Android app bundles help you offer faster & smoother app experiences. Know here how you can build & deploy android app bundles successfully.

1. HOW TO BUILD
AND DEPLOY
ANDROID APP
BUNDLES?
PRANKUR HALDIYA
CTO AT RIPENAPPS
RIPENAPPS
TECHNOLOGIES

2. How To Build and
Deploy Android App
Bundles?
From August 2021, Google made it essential
for new Android apps to publish with the
Android App Bundles on Google Play Store.
For app owners and developers, this is
extremely important since it reduces the
app size and makes it easily downloadable
for users.
The purpose behind introducing the Android
App Bundle was to provide a seamless app
download experience and allow users to
efficiently utilize the app features on their
devices. It also enables advanced features
like Play Feature Delivery, Play Assets
Delivery, and instance experience.

3. For app owners and developers, building
android app bundle for their apps matters
significantly since it ensures the app gets
published on Google Play Store as per app
submission guidelines and provides desired
user experience across all devices smoothly.
If you are not familiar with or seek expert
guidance on building and deploying Android
App Bundles for your Android application,
here, you will learn how to build and deploy
Android App Bundles.
So let’s dive into

4. An android app bundle is the publishing
format. It is compiled code and resources of
a mobile application which is used for
signing into Google Play Store. Android app
bundle is different from the APK generation.
Google Play Store utilizes app bundles to
create and serve optimized APKs for every
device configuration.
Thus, only the core and resources which are
required for a particular device are
downloaded to run the published
application. There is no need for building,
signing, and managing multiple APKs to
optimize support for various devices.
Through this approach, users get a smaller
and better optimized downloading
experience. Therefore, it is also considered
one of the top Android app development
trends.
What Is Android App
Bundle?

5. How Does Android App
Bundle Work?
Android app bundle plays a significant role
in providing a seamless app download
experience and improved user experience.
Prior to the introduction of the app bundle
concept, when a user would download an
app from Google Play Store, the app gets
downloaded in the format of an APK file.
This file includes everything required to
install and run the app on the user’s device.
Developers would have to generate one or
more APK files utilizing Android Studio and
upload them to the Play Store.

6. To provide support for multiple device
types, screen sizes, and locals, developers
have had to either create and upload several
APK files tailored for each target device and
locale. Or, they need to generate a large
universal APK that incorporates all of the
different configuration resources and
platform binaries within a single codebase.
App Bundles Solve
Traditional Problems
with APK Generation
As a result, it takes a lot of development
efforts and repetition of the same process
for releasing the app. The APK format of
publishing apps results in longer app
downloads and increased storage use on the
device. Consequently, it affects download
speed which ultimately hampers conversion
rate falling down by 1% for every 6MB
increment in APK file size.

7. And Android app bundle solves these
problems by giving a single package facility
to Android app developers on the Android
Studio platform. The Android app bundle is
basically a ZIP file that contains all the
essential files to build APK files for the
devices and locales the app project has
proved to support.
So, after using the android app bundle, when
a user installs the app, Google Play gets
information about the user’s device such as
screen size, locale, and processor
architecture. Based on this information, the
required pre-generated APK files are sent to
the user’s device. As a result, downloading
becomes easy and only those files are used
which are suitable as per the user’s device
requirements particularly.

8. Why Do Businesses
Need An Android App
Bundle?
Size is one of the key factors which directly
affects the download as well as its
performance on mobile devices. The more
size an app has, the more challenging it
would be in downloading. Here, the android
app bundle helps in reducing the size of the
Android app. By utilizing Android app
bundles, developers have witnessed around
20% size reduction in the app size as
compared to using APK. Many popular
Android apps have witnessed astounding
positive results in terms of app downloads
and usage after decreasing their size by 20%
with app bundles. Below are some of the top
examples that reduced their app size
between 1% – 50%.
Reduce App Size

9. Google Play uses a new process of
delivering the APK files which is Dynamic
Delivery. It means when Google Play
receives the app bundle, it distributes the
app in proportion to the user’s device-
specific requirements and usage. It simply
is like feeding the user what they need. For
instance, if an Android app supports
different screen sizes and CPU
architectures. So, instead of providing
everything to users, it will give users proper
image densities and ABI resources, specific
language as per the device or smartphone
specifications
Dynamic Delivery

10. Fast and seamless app download and
usage experiences are one of the top
reasons as to why Android is the favorable
platform for mobile app development. For
this purpose, app bundle helps the app in
ensuring faster downloads and decreasing
uninstallation rates. Users generally don’t
like to install the app higher in size. It is
because heavy-size apps occupy large
storage space on mobile devices and thus
impact overall speed and performance.
But app bundle reduces the app size. As a
result, it makes it easier to download the
app and allows users to use only the
required features as per their device
specifications. This ultimately results in
enhancing the speed and performance of
the app.
Increased App Downloads
& Reduced Uninstallations

11. It is one of the top advantages of the
Android app bundle. It allows the app to
segregate a particular module and deliver
it when needed. This dynamic feature
module enables the app to download the
code as per the demand. For instance, let’s
say an app has two features: audio
streaming and text chatting. So, if the user
hasn’t much interest in using the audio
streaming then it can be segregated as a
separate module in its Gradle file as a
Dynamic feature module. As a result, when
generating dynamic split APKs, Google
Play will make a separate split APK file for
the dynamic module and will deliver only
when it is needed.
Dynamic Feature Modules

12. App bundle helps in Android app
development by enhancing the app’s
efficiency. With app bundles, developers
need to create one artifact which contains
all of your app’s collected code, native
libraries, and other resources.
Consequently, you are no longer needed to
create, sign, upload, and handle version
codes for different APKs. As a result, the
efficiency of the app gets increased when
users install the app with an android app
bundle.
Better Efficiency
How To Build An
Android App Bundle?
To build Android app bundle, you will need
to use Android Studio 3.2 or its versions
above. If you are using Android Studio, then
you can use the option to build your project
as a signed app bundle in a few clicks. In
case, you are not utilizing the IDE, you need
to use app bundle from the command line.

13. And then, you can deploy or upload the app
bundle to the Play Console to test or
publish the application. Since it is purely a
technical task, you would need assistance
from either an Android developer or hire
Android app development company. In
order to build android app bundle using
Android Studio, follow the below steps:
Step 1:
Download Android Studio 3.2 or higher
version. From this tool, you will build the
app bundle for your android mobile
application. It will allow you to add feature
modules and create bundles. When you
successfully download Android Studio, first
start with modifying your app’s build.gradle
file.

14. Step 2:
To create the feature1 module, go to
File>New>New Module in Android Studio.
From this, choose the Dynamic Feature
Module option which appears in the dialog
box, and click Next. After this,
Choose the app module as the Base
application module.
Mention feature1 as the Module name.
Mention a package name and a Minimum
API Level for the feature1 module, and then
click Next.
In the Configure On-Demand Options.
Choose the Module title as Feature 1.
Ensure the boxes Enable on-demand and
fusing.
Then, select the finish.
Similarly, you need to repeat the same
process for feature2.

15. Step 3:
Return to your app’s build.gradle file. Check
whether the dynamic features are
described properly.
Step 4:
After this, go back to your feature1 and
feature2’s build.gradle files to make sure
the app module is added as a dependency.
Step 5:
Now, start writing the code in the app
module to allow downloading the feature1
module when it is needed. By this stage, the
app bundle is ready and now you can
deploy or upload it to Google Play.

16. How To Deploy App
Bundles Using Android
Studio?
You can deploy app bundles to a connected
device straight from the IDE. It is because
Android Studio and Google Play use the
same tools to extract and install APKs on a
device. With a default feature, when you
deploy the app from Android Studio to a
connected device, the IDE builds and
deploys APKs for the targeted device
configuration.
This is because creating APKs for a specific
device configuration is much faster than
building an app bundle for all device
configurations that your offer supports.
Here are the steps to deploy app bundles
with Android studio:

17. Choose Run>Edit Configurations from
the menu bar.
Choose a run/debug configuration from
the left plane.
In the right pane, select the General tab.
Choose the APK from the app bundle
from the dropdown menu next to
Deploy.
If the app bundle contains an instant
app feature, then check the box next to
Deploy as an instant app.
If the app contains feature modules, you
can choose which modules you wish to
deploy by checking the box next to each
module. Android Studio, by default,
deployed all feature modules and
always deployed the base app module.
Select Apple or Ok
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18. To Wrap Up
App bundles are truly smart and effective
ways to provide fast downloading and
seamless app performance experience. It
helps you ensure your target users are able
to use your Android application efficiently.
And thus, it helps you in achieving greater
results. Therefore, Google Play gives it a
high priority.
However, since it requires expertise and
experience to intelligently and accurately
build and deploy app bundles, it is wise to
consult the top Android app development
company like RipenApps that specializes in
this field. This will ensure your Android app
gets approval from Google Play Store for
publishing and satisfies users as per their
specific needs.