It's how they do it on Mac... Plus one less thing buried in settings would be a good thing. 
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Apple should move IOS updates to the App Store.
- Thread starter ajiuo
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Personally I like the iOS updates where they are.
Not only should they move the iOS updates to the App Store like on the Mac, but they also should move app updates there. I don't want to download an entire OS update if it's just the Music App being update for a Beats 1 fix.
If Apple integrate music app into a base system, then it would be difficult to do a separate update for music app.
I'd like Apple to eventually follow Microsoft's lead where they have updates for built-in apps in the App Store as well as being able to delete the ones you don't use / want. But, that's likely further down the road.
You don't download the whole o/s every time you update unless you do a dfu restore through a computer. The updates are delta updates.
^ Exactly this.
When you update (especially OTA) you are not downloading the whole OS. Take iOS 8.4 for example. It was around only 250mb - 300mb. Most of that 250mb - 300mb was just the new music app. If it was the whole OS it would have been a couple gb.
It's how they do it on Mac... Plus one less thing buried in settings would be a good thing.
Native Apple apps should be sent to the Appstore:
1. Apple could update the apps without needing to update all of iOS
2. Users would be able to uninstall apps they didn't want (news stand, stocks, etc) and re-install them at any time.
I guess one can always dream.
I'll sound like I'm playing with words, but I didn't say you downloaded "an entire OS", I said "an entire OS update". I don't see why we need to wait until Apple has collected enough fixes and changes to roll out an OS update. If an app is ready, it's ready. OS Updates should be required only if the underlying Frameworks change.
And of course updates are Delta now. Speaking of which, the App Store should also have Delta updates for apps, which then again would optimize OS and first-party app update sizes through the App Store even more.
Apple has pushed 'updates' for individual parts of the OS before.
As for the updates to apps most are delta updates these days. Hence why you can go to the update page and it'll say 233mb for example and still update Over cellular. The quoted figure is for the original package.
- If individual apps within the OS were split out, that increases the amount of testing needed for those apps, and the multiple OS versions they might possibly run on. Don't seem that there's much benefit there.
- App Slicing in iOS 9 will reduce app download sizes, because only parts of the app relevant for your device will be downloaded. Not technically delta updates, but app sizes should come down.
1. You only need to test on different OS versions if the underlying frameworks change. Otherwise I don't see why it would be buggy on a version and not on another. Basically they would use the same independent development process that we do third-party developers.
2. If I'm not mistaken, iOS always had some kind of App Thinning features, because the download size varies a lot from device to device. Say the latest iOS 8 for my iPhone 5 weighs in at a 1.7 GB download, while it's 2 GB for the iPhone 6 and 2.4 GB for the iPhone 6 Plus.
I was addressing your second point, about apps. Starting with iOS 9, downloads from the App Store will only contain code and data relevant to the device on which you're downloading.
Yes you're right, they *could* separate the Apps, but it would be more work, for marginal benefit to Apple, with finite resources. By bundling their apps with OS updates, they are also able to guarantee the availability of private APIs in the OS for their use.
Oh okay, I haven't followed the conversation XD
Yes, the 3 features included in App Thinning will definitely help, but it's still not a Delta Update.
Say I decide to fix a critical typo in my French Localization (as if I'd do that for my mother tongue
), and publish the app again, I would expect people to download only the file that has changed, which would represent a few KB, not the whole 60 MB bundle. I do know there is a flaw in this approach, because files get compiled together into a single bundle, but I think it's possible in some other way.
Say I decide to fix a critical typo in my French Localization (as if I'd do that for my mother tongue
That breaks the code-signing of the app bundle though, which is a critical part of iOS security. With bandwidth ever-increasing, I think the priority is on storage space, rather than download size, so I don't expect them to bother too much with delta updates for apps. Who knows though?
Making that file size information fairly useless and misleading when it comes to updates.
I'll agree with you on that completely.
Agdrive updated today over cellular after I'd reset my usage counter so it's quoted as 292mb. The data used for the update was actually 22mb.
Maybe they are quoting the space taken for the app once the update is done or the space taken during the update. Like when an iOS update is 1.4gb and you need 4gb free.
Regardless delta updates are happening
Music app is just a wrapper of various frameworks. All necessary iOS frameworks are composited in one, single dyld_cache file. So unless the way iOS handles core frameworks is changed, separated system app updates are very unlikely.
Because I liked the Software Update app. The App Store is slow and has many bugs, and I don't entirely trust it not to brick my Mac.
