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APK expansion files
My Android APK will be bigger than 50mb when I come to put it up on the Google Developer Console. I understand I'll have to use Expansion Files but don't know how to go about it. Is there coding involved or can I literally just .zip the files? I'm a little lost
Answer by meat5000 · Aug 30, 2013 at 02:50 PM
The First APK file can simply be a 'Placeholder' which may handle the installation etc of the expansion file. The expansion will actually contain the game.
Buy Game. Download Game. Install. "GameX additional files required". Download Expansion APK. Install. Play Game....finally. Or something like that.
But on the whole the Second download might not be required
On most devices, when an application is installed, expansion files will be downloaded along with the APK and will be saved to the shared storage location (the SD card or the USB-mountable partition) on the device. On a few older devices, the expansion files may not automatically install with the APK. In these situations, it is necessary for the application to contain code that will download the expansion files when the user first runs the applications.
Taken from here
Thanks for the reply.
Sorry I don't quite understand. What steps will I have to take in order to create expansion files?
The game IS the expansion file. Your original file (<50$$anonymous$$B) needs to be a Downloader/Installer probably not made in Unity.
Basically you will probably need to read through the Android docs to find out how to do the Google Play API expansion stuff. I think you might get lucky and someone will have made a template somewhere for you to follow/modify.
http://developer.android.com/google/play/expansion-files.html
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17706064/expansion-file-download-feature-not-working
http://ankitthakkar90.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/apk-expansion-files-in-android-with.html
I really appreciate the help but I'm completely confused by this. This is the first app i'm publishing. I see a lot of code but i'm completely in the dark about where to put it and if i need to be using another programme other than Unity. Help!