Larger IPA files with Cordova iOS 7

[ndrake]

We're in the process of upgrading our app to use Cordova iOS 7. I've noticed that the IPAs generated with the new version are a bit larger that with v6.2.0.

When building with 6.2.0 our IPAs were around 7.6MB for debug builds and 7MB for release builds. With Cordova iOS 7, our debug build is around 18.6MB and the release build is actually 20.4MB.

Anyone else seeing similar behavior? Is this expected?

Relevant environment info from cordova info

Cordova Packages:

    cli: 12.0.0
        common: 5.0.0
        create: 5.0.0
        lib: 12.0.1
            common: 5.0.0
            fetch: 4.0.0
            serve: 4.0.1

Project Installed Platforms:

    ios: 7.0.0

Project Installed Plugins:

    cordova-android-play-services-gradle-release: 4.0.0
    cordova-android-support-gradle-release: 3.0.1
    cordova-custom-config: 5.1.1
    cordova-plugin-android-tv: 1.0.0
    cordova-plugin-androidx-adapter: 1.1.3
    cordova-plugin-app-version: 0.1.14
    cordova-plugin-battery-status: 2.0.3
    cordova-plugin-calendar: 5.1.6
    cordova-plugin-camera: 6.0.1-dev
    cordova-plugin-certificates: 0.6.4
    cordova-plugin-device: 2.1.0
    cordova-plugin-email-composer: 0.10.1
    cordova-plugin-file-transfer: 2.0.0-dev
    cordova-plugin-file: 8.0.0
    cordova-plugin-firebasex: 16.1.0-cli
    cordova-plugin-ionic-keyboard: 2.2.0
    cordova-plugin-network-information: 3.0.0
    cordova-plugin-universal-links: 0.3.0
    cordova-plugin-wkwebview-file-xhr: 3.1.0

Environment:

    OS: macOS Ventura 13.5 (22G74) (darwin 22.6.0) arm64
    Node: v16.15.0
    npm: 8.5.5

ios Environment:

    xcodebuild:
Xcode 14.3.1
Build version 14E300c

[breautek]

I just tried this with my app and saw no significant change.

App build with [email protected] produced an IPA of 36.7mb, and on cordova-ios@7, an IPA was 36.6mb