Why should Android phones fully popularize 64-bit applications in 2022?

At the end of 2021, the five major domestic Android app stores jointly announced that they would promote the support of 64-bit applications in the domestic Android ecosystem. According to the joint initiative issued by these five manufacturers, as long as you upload or update APP on OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, Tencent App Assistant, and Baidu Mobile Assistant, you need to upload the 64-bit format before the end of December 21, and no longer accept 32-bit APKs. The latter will not be able to run on 64-bit systems in 2023.

Huawei notified all developers through the Huawei Developer Alliance email that Huawei will phase out 32-bit applications in stages and fully promote 64-bit versions:

Starting from February 1, 2022, newly launched/upgraded games and applications on the Huawei App Store must include a 64-bit version, and the Huawei App Store will no longer accept applications that only include 32-bit versions; starting from September 1, the Huawei App Store will no longer accept applications that include 32-bit versions.

Huawei developer email pictures from the Internet

The main reason why mobile terminal manufacturers are so "urgent" to promote 64-bit applications is the pressure from the upstream supply chain. For example, ARM has announced that starting from 2022, the Cortex core of the CPU in its chip products will no longer support 32-bit. This is the upstream manufacturers "forcing" downstream manufacturers to fully support 64-bit applications.

Android's road to 64-bit is not smooth

Users who pay attention to mobile phone hardware should know that in fact, as early as the release of Android 5.0 system, 64-bit applications were already supported. The processor at that time was Qualcomm Snapdragon 410, which was also Qualcomm's first 64-bit processor in 2013. It was not until 2022 that it was "forced" to implement 64-bit. This was a full 3 years delay from Google's requirement for developers to submit 64-bit applications to the Google Store in 2019.

Although Google had integrated the latest development tool Android Studio to open the APP as a 64-bit so file by default, in an attempt to constrain developers with this "mandatory" new rule, it did not seem to attract enough attention. Developers can still "bypass" by modifying the configuration file of Android Studio to use 32-bit when packaging so files. This is the case in the international environment, but the domestic Android ecological environment is different.

The apps updated in Play Store and App Store are different

Not only do mobile phone manufacturers have their own official software stores, but there are also third-party markets such as Baidu Software Manager, Cool An, Tencent Mobile Assistant, etc. If you install an official version that is not from a mobile phone market on your phone, you may "jump back and forth" between versions from multiple stores, not to mention 64-bit adaptation. It is not easy to install a pure official application.

In short, confusion between official, unofficial, and firmware versions is a common problem in the installation software ecosystem.

In fact, until 2021, before Qualcomm 8 Gen 1 and MediaTek 9000 processors come out, there is a lack of an effective way to solve this problem from the "root".

The only thing left is to eliminate this situation from the "bottom" level and use the hardware ecosystem to "control". For example, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Dimensity 9000 released by Qualcomm and MediaTek at the end of last year not only have very strong performance improvements that the public can "perceive": the entire framework has been upgraded to ARM's latest generation Cortex-X2 super-core, Cortex-A710 large core and Cortex-A510 small core architecture, but the biggest change is the "improvement" at a lower level, that is, the instruction set uses ARM V9.

ARM V9, like the previous generation V8, is a pure 64-bit instruction set. The Cortex-X2 super core and the Cortex-A510 small core only support (backward compatible with V8) 64-bit, and only the "medium core" Cortex-A710 large core is compatible with the 32-bit V7 instruction set.

In other words, if this software is still 32-bit, then when running on new architecture processors with the V9 instruction set such as Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Dimensity 9000, it can only be locked to run on the A710. In this way, no matter whether the phone is locked or running in "performance mode", the application is always on the A710 core, which is less powerful than the upper super core and less power-efficient than the lower small core.

What improvements does 64-bit bring?

The most direct advantage is that it can be seen directly from the numbers, that is, the performance of 64-bit processors is stronger. Vivo once said that "supporting 64-bit devices is the only way for Android applications to utilize more than 4GB of RAM address space, use wider registers and higher precision in data processing, and obtain enhanced security features."

At the same frequency, a 64-bit processor can process 8 bytes of data, while a 32-bit processor can only process 4 bytes of data. It processes data faster. In addition, there is a very large gap in addressing space. For example, the addressing space of 32-bit is 2 to the power of 32, which supports approximately 4GB, while the 64-bit addressing space grows exponentially, which is 2 to the power of 64, and supports dynamic memory allocation.

In short, the 64-bit processor, the system that supports 64-bit applications, and the 64-bit applications work together. These three performance pillars of software must run side by side to improve operating efficiency.

Since 64-bit applications can bring performance improvements, why is it so difficult to popularize them?

In addition to the confusion of software versions and download channels mentioned above, a major reason is that Android is very compatible with "old devices". For example, although Google has taken various measures to allow developers to launch 64-bit applications, it still retains compatibility with 32-bit applications and even provides 32-bit options on the download page of its own Chrome browser.

In addition, for developers, maintenance and operation costs are also a "stumbling block" that restricts the popularization of 64-bit. For example, if developers only develop 32-bit applications, they can run on 64-bit processors, but they cannot run in optimal conditions.

However, if only 64-bit applications are developed, some older devices will not be able to run them at all, which may lead to the risk of losing users. 32-bit and 64-bit development and testing need to be done independently, which is also a burden on subsequent maintenance costs.

Another important point is that developers do not simply use pure Java layer development when developing Android applications. Instead, they use Android NDK to combine Java and C++. In C++, it is basically a team operation. For small team developers, maintenance and subsequent security are problems.

It’s 2022, how are Android’s 64-bit devices and apps developing?

Now that the joint initiative has been announced, how are Android phone manufacturers implementing it?

According to data from Umeng + U-APM, as of December 2021, the proportion of 64-bit and 32-bit devices on the market were 65% and 35%. According to Umeng + U-APM's mobile application performance monitoring platform, the application crash rate of 32-bit devices is 4.8 times that of 64-bit devices. Whether it is the proportion of devices or stability, 64-bit applications are the trend.

As for the official app stores built into mobile terminal devices or third-party app markets, Huawei and OPPO app stores will not directly indicate whether the upgraded applications are 64-bit. Only Xiaomi's app store will clearly indicate which software is 64-bit when upgraded.

The top one is vivo App Store and the bottom one is Huawei App Store. Neither of them is marked as 64-bit APP

For example, the Huawei phone I use needs the help of the third-party program LibChecker to check the applications in the phone. Currently, there are 312 applications in the phone, of which about 66% are 64-bit and 29% are 32-bit.

LibChecker checks that 64-bit software is basically Google and international APPs, while 32-bit software is mostly domestic software. The phone is Mate 40 Pro EMUI 11 version

However, upgrading Android applications to 64-bit does not mean that they will be better than 32-bit ones. According to Zhihu netizen Xijinshuizhui, although the 64-bit version of QQ in the Play Store has serious bugs and cannot be used, there is no night mode and no simple mode.

The picture comes from Zhihu netizen Xijinshuizui

The old version of QQ Music in the Play Store is 64-bit, and the new version has been updated back to 32-bit.

Android's open software ecosystem directly leads to the fragmentation of the software part, and it is not easy to unify it.

In addition, from the perspective of current Android software, the size of the current installation package is getting larger and larger, which directly leads to the memory consumed during installation, the system resources occupied during operation, and the higher performance requirements for the system. The use of a 64-bit system allows a single thread to process more than 4GB of running memory, which can fully mobilize the hardware in the phone and give full play to the hardware in the phone when processing some super-large games and high-bitrate and high-specification video files.

This explains why smartphones have increasingly higher memory, often as high as 12 or 16GB, and higher processor frequencies. All of this is to ensure that 64-bit software can run smoothly, but it also brings some negative factors, such as power consumption issues and heat caused by super-large cores processing large software.

In short, 2022 may become the "first year" for the large-scale popularization of 64-bit applications on Android, and hardware-driven software upgrades will become the norm. However, in the final analysis, effective and non-one-size-fits-all measures are still needed to allow the Android ecosystem to develop in a healthy and benign manner.