How Android TV apps will soon use much less storage

Google wants Android TV apps to use less storage, so app developers are required to work with app bundles. App bundles take up less space, provide more stable updates, and are more secure.

Android TV app bundles

We regularly hear the same complaint about the Chromecast with Google TV: the stick comes with too little storage for apps. The limited internal storage is not only a problem for the latest Chromecasts, but also for most smart TVs. Typically these come with 8GB of storage, while most phones today have at least 64GB on board.

To address this problem, Google will require Android TV app developers to work with a different format of apps from May 1, 2023, it explains in a blog post. Apk files are exchanged for app bundles. An app bundle takes up 20 percent less space and is customized for your device and the version of Android it uses.

Even more benefits

The latter has a number of advantages. You will only receive updates if they apply to your device and it is also not possible for malicious parties to hide malware in app bundles. In addition, you will soon be able to archive TV apps instead of deleting them. Archived apps take up less space, but they still contain your data, so you can easily restore them later.

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Google also says that there are currently more than 10,000 apps available for Android TV. Recently, Google has made it easier for users to browse TV apps with their phones and install them remotely. In the Play Store there are new filter options that make it easy to find apps for Android Auto, Wear OS and Android TV.

Do you use a lot of different apps on your television and don’t have enough storage space? Maybe you only use a handful of apps. Let us know in the comments.