I would say it's a good idea to not include 15mb of stuff in your app if you can avoid it. I assume the stuff is strictly required? If not, you also shouldn't force the user to download it. If the user *really absolutely has to have it*, then it might make sense to have as part of the APK, but it also might be that this data is something that changes frequently enough that you need to update it anyway.
In any case, my advice would be that you use some "reliable" method to *request* a download URL for your data. I.e., Google App Engine or something like that, and then store the data on your own server. That's right, you should get a webhost and a server to store the data on. You shouldn't really need that fancy a web plan, file serving is basically what web hosts are for. One slight comment if you plan to go this route: you should be aware that it's somewhat possible the data will be faked or otherwise compromised, if you're concerned about this you need to verify (checksum / hash) it in the app itself before using it, otherwise you could have random people serving your app bad data (a frequent source of security bugs in software...) kris On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 7:08 PM, saernz <[email protected]> wrote: > Hiya! > > I'm creating an app which requires a large database to work (about 15mb). I > have decided > to not include it in the apk because I think some people might dislike > having such a big file stored > on their phone memory, and have instead decided to have my application > download the database on first > use and to store it on the SD Card. > > I guess I have two questions: > 1) Is it a good idea in this situation to separate the database from the > main apk package and host it else where, or is it completely possible to > include such a large file in the apk package? > > 2) If I end up requiring the user to download the database on first run, > where would the best place be to host the file? I've been considering google > drive and maybe dropbox, but I'm concerned mainly > with the amount of bandwidth that is allowed each day (e.g a free dropbox > account allows 20gb to be downloaded in a day, so I could only have a max of > 1,365 downloads in one day otherwise dropbox will blow up), especially > because google doesn't seem to provide these details. Also another factor > would be if the file would be accessible to all users, or will the host > possibly try to block some downloads because it thinks an external site is > trying to link to it's content? > > Has anyone had to deal with such a situation before and what was your > solution? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Android Developers" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
