Google’s new Android App Bundles promise to make apps radically smaller.

Google today announced Android App Bundles, a new tool for developers that will make apps radically smaller. The trick here is that developers can now say which of their apps’ assets should be included for a given device so there’s no need to ship every visual asset for every screen size and support for every language to every user, for example — something many developers do today. That can result in install files that can sometimes be more than 50 percent smaller than before.

As Google’s Stephanie Cuthbertson told me, large download sizes are often an issue for users in developing countries, but elsewhere, too, users often balk at installing large apps. “Apps are targeting more countries than over, they have more features than ever,” she told me. “But we know the larger apps are, the fewer installs they get.