Difference between apk (.apk) and app bundle (.aab)

Question

Recently Google brought up a new feature app bundle which is a pretty similar concept to APK except its flexibility and architectural differences.

I ha

Answer 1

App Bundles are a publishing format, whereas APK (Android application PacKage) is the packaging format which eventually will be installed on device.

App Bundles use bundletool to create a set of APK. (.apks) This can be extracted and the base and configuration splits as well as potential dynamic feature modules can be deployed to a device.

The dependencies can look something like this:

The contents of an App Bundle look kind of like this:

More information on App Bundles is available here.

Answer 2

Following are benefits of Android App Bundle over APK on PlayStore:

1. Smaller Download Size
2. On Demand App features
3. Asset-only modules