Google has decided to switch the Google Play catalog to use the Android App Bundle application distribution format instead of APK packages. Starting in August 2021, the App Bundle format will be required for all new apps added to Google Play, as well as for instant app ZIP delivery.
Updates to applications already present in the catalog are allowed to continue to be distributed in APK format. To deliver additional assets in games, the Play Asset Delivery service will have to be used instead of OBB. To certify App Bundle applications with a digital signature, the Play App Signing service will have to be used, which involves placing keys in the Google infrastructure for generating digital signatures.
The App Bundle is supported starting with Android 9 and allows you to create a set that includes everything an application needs to work on any device - language sets, support for different screen sizes and builds for different hardware platforms. When you download an application from Google Play, only the code and resources needed to run on a specific device are delivered to the user's system. For an application developer, switching to the App Bundle usually comes down to enabling another build option in the settings and testing the resulting AAB package.
Compared to downloading monolithic APK packages, using an App Bundle can reduce the amount of data downloaded to a user's system by an average of 15%, which leads to saving storage space and speeding up application installations. According to Google, about a million applications have now switched to the App Bundle format, including applications from Adobe, Duolingo, Gameloft, Netflix, redBus, Riafy and Twitter.
Source: opennet.ru