Thread by @emergetools

Do you want a paid wallpaper app from @MKBHD?

Maybe not? Well do you want to know how its made 🤓

🧵 Looking inside the new @Panels_art app, starting with ads

🎤 Ads have been a big topic

Panels is using Google Ads in both iOS (GAD) & Android

On Android, is the largest dependency in the dex com.google.android.gms.internal.ads

☠️ Looking at it another way, we're monitoring over 16k classes in the entire Android app with Reaper

Of that, 4,172 (25%) of classes are related to Google Ads 😬

Let's look at Panels vs. other wallpaper apps

iOS (install size)
WallUp: 197.3 MB
Wallcraft: 173 MB
*Panels*: 119.4 MB
@wallaroo_app: 29 MB

Android (download size)
Wave Live Wallpapers: 91.4 MB
*Panels*: 14.5 MB
Wallpapers (by Google): 2.9 MB

... why tf are some of these so big 🤦

So on Panel's app size

20 MB of Panels iOS is bloat from binary symbols in the app ⚖️

There's also another couple MB of savings from optimizing images, videos, and removing duplicate files

In the android app, two videos make up ~1/4 of the app size. The largest video is splash_screen.mp4 (2.6 MB)

These type of videos are a great example of where dynamic features can be used. Once a user makes an account, they'll never see it again so the video could be offloaded

We did see the use of Kotlin in the iOS app 👀

Specifically we see Panels using Skie from @TouchlabHQ for ActionWalls 🤖

Finally, some libraries Panels is using

Firebase, @RevenueCat, Lottie, Kingfisher

Pic is all the dynamically linked Firebase frameworks

Thanks to all who tagged us about this ☺️

We'll continue to monitor the Panels app and can report on any big changes 🫡

Let us know what you think and if you have any questions! Full analysis links 👇

iOS analysis
emergetools.com/app/example/io…

Android analysis
emergetools.com/app/example/an…