In recent times the weight of applications on smartphones has increased significantly, and this often happens without a real reason: if in some cases it is possible to do without one of them, perhaps superfluous, to avoid needlessly occupying memory on the electronic device, in others, such as For example banking, it’s about having access to essential features.
In this regard, the study recently conducted by the experts of Emerge Tools, a company specialized in the analysis and optimization of apps, revealed that the Intesa San Paolo app for iOS devices actually occupies almost 700 MegaBytes. But what attracted media attention on the web and on the main social media, triggering hilarity or complaints, was the presence in the package of a singular audio file called “burp.mp3”.
Apparently, according to the research report, it would be a small file without any concrete function. The name, which is difficult to misinterpret, makes one think of some programmer’s prank, of sorts Easter Eggs like those that appear in some video games intended to make anyone who manages to access the details of the banking application code smile. The news actually caused hilarity among some users, while some others, considering the weight of the Banca Intesa San Paolo application on mobile phones, complained about it.
According to tests carried out by Emerge Tools experts, 448 MB, equal to approximately 64% of the total occupied, are composed of “dynamic frameworks“, i.e. the libraries that allow the program to run correctly on the electronic device. In addition to this, 72 MB are dedicated to the code and a further 74 MB to assets such as images and documents. Well, according to the IT technicians and engineers of For the company there would be a good chunk of space to eliminate to optimize the app, equal to at least 140 MegaBytes.
The problem would essentially be that of an excessive presence of dynamic frameworks, which unnecessarily burden the program: in the Intesa San Paolo app there would be a total of 230, most of which, according to what is reported in the report, are not strictly necessary.
Programmed to be shared between multiple Apple devices, such as Smart Watches, iPhones and iPads, they are much heavier than static ones and considerably slow down startup. Choosing to convert some of the dynamic ones to static ones might even lead to halve the space occupied by the program, making it faster and reducing memory consumption.