Gigantic 250MB app from simple Google Cardboard SDK scene

Target Platforms Mobile
1

Was happily playing with Google Cardboard SDK until I realised that the app I built was 250MB! The folder containing the build for Xcode is a whopping 1,16 GB, mostly because of a file “libiPhone-lib.a” (1,07GB) in a “libraries” folder.

I have no idea what all this is, the scene is almost empty and there are no large textures. There must be a huge amount of extra code from the SDK but I have no idea what it is and how to strip it.

So how on earth can this lead to a 250MB app?
I check the filesize by archiving the app in Xcode and checking its filesize in Finder.

PS: The Unity editor log only shows:
Textures 32.2 kb 0.6%
Meshes 0.0 kb 0.0%
Animations 0.0 kb 0.0%
Sounds 0.0 kb 0.0%
Shaders 420.0 kb 8.0%
Other Assets 2.2 kb 0.0%
Levels 36.2 kb 0.7%
Scripts 614.6 kb 11.7%
Included DLLs 4.1 mb 78.7%
File headers 16.1 kb 0.3%
Complete size 5.2 mb 100.0%

2

Anyone?
Also, an empty Unity scene creates a 128MB app. It should be 20MB. I can’t figure out why…

3

If you are using recent versions of Xcode, it is probably the LLVM bitcode. You can turn that off in Xcode in the project’s Build Settings page.

4

It’ll still be tiny once sent to users’ devices. Bitcode, as mentioned, and possibly debug data included for Apple to use when receiving crash logs.