Apple app or game developers may be familiar with the fact that Apple sets size limits for its iOS and tvOS apps. This limit is there so that an app or game doesn"t take up too much space on the device. However, with apps and games becoming more and more demanding, the size of the apps and games takes a toll on the storage.
In the official release notes of iOS 18 beta 2 and tvOS 18 beta 2, Apple has announced that it is increasing the app size limits for the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. This means that app or game developers can distribute large-size apps on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.
Currently, the app bundle downloaded from the App Store for iOS can only be up to 2GB in size. With the arrival of iOS 18, Apple has increased this limit to 4GB. This negates the need for developers to rely on assets downloaded on demand, which are resources that are downloaded after the opening of the game for the first time or in the background at a later time.
Since iOS 9, app developers could make use of "slicing," which divides their apps into two parts: the main app and the on-demand resources (ODR). Slicing the apps allows the users to download the apps or games quickly without the need to wait for long to download them.
The system downloads the main parts of the game and offers the option to download the other parts, such as episodes and other in-game content, at a later stage. This ultimately helps save storage because the system only downloads the essential parts, and the other assets can be deleted from the device when they are no longer required.
Apple is also increasing the limits for on-demand resources. Until now, with iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, games or apps could have up to 20GB of on-demand resources, but now this limit is increased to 70GB with iOS 18 and iPadOS 18. The tvOS 18 update keeps the limit to 20GB, similar to older tvOS versions.
Both iOS 18 and tvOS 18 are available in beta previews for developers, while the public beta is expected to arrive next month.