Enhance sync insights UX

[ndegwamartin]

Starting this Discussion so that we can contribute ideas on enhance sync insights UX. This will be great for the user since the User Experience will support showing some for the factors that slow down the sync process and are not tied to performance of the app itself.

Currently we only show that the app is Syncing... and the percentage %

Suggestion 1
We can enhance it such that the current UI has a More menu item which when clicked reveals a larger more detailed Sync Progress UI.

Suggestion 2
We can have a larger view with more usage statics so that we can tell the status of the device at any one time, especially during sync.

AVAILABLE METRICS

• RAM usage e.g. 3/4 GB or 3 of 4GB RAM in use. A progress bar could work here as well
• Internet speeds - (Both upstream speed and downstream)
• Time remaining (we can possibly estimate this and test if acceptable)
• Connection Type - Whether using Wi-Fi, mobile data, or offline.
• Server request time

cc @HenryRae

[ndegwamartin]

Every time a user logs out and launches the app it triggers a fetch for the app and content configs. This introduces some noticeable latency from when one clicks the Launcher icon to when the Login page renders.

Suggestions

• We can add a UI to show that the app is downloading and configuring something e.g. Spinner
• Can change to progress bar with percentage % and messages (e.g. item being loaded)

[ndegwamartin]

Further testing on this revealed that the lag witnessed after clicking on the launcher icon is not from the configs fetch but rather from when the app's APK files are loaded into memory. Basically the bigger the APK size the more time it takes to load the memory hence the larger the latency as perceived by the user. This UX can be improved in these ways:

1. Smaller APK size - We can investigate ways of reducing our current APK size. Our Sideload APKs are almost 200 MB which is the Google Playstore limit for AAB files - https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/reduce-apk-size . This is already past the 100 MB limit set for uploading signed APKs directly.

2. Distribution via Playstore - Apps downloaded from the Playstore will most likely show less latency on app launch because playstore selectively installs files on the device as opposed to Side loading

3. Splash Screen implementation - When an App is launching it is possible to render a splash screen to avoid the blank screen witnessed due to the latency occurring when loading the APK files into memory. From Android 12 onwards all apps have a default splash screen so the experience is way better for the user and the app appears to load faster. For android versions 11 and below, this would have to be implemented via custom implementations

Note: All the above are not mutually exclusive and can all be implemented for a better overall UX.

[ndegwamartin]

More on Google playstores limits and APK size