[reddalo]

This trick is actually used by some banking apps.

They fill app their mobile apps with junk data just to make the APK/IPA bigger. So if they need to push an urgent update, they won't have users that can't update because their phones are full to the brim.

I know two Italian banks that do it, Unicredit and Intesa. The latter was on the news when a user found out that one of the filler files was a burp recording [1].

[1] https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2024/12/20/intesa-san-paolo... (in Italian)

[ikr678]

Doesnt this create an arms race situation where every 'critical' app claims a larger diskspace than necessary, just in case, and accelerates the issue?

[bentcorner]

Kinda sorta, but there's a limit where users will typically install X apps and apps of Y size need Z extra space to update. User content would fill up the rest. I would imagine a typical 256 gb phone is probably over this limit and people who take lots of videos/photos just need to clean up their phone a little more often.

[Dylan16807]

But you still need a bunch of extra space to download and unpack the new version, and there are so many apps that need to share space, and a banking app should only need about 0.1% of a phone's storage...

Whoever gave them that idea was doing a bad deed.

[reddalo]

I know and I agree with you. It doesn't seem that smart.

And you can tell by the fact that the filler data is called "burp.mp3" and things like that.

[triage8004]

Interesting, makes sense, seems to be bad precedent if everyone follows suit.

[Underphil]

It does, but for critical apps (that might have some awful security holes) it guarantees them space.