33 lines
1.4 KiB
Markdown
33 lines
1.4 KiB
Markdown
THE 974-BYTE ANDROID APP
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I built a real Android app that is only 974 bytes. A single text
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message is bigger than this whole app. It installs, opens, and
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shows a window on a real phone.
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I did it by writing the app by hand, byte by byte. Normal tools
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pad an app with tons of extra stuff. I placed every byte myself
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and kept only what the phone truly needs.
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To get this small, I stripped it to four bare pieces: a short
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note telling the phone the app's name, no code at all (I let the
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app borrow a window the phone already has built in), the smallest
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possible security seal the phone will still trust, and a wrapper
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with every unnecessary field removed.
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I tested every single cut on a real phone. If it complained, I
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put the byte back. If it stayed happy, the byte was gone. I did
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this hundreds of times until nothing else could come out.
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The final clever move: I gave the app a name that lets it borrow
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the phone's own built-in window with a tiny shorthand, instead of
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spelling out a long one.
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It's built for Android 14, because that's the version my phone
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runs. If you aim at an older version of Android, the rules are
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looser and the app can get even smaller. Aim at a newer one and
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it gets a little bigger. I chose 14 because it's what I could
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actually test and prove works.
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974 bytes. It installs, it opens, it shows on screen. A complete
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app, smaller than the words on this page.
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