Developers can now create larger apps and games for iOS 18 and tvOS 18

4 months ago 144

Some users may not be familiar with this, but Apple sets size limits for iOS and tvOS apps, so that a single app can’t take up too much space. However, as apps and especially games get more advanced, they also get larger and require more storage. Because of this, Apple is increasing the size limits for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV apps.

As mentioned by Apple in the release notes for iOS 18 beta 2 and tvOS 18 beta 2, the updates increase on-demand resource limits for third-party apps. But what exactly does this mean and how do the new changes compare to the limits in iOS 17?

iOS 18 and tvOS 18 can run larger apps and games

Currently, an app bundle (which is the app downloaded from the App Store) for iOS can only be up to 2GB. With iOS 18, Apple is increasing this limit to 4GB. This means that developers can now distribute larger apps without having to rely so heavily on assets downloaded on demand.

Since iOS 9, developers have also been able to “slice” their apps with on-demand resources (ODR) so that the user doesn’t have to wait so long to download the entire app. Instead, the system downloads the essential part of the app and extra content can be downloaded later, either when opening the app for the first time or in the background at a later time.

For example, a game could be distributed as a small app bundle in the App Store and then download extra levels as the player progresses through the game. This also helps save storage, as the game only downloads more assets when necessary and can delete them from the device when they’re no longer needed.

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For these cases, Apple is also increasing the limits for on-demand resources. With iOS 17 and tvOS 17, apps and games could have up to 40GB of hosted on-demand resources. This limit was increased to 70GB with iOS 18 and tvOS 18. Apple has also removed the extra 4GB limit for assets downloaded immediately after the user installs an app bundle from the App Store.

More about the updates

As we reported last month, developers had been complaining about the Apple TV SDK, which only lets apps and games permanently store 500KB of data. Unfortunately, it’s unclear whether this limit has also changed, as Apple hasn’t updated the documentation page about it.

Even so, allowing apps to use more on-demand resources will certainly benefit console-level games coming to iOS and tvOS.

Both iOS 18 and tvOS 18 are now available as beta previews for developers. A public beta is coming next month, while the official launch is set for this fall.

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