How can I tell the size of my app during development?

Question

My programming decissions are directly related to how much room I have left, or worse perhaps how much I need to shave off in order to get up the 10mb limit. I have read that Apple has quietly increased the 3G & Edge download limit from 10mb up to 20mb in preparation for the iPad in April.

Either way, my real question is how can I gauge a rough estimate of how large my app will end while I'm still in the development phase?

Is the file size of my development folder roughly 1 to 1 ratio? Is the compressed file size of my development a better approximation? My .xcodeproj file is only a couple hundred kB, but the size of my folder is 11.8 MB. I have a .sqlite database, less than 20 small png images and a Settings.Bundle. The rest are unknown Xcode files related to build, build for iphoneOS, simulator etc.... My source code is rather large with around 1000 lines in most of the major controllers, all in all around 48 .h&.m files. But my classes folder inside my development folder is less than 800kb. Digging around inside my Build file, there is lots of iphone simulator files and debugging files which I don't think will contribute to the final product. The Application file states that it is around 2.3 MB. However, this is such a large difference from the 11.8 MB, I have to wonder if this is just another piece of the equation.

I have the app on the my device, I'm in the testing phase. Therefore, I though that I would try to see how large the working version was on the device by checking in iTunes, however my development app is visible on the right-hand the application's iphone screen, but no information about the app most importantly its size.

I also checked in Organizer, I used the lower portion of the screen-(Applications), found my application and selected the drop down arrow which gave my "Application Data" and a download arrow button to the right to save a file on my desktop, named with the unique AppleID. Inside the folder it had three folders-(documents, library, tmp) the documents had a copy of my .sqlite database, the library a few more files but not anything obvious or of size, and the tmp was empty. All in all the entire folder was only 164kb-which tells me that this is not the right place to find the size either.

I understand that the size is considered to be the size of my binary plus all the additional files and images that I have add. Does anyone have a effective way of guaging how large the binary is or the relating the development folder size to what the final App Store application size will end up.

I know that questions have been posted with similar aspects, but I could not find any answered post that really described...what files, or how to determine size specifically. I know that this question looks like a book, but I just wanted to be specific in conveying exactly what I'm looking for and the attempts thus far. *Note all files are unzipped and still in regular working Xcode order of a single app with no brought-in builds or referenced projects.

I'm sure that this is straight forward, I just don't know where to look?

Answer 1

Build Your App using Active Configuration = Release, then right click on the .xcodeproj. Select Reveal in Finder. Then have a look at App Size in the Build Subdirectory.

LocateMe http://img.skitch.com/20100313-8hc87h85c8a4bb6xufhnfg4ciq.preview.jpg

Answer 2

You are correct that the final size can be estimated pretty closely by checking the sizes of the files in the application bundle. However, Apple will encrypt your binary, so in most situations your zipped application will be a bit smaller than the one on App Store.

Take a look at this : http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=278022&sid=ea6e4878c70379a05c883f7093a4b41c