love the idea, and I agree with everything Monte said. We might also need to drop some 3rd party libs to go super-ultra light, depending on their size. Quick inspection shows the following: - AFNetworking: ~500 KB - hpple: 41 KB We'll need to be careful adding too many other frameworks to the light version, but we can use a separate target for it which doesn't link to 3rd party code. More importantly, we'll also need to thoroughly analyze CPU usage (primarily animations) and network efficiency—cache misses and extra round trips will kill the experience. Excited to talk about this next quarter! Brian On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 11:45 PM, Monte Hurd mh...@wikimedia.org wrote: (Oh, the splash images I'm talking about on the iOS app are only shown at startup and only for the brief second it takes the app to load. The reason they take up so much space is older versions of iOS made you include one version for your image for each screen dimension and density - that is, one sized for 3.5 inch phones, one for 3.5 retina, iPad iPad retina, iPad mini retina etc...) On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 11:37 PM, Monte Hurd mh...@wikimedia.org wrote: That sounds like it may be the way to go! For iOS: Probably no time for a lite version this quarter, but maybe the current version could be made lighter? It could actually be a relatively simple thing to do. In fact, I just did a quick experiment: Our current iOS app weighs in at *4.38 MB*. By simply removing the splash images the app binary size drops to *2.37 MB*. iOS 8 has some fancy new abilities to present non-images as splash screens, so I say we do this for iOS 8, drop the splash images for older devices, and pay very close attention to the change in binary size that results from any external libraries we use. We can also migrate a couple more images used by the iOS app to glyphs in our font - which is an easy process with the scripts I wrote a while back. This will save a bit more space. We could also do a couple spikes to see what other low-hanging fruit there is for trimming the binary size. I think we could get to under 2 MB without breaking a sweat, or even the need for a separate version. On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 9:45 PM, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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 ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l -- EN Wikipedia user page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian.gerstle IRC: bgerstle ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
For sure. Always fun to think about optimising :) On Jan 31, 2015, at 12:26 AM, Yuri Astrakhan yastrak...@wikimedia.org wrote: I also like the idea, but I think Android is a much better initial target, as it is much more common in the low bandwidth market from what I gathered. On Jan 31, 2015 8:52 AM, Brian Gerstle bgers...@wikimedia.org wrote: Love the idea, and I agree with everything Monte said. We might also need to drop some 3rd party libs to go super-ultra light, depending on their size. Quick inspection shows the following: AFNetworking: ~500 KB hpple: 41 KB We'll need to be careful adding too many other frameworks to the light version, but we can use a separate target for it which doesn't link to 3rd party code. More importantly, we'll also need to thoroughly analyze CPU usage (primarily animations) and network efficiency—cache misses and extra round trips will kill the experience. Excited to talk about this next quarter! Brian On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 11:45 PM, Monte Hurd mh...@wikimedia.org wrote: (Oh, the splash images I'm talking about on the iOS app are only shown at startup and only for the brief second it takes the app to load. The reason they take up so much space is older versions of iOS made you include one version for your image for each screen dimension and density - that is, one sized for 3.5 inch phones, one for 3.5 retina, iPad iPad retina, iPad mini retina etc...) On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 11:37 PM, Monte Hurd mh...@wikimedia.org wrote: That sounds like it may be the way to go! For iOS: Probably no time for a lite version this quarter, but maybe the current version could be made lighter? It could actually be a relatively simple thing to do. In fact, I just did a quick experiment: Our current iOS app weighs in at 4.38 MB. By simply removing the splash images the app binary size drops to 2.37 MB. iOS 8 has some fancy new abilities to present non-images as splash screens, so I say we do this for iOS 8, drop the splash images for older devices, and pay very close attention to the change in binary size that results from any external libraries we use. We can also migrate a couple more images used by the iOS app to glyphs in our font - which is an easy process with the scripts I wrote a while back. This will save a bit more space. We could also do a couple spikes to see what other low-hanging fruit there is for trimming the binary size. I think we could get to under 2 MB without breaking a sweat, or even the need for a separate version. On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 9:45 PM, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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 ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l -- EN Wikipedia user page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Brian.gerstle IRC: bgerstle ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] [Apps] Wikipedia Lite app?
That sounds like it may be the way to go! For iOS: Probably no time for a lite version this quarter, but maybe the current version could be made lighter? It could actually be a relatively simple thing to do. In fact, I just did a quick experiment: Our current iOS app weighs in at *4.38 MB*. By simply removing the splash images the app binary size drops to *2.37 MB*. iOS 8 has some fancy new abilities to present non-images as splash screens, so I say we do this for iOS 8, drop the splash images for older devices, and pay very close attention to the change in binary size that results from any external libraries we use. We can also migrate a couple more images used by the iOS app to glyphs in our font - which is an easy process with the scripts I wrote a while back. This will save a bit more space. We could also do a couple spikes to see what other low-hanging fruit there is for trimming the binary size. I think we could get to under 2 MB without breaking a sweat, or even the need for a separate version. On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 9:45 PM, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org wrote: 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 ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
