Earlier this week, I discussed why Apple's move to require developers to support the Apple TV remote in its games was actually a positive move for gamers. Today, I'd like to briefly touch on another controversial subject regarding the new Apple TV—the 200MB initial download limit for apps.
Knee-jerk reactions aside, it's now much more clear what Apple's 200MB limit entails. No, it doesn't mean that a game can only be 200MB in size, it simply means that the initial bundle—the portion of the app that's required for a user to start using it—should be 200MB or less. iMore's Serenity Caldwell does a great job of explaining this in detail.
To assist, Apple is employing a recent technology called on-demand resources. This isn't completely new, as Apple revealed this strategy at WWDC 2015, and it's available for use by developers in iOS 9. The difference is, the Apple TV will require developers to use on-demand resources if its apps are larger than 200MB in size—and, as we know, many are.
While this may seem overly restrictive at first glance, it's definitely not as bad as it's been made out to be. In fact, I think that it will largely prove to be of notable benefit to gamers.
