There are limits based on the size of the binary that apple will allow on the app store. In addition, here's a really interesting story about how uber had to fight to downsize the app cause they realized that staying under the cellular data limit made people able to download the app when they were on the go: https://twitter.com/StanTwinB/status/1336890442768547845

I used to run an iOS testing-as-a-service thing. Few of our customers came close to the App Store limits. The ones that did were games and they are definitely not looking to optimize apps for the long term. We did have some unicorn customers but they weren't doing 2GB downloads, for the reasons you mention.

So how many customers could this startup conceivably get? Unless you're a game with lots and lots of graphical assets, you have to be the kind of company with more ability to employ developers than to coordinate them (i.e. a unicorn).

It's also a moving target as limits are continually revised upwards. I assume they have done some diligence about their TAM, but I don't get understand the plan just yet.

The real point I got from this is not to use brand new and not battle tested technology in production.

Sure, everyone loves a rewrite, but perhaps Swift wasn't ready for it.

People with small capacity phones (a lot of people) won't install your app, and may actually uninstall it if it's too big. That may not be priority #1, but it certainly deserves some consideration.

Exactly! Emerge aims to make it as easy as possible to fix app size issues, so you can prioritize it similar to other bug fixes. With our pull request comments alerting you to size increases right when they happen you can easily see why size increased and remedy it all before the change makes it to users.

I mean, Facebook is a quarter of a gigabyte for God knows what reason. Many apps are similar. There’s a reason the base capacity is 64 GB: apps keep getting bigger.

However, the cellular size limit is now 250 MB IIRC, so Facebook seems to stay just under that.

The base capacity is 64 GB now, but lots of phones of 32 GB and even 16 are still usable (the original iPhone SE, for instance, was sold in a 16 GB version and runs the latest iOS).

These older phones are way more common outside of the US and even just outside of the SFBA where not everyone buys a new $1000+ phone every 2 years.

It's 200mb now before a prompt shows warning users of the size they are about to download.

Indeed! Our app (a shift management app) at work is ~20mb, and I felt like that was quite a big commitment to expect people to have on their phones!

As a user, I appreciate smaller app size as I equate it with better developer skills and, it downloads faster. (I had even made a feedback request to Apple that they show the size of apps in App Store Updates as "it helps me estimate how much time an app update may take. - glad they did so).

Performance is the currency which you trade for ease of development, new features, etc.

Ignoring performance comes at a cost to you (server side resources) and your users (device resources). This is why generation after generation devices get more powerful and slower (from user point of view).

It is up to you to find out which point in the performance vs new feature/bugfix tradeoff gives you maximum value.

Not sure whether they will tackle Android as well, but I know there are strict limits on APK size to be eligible for Play Store features like Instant Apps.

Android support is definitely on our roadmap!