[android-developers] localization bloats my app - is there an alternative approach?

My app was about 1.5M, after adding 12 languages I am now looking at
3M because of the multiple string.xml files in the resources. Yes,
they are big but it only became a problem after adding all these
languages. And I want to add more languages...

Does anybody have an idea of how to localize with more awareness to
bloat?

These are the strategies I can think of. They all require some serious
work to put into practice:

1) Split the apk
- Create several language apks to reduce bloat.
- Make the existing apk people paid for just a license apk.
- The individual language apks are free in the market but will not
work without installation of the main apk.
Contra: one has to maintain several apk files

2) Download additional resources
- The apk contains only enough translations to instruct users to
download full language packages of their choice.
- The language packages downloaded onto the SD card (simple xml files)
- The app loads the xml file and creates its own table of resource
strings which is used instead of R.string.
Contra: This adds to the load time of the app if the string.xml is
really big.

Any other ideas?

Thanks for your input,
Martin

mobitobi
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