Tinder achieved a 47% reduction in app cold starts, according to the Android Developers Blog. The blog also reports that Tinder’s app download size fell from 86.6 MB to 61.5 MB—a 28.98% decrease.
The reported changes extend beyond startup and download size: user-perceived ANR errors decreased from 0.35% to 0.28%. The blog also reports that app engagement increased by 3%.
The Android Developers Blog says roughly 70% of Tinder’s Android application had not been optimized before its latest optimization efforts. Tinder had already enabled R8 before using the R8 Configuration Analyzer.
One issue identified was a broad, unscoped keep rule introduced by an in-house library. Tinder’s R8 optimization scores increased from 28% to 50% as the team addressed optimization opportunities.
The blog reports that Tinder reduced its total DEX files from 17 to 11, and the number dedicated to startup from three to two. These figures offer a view into the app-level changes behind the reported startup improvement.
To track optimization over time, Tinder’s Android team added a CI/CD pipeline job that reports changes in optimization statistics. For users, the reported results include a smaller download and fewer cold starts; the blog does not establish that every device or user will see the same impact.
