How We Reduced the WINK+ Android App to Less Than 10MB
Article Summary
A solo Android engineer at WINK+ crushed their APK down to under 8MB while competitors bloat past 20MB with fewer features. Here's the playbook.
Julius Uy from the WINK+ team shares how extreme resource constraints forced creative optimization. The Singapore-based rewards app needed to stay lean without sacrificing its complex feature set, including QR code scanning across the city.
Key Takeaways
- Unbundled MLKit QR scanner via Google Play Services: saved 2MB instantly
- Switched Facebook SDK from full package to core-only modules
- Converted PNGs to VectorDrawables and optimized Lottie animations by 1MB
- Used APK Analyzer and Proguard to eliminate unused libraries and code
- Every 6MB increase drops install conversion by 1% (10MB = 2.5% in emerging markets)
Critical Insight
The team reduced WINK+ to 7.85MB through surgical dependency management, asset optimization, and format conversions, proving small teams can outperform bloated competitors.
