There are several things to consider on what makes an app “great”. Feature and functionality are of course some of the bigger highlights, but at the same time one needs to consider how efficient an app is in terms of size, resource consumption, and so on. For example while Google Chrome might be a browser beloved by many, the fact that it is a bit of a resource hog is one of its main criticisms.
That being said, for iOS users who feel that iOS apps could do with some shrinking, it seems that could be in the cards for the future. Apple is expected to introduce an update to its Swift programming language soon, where the update to Swift 5 is expected to bring about changes, one of which includes the potential to make iOS apps smaller.
This is because with Swift 5, Apple will finally be making it binary compatible which removes the need to rely on Swift language libraries that are bundled inside each app. This means that apps written using Swift 5 could end up being smaller in size and could also potentially see faster launch times as well due to libraries being cached in the device’s memory and shared between apps.
Whether or not this will make a noticeable difference remains to be seen, but regardless of whether it saves a second or half a second off an app’s launch time, efficiency is very much welcome.