A variety of gaming sites are reporting that the Apple TV limits its apps to a total of 200 MB. For example, there’s this bit from a post on well known gaming site IG:
The 200 MB limit is something of a head-scratcher, given the unveiling of a new 32 GB and 64 GB version of Apple TV today during Apple’s special live event. That storage space is earmarked exclusively for other uses, the most obvious of which being video and music files.
The reality is, 200 MB is purely the limit for the initial game load. Need more than that? No problem. Serenity Caldwell lays the details out in this post for iMore:
Let’s say you, the developer, make a side-scroller app for the Apple TV with 50 levels. All together, your app bundle comes out to be something like 4GB—too much for the Apple TV’s App Store to properly host. Instead, you can take avantage of a new tvOS/iOS feature called On-Demand Resources to slice up your app and deliver it in parts to the user.
Instead of making the user download 4GB off the bat, you slice up your app into a bunch of sections, called tags. You include the essential parts of the app—loading and launch screen, scores, settings, and the first five levels—in that 200MB bundle.
Other levels and assets are split into multiple tags that range in size from 64MB to 512MB. If you sliced up tags that all sized out to 100MB for your game, for instance, you’d have 38 additional items for download once a user installs the game. Those don’t come all at once, however: They’re called on-demand, when a user needs them.
Read on for more details. Nice catch, Serenity.
Speaking as a guy who occasionally makes trans-Atlantic flights, I’m a bit leery of this. I think Apple is toying with the idea of changing my iPad from a godsend to an inconvenience. Remember that this app slicing isn’t just an AppleTV thing. It’s an iOS 9 thing.
More on topic: I think this has the potential for a lot of user frustration. Picture it: The initial 200MB download has finished and now the user thinks everything is ready to go. But NOW that app can download 2GB more. A lot of apps (games especially) are going to need that download. So now the user faces another big delay, looking at a download screen. People are going to be angry at the app developer and not realize it’s Apple’s doing. And do they have to leave the app in the foreground for it to continue downloading? Even if you can switch to another app without interrupting the process, a lot of people won’t know that. Will your game download quietly in the background but let you get right into the action anyway? A lot won’t. Time will tell if this is a winner. But see me other complaint 😉
Apps have downloaded in the background from day one. I’m sure this won’t be any different.
Any app obviously won’t download an extra 2 GB right after you’ve downloaded the initial 200 MB. As mentioned above, a game might include the first five levels or so in the initial 200 MB download. The developer will have the app start a background download of the next “tag” (64 MB to 512 MB) when you only have one or two levels left to play. Your game play won’t be interrupted. By the time you’re finished with the initial levels the next chunk of levels will be ready for you.
If you quit the game while it’s downloading it can still keep that download running.
I expect it will also use the existing settings in iOS that let you restrict large downloads from happening over a cellular connection, so that you don’t quickly use up a limited or expensive roaming data connection.
On-Demand Resources also means that an app should be able to unload data that it no longer needs, like sets of levels you’ve already played. That way the app’s size on the device won’t keep growing. Its maximum size should be the initial download + the set of levels you’re currently playing + the next set of levels downloaded when you only have one or two left in the previous set. Smart developers could/should even have it unload the levels that you’ve finished from the initial download.
That’s fine for a game that is so linear that you can know exactly in what order the player will play. But what about games that aren’t, where you can choose to do anything the first time you start the game?
Then they’ll come up with their own solutions.
I don’t understand why we need to come up with scenarios where this could break down. It’s the developer’s responsibility to divvy up their content in a way that makes sense for their projects. If it’s a non-linear game, maybe it’ll start downloading everything when you start the tutorial (even the most non-linear game usually has at least some sort of non-bypassed introduction). Problem solved.
App slicing ≠ on-demand resources. https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/watchos/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDistributionGuide/AppThinning/AppThinning.html
Hopefully the developers of the apps you use will allow you to choose to download content ahead of time if they do indeed use on-demand resources for the iPad apps.
Like The Elder Scrolls:Oblivion.
You run around in catacombs for the first 30min of the game.
With a 16mbit/s connection, the game can download more than 3 gigabytes in the background during that time.
And even just a minute of splash screens, options menu and loading time for the first level, you have more than 100MB downloaded = an additional 50% of the 200MB limit just in the time it took the player to start the first level.
Actually, many of us figured that out from the beginning. By beginning, I am talking about beginning of iOS, not AppleTV. It’s only puzzling that some people think this is a totally novel thing.
Sure hope you’re right. But there’s a lot of programming situations where the platform makes it POSSIBLE to do a thing, but it’s not especially clear, and it’s a complicated process. As a result, it’s not often done properly. We can castigate them for not following best practices all day long. But at the end of the day, I’m selfish and only care about my own user experience.
App downloads only the minimum details and downloads levels as you need them, perhaps 3-4 ahead of where you are.
sounds like a good move all around
I wouldn’t be so sure. Depending on the game the first level could be downloading during the first start up and tutorial stuff. Then while you are starting that first level, the next 2-3 are downloading and so on.
I’ll be absolutely delighted to be wrong. I’m sure we’ll all find out soon enough. I’ll have my credit card out as soon as they go on sale.
hand waiving! hysteria! doom! what is Apple thinking??
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You’re the only one being hysterical. Four sentence fragments and every one uses punctuation tantamount to shouting. Please grow up. Download times are a non-trivial issue. I don’t pay much attention to the initial download time. I start an app downloading and then do something else. But once I open an app, I do notice. At that point, I expect to be using the app… and so do most people. And if it’s a bad experience, most of those “most people” won’t understand the cause of the delay. They’ll blame the devs.
I think most sites reported it correctly. What has been omitted here is the fact that only 200mb is guaranteed to be reserved for the developer of the app, anything else used is considered temporary storage. So if you download 2gb of additional levels of content, that could be overwritten and need to be downloaded again and again if you stream a few HD movies and the space has been reallocated to enable the use of smooth rewind and fast forward controls.
Waiting a few minutes to download a new level is no more annoying than waiting a half hour to play the game at all. Remember that if you installed all 4 GB (e.g.) of a game at once, it’s likely to be purged completely every time you watch a couple of new movies, especially if you have the lower storage model. Then you’d have to install the entire thing every time you wanted to play even just the one part you were playing a couple of days ago.
Well, you said it yourself: “Best practices.”
Some apps don’t follow them, get low ratings, and aren’t very successful.
I’m not even planning on working on any Apple TV apps but what “the right thing to do” if I actually was going to work on some seems pretty clear to me.
So in other words, the Apple TV isn’t going to be very useful as a console-like device and I shouldn’t expect to see anything better than Candy Crush or Duck Cross anytime soon.