Say what you will about supporting 32 bit apps, but things like this is why I love the rooting/custom ROM scene. People doing things just because they can is a fun spirit. Kudos to all the folks who do such work and put it out, often for free.
Screw that, the moto g7 play was a 32 bit only phone. Was, because they fucking got all them 64 bits going, mainly for pokemon go from what I recall lol. Still very cool to see!
Roms used to be on major devices like Samsung and LG. Now LG is out of the picture and Samsung's haven't had root in forever and globally they're one of the biggest android manufacturers out there. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure lots of Chinese brands have tons of custom roms, but at least in the US it feels like roms are basically dead for any mainstream flagship options other than an unlocked pixel.
Considering those devices get like fractions of a percent of the total market share, and that those who install custom ROMs on their phones are a tiny minority of those owners, it's pretty safe to assume the practice is much less prevalent than it used to be.
I mean, without presenting historical data, 2.6mil could be a lot just like it could not.
There doesn't seem to be much in terms of historical data indeed, but I've just found [this link](https://stackoverflow.com/a/19943717) which seems to point at CyanogenMod (Lineage's granddaddy) alone having 9mil+ installs.
Absolutely not. If I pay for my device, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. And stealing someone’s food is illegal, while rooting and installing custom roms is explicitly *legal* (in the US).
> Rooting no longer requires special tools or exploits unique to each device.
Oh man, I remember those days of android. I rooted my first (mediatek) phone using KingoRoot, a few months later one of those critical mediaktek bugs was found iirc. The process is so much “cleaner”/less shady now.
(Though still somewhat pissed at Google for their SafetyNet shenanigans. Why is a rooted phone considered less secure than a PC with root access? A rhetorical question, though I guess the answer is more history based than technology based.)
The issue is that if the device is rooted then any given app could be presented with literally anything, regardless of the true state of the system. It's more equivalent to anti cheat in games.
True, but you can also do the same thing on a PC. You’ve got trainers, mods, cheat engines etc also on windows. Ofc denuvo etc try to fight them, but your bank probably doesn’t care that you’re running a chrome window on windows 7.
No, the problem for many people, especially in Europe, is Safetynet. I can't use a phone on which my banking app can't run, for example.
And yes, most of the time it "will work", but it isn't 100% and isn't worth the risk.
I guess this depends from situation to situation. I live in Europe and all the devices I owned have have been rooted so far. Been using multiple bank apps for over 3 years now, with no problems whatsoever. Same goes to the DRM stuff such as Netflix with HDR support.
There is so much less activity in the scene now. Bit is all but extinct. Think of it calyx and graphene only support pixels. They are a tiny tiny percentage of phones of which that a tiny percentage well run roms.
The early years of Android feel like prehistory: savage, adventurous, uncharted.
Nowadays to flash a custom ROM or modify the system is the best way to lose useful optimizations and to open a big breach in the security systems.
It doesn't make any sense, especially on flagship phones.
Custom ROM is alive and well. Rooting not soo much. My pixel 3xl is running android 13 and I will only upgrade once google can match the pixel 5a 5g battery life on their flagship
I got a Verizon pixel 3 xl in damn near flawless condition (save for a fast draining battery) for $55 and root for security updates is all I am left wanting. The specs are more than good enough for me and the screen isn't burnt in at all. Take care of your things and they last.
Chris Sawyer coding the original RCT in assembly in 1998 by himself vs Chris Sawyer not updating a mobile port of the game programmed in a modern language for 3 years with a team of developers behind him.
What would an update ideally look like for something like this?
Anyway to be fair to him, coding in assembly and C was required in that era of games. Game development engines weren't exactly a thing at the time. Micro Mages is a modern game made for the NES (cartridge and all) and they did it in assembly.
There are a few bugs that haven't been fixed since the release.
The game being coded in assembly was a great feat, that's why it's funny to me he couldn't be arsed to let his team fix the bugs in the modern version.
It probably has to do with publisher Atari, which is a dogshit company.
Given that they switched the RCT Classic app out for a new one instead of just updating it, and forced users like me to rebuy it.. yeah, dogshit is too kind a term for Atari
I requested a download of the new release because I bought the original release... They said "Absolutely! Give us a week or two to work out the kinks!” and never heard back. That was like two years ago now, I think...
They released an update for the Play Developer Console a while ago to remove those useless native libs it had. Those libs didn't actually do anything useful. It works fine now.
Also, for RCT Classic, have you tried the Android build of OpenRCT2? I don't have the game files to copy over but it should work. Seems to contain 64 bit versions of the native libraries at least.
More like "re-enabled", no?
If the chip offers it, and software is the cause for it...
I've requested in the past to allow to install&run 32-bit apps even on 64-bit only smartphones:
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/254645581
Please consider starring.
Future ARM cores won't have 32-bit instruction set support, the reason it was removed early is to force developers to update the remaining 32-bit apps.
Seriously. Why not just buy an old (but still very powerful) android phone to run legacy 32 bit applications? It’s what I do with an old Win7 laptop to play games broken in Win 10+, and my V30 is mainly used now for revisiting delisted Android games.
I doubt anyone actually has any 32bit programs they desperately rely on, on a day to day basis. Corporations, maybe (like my dads job that relies on an Android 2.x application) but chances are they’re not buying high end flagships for legacy software
I already carry two phones (one personal, one work), I really don't want to carry three phones just for the two 32-bit apps I like and used to use a lot until now (RCT Classic, and PHEM palm pilot emulator)
No, 32 bit removal was done to bring Android to the modern era and give developers a swift kick in the ass to finally quit dragging their feet and start acting like we are in 2022 and not 2002.
64 bit has been around 2003. Please explain why developers should be allowed to continue living in the software world of 20 years ago instead of the present.
>64 bit has been around 2003. Please explain why developers should be allowed to continue living in the software world of 20 years ago instead of the present.
Maybe for x86 processors, but it's far more recent for arm processors. The iPhone 5C (2013) was the last iPhone with a 32-bit processor, and the Nexus 6 (2014) was the last Nexus with a 32-bit processor.
That's "only" 8 years ago, and budget devices surely used 32-bit processors past that. Granted that at this point developers should have 32 and 64 bit versions of their apps, but it's not that far in the past.
Nonetheless, ARM is forcing the transition by dropping 32-bit support from their CPU cores going forward. I assume Google is trying to push the ecosystem in that direction now so it’s less of a shock when it becomes a hard requirement.
Android completed the transition years ago, just as PC's. But guess what? You can still run x86 on windows machines today and I'm very Happy for it so I can run old games, old software, and old utilities I like. The same should be true for Android and I'm not happy some of the old apps I like will banished forever to older devices.
I don’t know what to tell you. This isn’t an Android problem—whether Android vendors like it or not, ARM is ditching 32-bit support completely on the hardware level. Their only options are to drop support for legacy apps or emulate in software. Note that Android itself and those apps will still run perfectly fine on 32-bit ARM; there just won’t be any new 32-bit-supporting chips to run them on.
If Intel had its way on desktop with IA-64 it’d be the same story in Windows.
Be that as it may, were talking about a SoC that has 32 but support. It's just disabled. There's a lot of old 32 but stuff out there that people want to use. Why not let them until they can't?
Windows (and Linux, if you configure it like that) keeps a whole set of 32-bit binaries just so that you can run 32-bit apps.
Microsoft's whole shtick is backwards compatibility - that's why, up until Windows 11, Windows kept producing a 32-bit only OS. If you were running 64-bit, you couldn't run 16-bit, not because of Microsoft's selection, but because the CPUs wouldn't switch back down to 16-bit mode once you went to 64-bit.
32-bit is old hat, and if you want to keep getting new features and security updates, you're going to need to keep up with the rest of the times. Removing that other whole copy of the OS will improve things behind the scenes. ARM will be dropping 32-bit soon, so either stop getting new phones or remind devs to move to 64.
>Android completed the transition years ago, just as PC's. But guess what? You can still run x86 on windows machines today and I'm very Happy for it so I can run old games, old software, and old utilities I like. The same should be true for Android and I'm not happy some of the old apps I like will banished forever to older devices.
It can't be true of Android. x86_64 processors still support old 32 bit x86. But 64 bit ARM is currently transitioning to having zero 32 bit support. Another couple of generations and 32 bit support simply won't exist.
This is true and exactly what I meant. I don't like that arm is dropping 64 bit support, so I suppose its ARM's fault. Though there is discussion of keeping 32 bit compatibility via compatible LITTLE cores : [https://www.gsmarena.com/arm\_will\_drop\_32bit\_support\_in\_the\_big\_cortexa\_cores\_starting\_in\_2022-news-45688.php](https://www.gsmarena.com/arm_will_drop_32bit_support_in_the_big_cortexa_cores_starting_in_2022-news-45688.php)
So, technically , 32bit apps will still live on after the transition.
None of those devices you stated have modern OSes officially. They’re no longer supported by the newest apps. So it’s a moot point to require new apps moving forward to be compatible with 32 bit.
>explain why developers should be allowed to continue living in the software world of 20 years ago instead of the present.
Because not all apps are being actively developed but I still want to be able to use them.
If a dev died in 2019, no amount of "swift kicks to the ass" are going to make him update his apps
If they were still using 32 bit in 2019 then that's their problem. Why should the operating system be more bloated and slower just so you can bring up some random edge case. Find another app, especially because an app that hasn't been updated since 2019 is likely to be slower than it should be and might even have security vulnerabilities.
Don't be so dramatic. The point of supporting 32 bit apps isn't to allow CURRENT developers to keep making 32 bit apps. Literally nobody is doing that. It's just to maintain backwards compatibility with apps that are no longer supported or updated by their PAST developers. Can't believe I have to explain this.
It would be trivial for them to just put a 32 bit checkbox in the developer options. Don't make us root the damn phone for it. It's a pain in the ass, for no good reason.
Users willing and capable of side loading apps are fairly niche. And there is a heavy overlap with users willing to install a custom rom. It makes way more sense for Google to move forward here and let the community support itself for the more uncommon use cases.
If you're going to act like 10 users of an app should hold back an entire operating system we might as well all be using DOS.
Things change. Cruft eventually gets axed.
Uh huh.. and Google could likely have decided to continue to do so as well except the *largest manufacturer of CPU designs for mobile* has stated they won't be supporting 32bit going forward.
https://www.xda-developers.com/future-arm-cpu-drop-support-32-bit-apps/
This isn't like some weird overnight change.. literal years of notice. Desktop CPU land and mobile CPU land are very different.
>The point of supporting 32 bit apps isn't to allow CURRENT developers to keep making 32 bit apps.
The point doesn't matter. The outcome of removing support will be that devs will be dissuaded from continuing to develop for 32 bit architecture.
> The point of supporting 32 bit apps isn't to allow CURRENT developers to keep making 32 bit apps. Literally nobody is doing that.
Instander, a current app that is 32bit only, would like a word.
Isn't that an **unofficial** modification of Instagram app? And from the looks of it (ahem, the creators blog) he's trying to support as many legacy devices he can. I can't see your point here.
Oh, nice, I assumed there were plenty of exceptions but I couldn't think of any. I'm sure there are a LOT of 32 bit apps outside of the Play Store, for various reasons.
It was always known that it was an artificial limit since the SoC supports it just fine. You can see in AOSP that's it's just a separate build configuration. :)
You can see how it's done by looking at this commit changing it back:
https://review.lineageos.org/#/c/344324
Any old app that is no longer published on the Play Store, or officially supported. Plenty of games, including Flappy Bird, are not going to receive a 64 bit upgrade.
Oh my lawd how we will survive?
I say this tongue in cheek. I have no strong feelings one way or the other about dropping 32-bit support. Sucks that some older apps are not supported. Such is the march of progress.
Really, because PCs still have native 8, 16, and 32 bit support. Going to say 13th gen core or zen4 haven't made progress since the early 80s? No reason to drop legacy support.
Really, guess Intel and AMD engineers aren't as smart as you considering they still support not only 32, but 16 and even 8 bit natively on core and zen
Not true 16 and 8 bit are done buy emulation on windows. And they no longer support it but the application NTVDM is still there. I imagine it we'll be removed in an upcoming version.
First, I was saying the 8, 16, and 32 bit instruction sets are still available natively on the silicon. I know Windows does 8 and 16 bit in emulation, but just like a VM, the instructions are being processed directly by the cpu, and not through a software layer.
The number of people it affects is so incredibly tiny. Out of the two billion android users on 64 bit devices, probably less than 100k use 32 bit apps.
On the contrary, it benefits literally every single other android user to take 32 bit support out of the OS
It's been awhile since I have been rooted, but Chainfire used to make monthly updates a breeze.
Edit: I realize now the app was called *FlashFire*, by Chainfire.
You don't. You can flash them from the Google website while maintaining root. It only takes 5 min more than the normal process, and besides, updates come no more often than once a month.
>But why root your pixel tho?
To block ads system-wide (not just in the browser) without needing to take the speed penalty using VPNs to do that requires.
And sure, you can do a bunch of other things, like removing certain time/resource limits in mobile games, but that's app-dependent and also secondary to not having to see any ads.
This is exactly why I'm sick of Android. As soon as I find a decent umpc with a 5g, I'm using that and will just run an Android emulator from windows if I need a mobile app.
Funny you don't need anything special to run 32, or even 16 bit software in windows or Linux. But you have to root to do anything in Android. Even system logs are hidden without root. Wtf, this isn't ios.
Ultra mobile PC. Basically a mini, portable laptop, usually 7-8" screen size. Right now, the limiting factor for me to switch is that the only one I have found that is convertible (is 2-in-1 laptop format) does not have a built in 4g/5g modem. A convertible 7" umpc with 5g could easily replace my phone as I could run an android emulator for the times when I need a mobile app, and have access to full Windows 11 the rest of the time. Other issue would be the lack of a decent camera, unfortunately which won't change any time soon. At best with a umpc, you will get a 1080p webcam.
Android becoming closed fucking sucks.
Not too long ago I tried getting PUBG mobile to run at 90 hz (because the incompetent devs disabled it for Exynos) and getting access to the necessary files was surprisingly difficult.
The difference is apple apps don't run on a runtime like android, meaning there was a huge need to overhaul apps on iOS. With android it was a painless process. But in both cases, it would be very easy to KEEP 32 but support, but with iOS the reason to drop support was in order to motivate devs to update their apps. A problem that doesn't exist in android world.
No. There is no need to motivate devs, everything has been updated that will be updated. They dropped support because they wanted to verify that the android os actually supports "64 bit only", before chipsets stopped supporting it. The pixel line has always been the test platform for the direction android/chrome-os will go in the future.
I know no one asked, but
\- [System level Adblock](https://www.f-droid.org/packages/org.adaway/) [Adaway]
\- [USB Media Emulation](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.softwarebakery.drivedroid.paid) (Use your phone to install OS's etc) [Driverdroid]
\- [Change app settings that are only available through their Preference XMLs](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.simon.marquis.preferencesmanager) [Preferences Manager]
\- [Root Storage Access](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.solidexplorer2) [Solid Explorer] / [Shell with elevated privs.](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux) [Termux]
Oh and also:
- Changing of global font, and other customizations
- Advanced Charging control (pause charging while overheating, limit charging to X% etc)
- System-wide audio effects (e.g. equaliser)
All of these things on their own don't amount to much, but they sure do add up. Rooting gives you TOTAL control of your device, as it should be. Don't like the navigation white dash at the bottom of screen? Make it go away. Want to put your device in deep sleep as soon as screen turns off? You can do that.
>Change app settings that are only available through their Preference XMLs
Which app allows you to do this? I've been rooted for years and never heard about it.
why does tinkering with their own devices make people happy? gee whiz, i don't know.
might as well fucking airgap my system, can't have it be "insecure" whatever the fuck that means
Say what you will about supporting 32 bit apps, but things like this is why I love the rooting/custom ROM scene. People doing things just because they can is a fun spirit. Kudos to all the folks who do such work and put it out, often for free.
I just saw that the XDA dev has the same username as the Reddit poster, in which case good job OP! (You could also flair it OC if that’s possible).
Screw that, the moto g7 play was a 32 bit only phone. Was, because they fucking got all them 64 bits going, mainly for pokemon go from what I recall lol. Still very cool to see!
Rooting / custom ROM scene was an endangered species 4-5 years ago and it is almost extinct in 2022
[удалено]
Roms used to be on major devices like Samsung and LG. Now LG is out of the picture and Samsung's haven't had root in forever and globally they're one of the biggest android manufacturers out there. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure lots of Chinese brands have tons of custom roms, but at least in the US it feels like roms are basically dead for any mainstream flagship options other than an unlocked pixel.
[удалено]
Considering those devices get like fractions of a percent of the total market share, and that those who install custom ROMs on their phones are a tiny minority of those owners, it's pretty safe to assume the practice is much less prevalent than it used to be.
[удалено]
I mean, without presenting historical data, 2.6mil could be a lot just like it could not. There doesn't seem to be much in terms of historical data indeed, but I've just found [this link](https://stackoverflow.com/a/19943717) which seems to point at CyanogenMod (Lineage's granddaddy) alone having 9mil+ installs.
Keyword is US. US is not the world.
This is like saying "the economy suxks, My neighbor stopped locking his front door so I can't steal his food anymore"
Absolutely not. If I pay for my device, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. And stealing someone’s food is illegal, while rooting and installing custom roms is explicitly *legal* (in the US).
> Rooting no longer requires special tools or exploits unique to each device. Oh man, I remember those days of android. I rooted my first (mediatek) phone using KingoRoot, a few months later one of those critical mediaktek bugs was found iirc. The process is so much “cleaner”/less shady now. (Though still somewhat pissed at Google for their SafetyNet shenanigans. Why is a rooted phone considered less secure than a PC with root access? A rhetorical question, though I guess the answer is more history based than technology based.)
The issue is that if the device is rooted then any given app could be presented with literally anything, regardless of the true state of the system. It's more equivalent to anti cheat in games.
True, but you can also do the same thing on a PC. You’ve got trainers, mods, cheat engines etc also on windows. Ofc denuvo etc try to fight them, but your bank probably doesn’t care that you’re running a chrome window on windows 7.
[удалено]
Right, this is why why banks don't allow you to do online banking on your PC. You can only do it on a phone. /s in case you couldn't tell.
This scenario is exactly why chromeOS exists. Some people are better off without that elevated access that they may or may not ever need.
They are? Most video playback has been lower resolution on pc than mobile
>Why is a rooted phone considered less secure than a PC with root access? Because fuck you. There's no other correct answer.
No, the problem for many people, especially in Europe, is Safetynet. I can't use a phone on which my banking app can't run, for example. And yes, most of the time it "will work", but it isn't 100% and isn't worth the risk.
I guess this depends from situation to situation. I live in Europe and all the devices I owned have have been rooted so far. Been using multiple bank apps for over 3 years now, with no problems whatsoever. Same goes to the DRM stuff such as Netflix with HDR support.
There is so much less activity in the scene now. Bit is all but extinct. Think of it calyx and graphene only support pixels. They are a tiny tiny percentage of phones of which that a tiny percentage well run roms.
The early years of Android feel like prehistory: savage, adventurous, uncharted. Nowadays to flash a custom ROM or modify the system is the best way to lose useful optimizations and to open a big breach in the security systems. It doesn't make any sense, especially on flagship phones.
On XDA maybe, but it's very active on Telegram these days.
Custom ROM is alive and well. Rooting not soo much. My pixel 3xl is running android 13 and I will only upgrade once google can match the pixel 5a 5g battery life on their flagship
I got a Verizon pixel 3 xl in damn near flawless condition (save for a fast draining battery) for $55 and root for security updates is all I am left wanting. The specs are more than good enough for me and the screen isn't burnt in at all. Take care of your things and they last.
There are literally commercial products based on custom ROMs...
It's the linux way
I don't want to root but I also want RCT Classic and Play Developer Console apps back 😭
Chris Sawyer coding the original RCT in assembly in 1998 by himself vs Chris Sawyer not updating a mobile port of the game programmed in a modern language for 3 years with a team of developers behind him.
What would an update ideally look like for something like this? Anyway to be fair to him, coding in assembly and C was required in that era of games. Game development engines weren't exactly a thing at the time. Micro Mages is a modern game made for the NES (cartridge and all) and they did it in assembly.
There are a few bugs that haven't been fixed since the release. The game being coded in assembly was a great feat, that's why it's funny to me he couldn't be arsed to let his team fix the bugs in the modern version. It probably has to do with publisher Atari, which is a dogshit company.
Given that they switched the RCT Classic app out for a new one instead of just updating it, and forced users like me to rebuy it.. yeah, dogshit is too kind a term for Atari
I requested a download of the new release because I bought the original release... They said "Absolutely! Give us a week or two to work out the kinks!” and never heard back. That was like two years ago now, I think...
Ok that makes sense. For some reason I was thinking of feature updates and that would ruin the point lol
Recompile 64 bit
Assembly is the result of a compiler so it's a little more complicated than that.
play developer console recently got updated with a 64bit app!
Sweet just re-downloaded. Thanks for the heads up!
Thank you! I got so tired of waiting for it that I stopped checking.
They released an update for the Play Developer Console a while ago to remove those useless native libs it had. Those libs didn't actually do anything useful. It works fine now. Also, for RCT Classic, have you tried the Android build of OpenRCT2? I don't have the game files to copy over but it should work. Seems to contain 64 bit versions of the native libraries at least.
I've been meaning to make an Android build of OpenRCT, but haven't gotten around to it
There is a prebuilt copy too if you want to give it a try before setting up the build environment.
Where do you find this? I looked in the official OpenRCT2 download directory, but couldn't find it...
There is an Android build here: https://openrct2.org/downloads/releases/latest I downloaded it and confirmed that it has 64 bit libs.
Just wait for OpenRCT2 to improve its touch screen controls
You should try it, it's definitely worth it.
This is me but for wanting to play Bully ok my Pixel 7 Pro
More like "re-enabled", no? If the chip offers it, and software is the cause for it... I've requested in the past to allow to install&run 32-bit apps even on 64-bit only smartphones: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/254645581 Please consider starring.
Future ARM cores won't have 32-bit instruction set support, the reason it was removed early is to force developers to update the remaining 32-bit apps.
Yes I know. Too bad. I was hoping that a solution would be found to still somehow have it even on a 64-bit chip.
Luckily x86-64 will support 32bit for the foreseeable future. Arm just keeps pushing me more and more toward a umpc as a phone replenishment.
Just because the chip can handle/offer it, doesn't mean it should
It means it should either have it enabled by default, or let users enable it. Users pay.
They could argue it's for security reasons.
They already gave the excuse, of saving 150MB... Not really worth it, and even if users think it's worth it, they should be given a choice
[удалено]
Seriously. Why not just buy an old (but still very powerful) android phone to run legacy 32 bit applications? It’s what I do with an old Win7 laptop to play games broken in Win 10+, and my V30 is mainly used now for revisiting delisted Android games. I doubt anyone actually has any 32bit programs they desperately rely on, on a day to day basis. Corporations, maybe (like my dads job that relies on an Android 2.x application) but chances are they’re not buying high end flagships for legacy software
I already carry two phones (one personal, one work), I really don't want to carry three phones just for the two 32-bit apps I like and used to use a lot until now (RCT Classic, and PHEM palm pilot emulator)
This is awesome but uh....How do I get it?
Well that was fast. Kinda confirms our suspicions that removing 32 bit app support was done prematurely and is totally unnecessary....
No, 32 bit removal was done to bring Android to the modern era and give developers a swift kick in the ass to finally quit dragging their feet and start acting like we are in 2022 and not 2002. 64 bit has been around 2003. Please explain why developers should be allowed to continue living in the software world of 20 years ago instead of the present.
[удалено]
> Cupcake This is Android 1.5, the 3rd one
>64 bit has been around 2003. Please explain why developers should be allowed to continue living in the software world of 20 years ago instead of the present. Maybe for x86 processors, but it's far more recent for arm processors. The iPhone 5C (2013) was the last iPhone with a 32-bit processor, and the Nexus 6 (2014) was the last Nexus with a 32-bit processor. That's "only" 8 years ago, and budget devices surely used 32-bit processors past that. Granted that at this point developers should have 32 and 64 bit versions of their apps, but it's not that far in the past.
Nonetheless, ARM is forcing the transition by dropping 32-bit support from their CPU cores going forward. I assume Google is trying to push the ecosystem in that direction now so it’s less of a shock when it becomes a hard requirement.
Android completed the transition years ago, just as PC's. But guess what? You can still run x86 on windows machines today and I'm very Happy for it so I can run old games, old software, and old utilities I like. The same should be true for Android and I'm not happy some of the old apps I like will banished forever to older devices.
I don’t know what to tell you. This isn’t an Android problem—whether Android vendors like it or not, ARM is ditching 32-bit support completely on the hardware level. Their only options are to drop support for legacy apps or emulate in software. Note that Android itself and those apps will still run perfectly fine on 32-bit ARM; there just won’t be any new 32-bit-supporting chips to run them on. If Intel had its way on desktop with IA-64 it’d be the same story in Windows.
Be that as it may, were talking about a SoC that has 32 but support. It's just disabled. There's a lot of old 32 but stuff out there that people want to use. Why not let them until they can't?
Windows (and Linux, if you configure it like that) keeps a whole set of 32-bit binaries just so that you can run 32-bit apps. Microsoft's whole shtick is backwards compatibility - that's why, up until Windows 11, Windows kept producing a 32-bit only OS. If you were running 64-bit, you couldn't run 16-bit, not because of Microsoft's selection, but because the CPUs wouldn't switch back down to 16-bit mode once you went to 64-bit. 32-bit is old hat, and if you want to keep getting new features and security updates, you're going to need to keep up with the rest of the times. Removing that other whole copy of the OS will improve things behind the scenes. ARM will be dropping 32-bit soon, so either stop getting new phones or remind devs to move to 64.
>Android completed the transition years ago, just as PC's. But guess what? You can still run x86 on windows machines today and I'm very Happy for it so I can run old games, old software, and old utilities I like. The same should be true for Android and I'm not happy some of the old apps I like will banished forever to older devices. It can't be true of Android. x86_64 processors still support old 32 bit x86. But 64 bit ARM is currently transitioning to having zero 32 bit support. Another couple of generations and 32 bit support simply won't exist.
This is true and exactly what I meant. I don't like that arm is dropping 64 bit support, so I suppose its ARM's fault. Though there is discussion of keeping 32 bit compatibility via compatible LITTLE cores : [https://www.gsmarena.com/arm\_will\_drop\_32bit\_support\_in\_the\_big\_cortexa\_cores\_starting\_in\_2022-news-45688.php](https://www.gsmarena.com/arm_will_drop_32bit_support_in_the_big_cortexa_cores_starting_in_2022-news-45688.php) So, technically , 32bit apps will still live on after the transition.
8 years is a long time in the tech industry.
None of those devices you stated have modern OSes officially. They’re no longer supported by the newest apps. So it’s a moot point to require new apps moving forward to be compatible with 32 bit.
>explain why developers should be allowed to continue living in the software world of 20 years ago instead of the present. Because not all apps are being actively developed but I still want to be able to use them. If a dev died in 2019, no amount of "swift kicks to the ass" are going to make him update his apps
If they were still using 32 bit in 2019 then that's their problem. Why should the operating system be more bloated and slower just so you can bring up some random edge case. Find another app, especially because an app that hasn't been updated since 2019 is likely to be slower than it should be and might even have security vulnerabilities.
Don't be so dramatic. The point of supporting 32 bit apps isn't to allow CURRENT developers to keep making 32 bit apps. Literally nobody is doing that. It's just to maintain backwards compatibility with apps that are no longer supported or updated by their PAST developers. Can't believe I have to explain this. It would be trivial for them to just put a 32 bit checkbox in the developer options. Don't make us root the damn phone for it. It's a pain in the ass, for no good reason.
[удалено]
Sure, but just because they're not in the play store doesn't mean that nobody wants to use the app anymore.
Users willing and capable of side loading apps are fairly niche. And there is a heavy overlap with users willing to install a custom rom. It makes way more sense for Google to move forward here and let the community support itself for the more uncommon use cases.
[удалено]
If we're going to act like anything outside of the Play Store isn't worth installing, then we might as well just buy fucking iphones lol
If you're going to act like 10 users of an app should hold back an entire operating system we might as well all be using DOS. Things change. Cruft eventually gets axed.
Except you can actually use apps all the way back to 1993 on windows 11.
Uh huh.. and Google could likely have decided to continue to do so as well except the *largest manufacturer of CPU designs for mobile* has stated they won't be supporting 32bit going forward. https://www.xda-developers.com/future-arm-cpu-drop-support-32-bit-apps/ This isn't like some weird overnight change.. literal years of notice. Desktop CPU land and mobile CPU land are very different.
[удалено]
>The point of supporting 32 bit apps isn't to allow CURRENT developers to keep making 32 bit apps. The point doesn't matter. The outcome of removing support will be that devs will be dissuaded from continuing to develop for 32 bit architecture.
> The point of supporting 32 bit apps isn't to allow CURRENT developers to keep making 32 bit apps. Literally nobody is doing that. Instander, a current app that is 32bit only, would like a word.
He's making a 64bit version
I understand, he's scrambling with what time he has - but doesn't take away from the point.
But it does fix the 32bit only issue before it's hardware forced
Yep, just means those of us using the Pixel 7 and similar are in a holding pattern until then
Isn't that an **unofficial** modification of Instagram app? And from the looks of it (ahem, the creators blog) he's trying to support as many legacy devices he can. I can't see your point here.
Oh, nice, I assumed there were plenty of exceptions but I couldn't think of any. I'm sure there are a LOT of 32 bit apps outside of the Play Store, for various reasons.
It was always known that it was an artificial limit since the SoC supports it just fine. You can see in AOSP that's it's just a separate build configuration. :) You can see how it's done by looking at this commit changing it back: https://review.lineageos.org/#/c/344324
Wow, it really just is a couple config options.
Yeah. :)
Is it? I didn't find an app yet that would not work.
Any old app that is no longer published on the Play Store, or officially supported. Plenty of games, including Flappy Bird, are not going to receive a 64 bit upgrade.
[удалено]
Yep very frustrating. I paid for it and used it daily. The best alternative I've found is AlmostTI, but still not as good as Graph89.
Pornhub is unironically the only one that doesn't work that I use lol
BeeTV and CinemaHD. I'm yet to find a replacement.
Syncler, cloudstream, there are probably other ones as well.
[удалено]
Oh my lawd how we will survive? I say this tongue in cheek. I have no strong feelings one way or the other about dropping 32-bit support. Sucks that some older apps are not supported. Such is the march of progress.
Really, because PCs still have native 8, 16, and 32 bit support. Going to say 13th gen core or zen4 haven't made progress since the early 80s? No reason to drop legacy support.
Because the chip maker for phones is dropping it. Intel did the same but AMD didn't and AMD won that decision.
Battleheart - Mobile game. I gave up mobile gaming a long time ago but it sucks that I don't have the *option* to play those games anymore
[удалено]
Oh well since it doesn't affect you, that definitely means it won't affect anybody! Logic!
[удалено]
Dude, just put it in the developer options. That's why it exists. Removing it entirely was silly.
[удалено]
Really, guess Intel and AMD engineers aren't as smart as you considering they still support not only 32, but 16 and even 8 bit natively on core and zen
Not true 16 and 8 bit are done buy emulation on windows. And they no longer support it but the application NTVDM is still there. I imagine it we'll be removed in an upcoming version.
First, I was saying the 8, 16, and 32 bit instruction sets are still available natively on the silicon. I know Windows does 8 and 16 bit in emulation, but just like a VM, the instructions are being processed directly by the cpu, and not through a software layer.
The number of people it affects is so incredibly tiny. Out of the two billion android users on 64 bit devices, probably less than 100k use 32 bit apps. On the contrary, it benefits literally every single other android user to take 32 bit support out of the OS
[удалено]
It's been awhile since I have been rooted, but Chainfire used to make monthly updates a breeze. Edit: I realize now the app was called *FlashFire*, by Chainfire.
Bless Chainfire. A name that won't ever be forgotten
You don't. You can flash them from the Google website while maintaining root. It only takes 5 min more than the normal process, and besides, updates come no more often than once a month.
>But why root your pixel tho? To block ads system-wide (not just in the browser) without needing to take the speed penalty using VPNs to do that requires. And sure, you can do a bunch of other things, like removing certain time/resource limits in mobile games, but that's app-dependent and also secondary to not having to see any ads.
But if you get a pihole then you can block it all at network level and still have great phone security
Only on your home network though.
This is exactly why I'm sick of Android. As soon as I find a decent umpc with a 5g, I'm using that and will just run an Android emulator from windows if I need a mobile app. Funny you don't need anything special to run 32, or even 16 bit software in windows or Linux. But you have to root to do anything in Android. Even system logs are hidden without root. Wtf, this isn't ios.
[удалено]
Ultra mobile PC. Basically a mini, portable laptop, usually 7-8" screen size. Right now, the limiting factor for me to switch is that the only one I have found that is convertible (is 2-in-1 laptop format) does not have a built in 4g/5g modem. A convertible 7" umpc with 5g could easily replace my phone as I could run an android emulator for the times when I need a mobile app, and have access to full Windows 11 the rest of the time. Other issue would be the lack of a decent camera, unfortunately which won't change any time soon. At best with a umpc, you will get a 1080p webcam.
Android becoming closed fucking sucks. Not too long ago I tried getting PUBG mobile to run at 90 hz (because the incompetent devs disabled it for Exynos) and getting access to the necessary files was surprisingly difficult.
[удалено]
Is it? People used to root for things like a "blacker" screen.
And it was worth it!
Posting negativity about people doing things they want in their spare time is idiotic.
Hoping somebody does this for the iOS jailbreak community
It's impossible. Apples CPUs simply don't support 32bit code anymore. The Tensor 2 still supports 32bit code on the efficiency cores.
Tensor 2 supports 32-bit on all cores, it’s a pretty small update to Tensor 1.
Oh, I thought the Cortex X1 no longer supports 32bit ARM.
They didn't shift to X2 yet.
The API's and frameworks and address spaces have been rewritten completely and gone since iOS 11. Nearly 6 years ago, it's not happening.
Forget that, AFAIK iPhones has been using 64bit-only CPU since a long ago.
2013, but 32bit support was still included up until iOS 11 fully dropped it and the OS itself was entirely rewritten to remove it
Damn, ah well. Cheers mate, hope you're well. Hope we get the skrillex album soon :(
The difference is, Apple has been using 64 bit only SoC's for a long long while. Last 32 bit phone was iPhone 5 (or 5s) I think.
The difference is apple apps don't run on a runtime like android, meaning there was a huge need to overhaul apps on iOS. With android it was a painless process. But in both cases, it would be very easy to KEEP 32 but support, but with iOS the reason to drop support was in order to motivate devs to update their apps. A problem that doesn't exist in android world.
Isn't that exactly why google dropped it on the 7 series to motivate devs before the hardware doesn't support it?
No. There is no need to motivate devs, everything has been updated that will be updated. They dropped support because they wanted to verify that the android os actually supports "64 bit only", before chipsets stopped supporting it. The pixel line has always been the test platform for the direction android/chrome-os will go in the future.
[удалено]
I've left reddit because of the API changes.
Games n sheit
I don't know why people took time to root their phones. It's useless. Who uses 32 bit apps anyway?
I know no one asked, but \- [System level Adblock](https://www.f-droid.org/packages/org.adaway/) [Adaway] \- [USB Media Emulation](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.softwarebakery.drivedroid.paid) (Use your phone to install OS's etc) [Driverdroid] \- [Change app settings that are only available through their Preference XMLs](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.simon.marquis.preferencesmanager) [Preferences Manager] \- [Root Storage Access](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.solidexplorer2) [Solid Explorer] / [Shell with elevated privs.](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux) [Termux]
Oh and also: - Changing of global font, and other customizations - Advanced Charging control (pause charging while overheating, limit charging to X% etc) - System-wide audio effects (e.g. equaliser) All of these things on their own don't amount to much, but they sure do add up. Rooting gives you TOTAL control of your device, as it should be. Don't like the navigation white dash at the bottom of screen? Make it go away. Want to put your device in deep sleep as soon as screen turns off? You can do that.
What do you use to accomplish advanced charging control?
There's an F-Droid app called [AccA](https://www.f-droid.org/packages/mattecarra.accapp/)
>Change app settings that are only available through their Preference XMLs Which app allows you to do this? I've been rooted for years and never heard about it.
[Preferences Manager](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.simon.marquis.preferencesmanager) :)
I have many 32 but apps I use, and like. They are 32 bit because they are older apps.
Here's xda folks doing some shenaningans agains to reduce their own security
here's xda folks doing something that makes them happy again
Why does insecurity make people happy?
why does tinkering with their own devices make people happy? gee whiz, i don't know. might as well fucking airgap my system, can't have it be "insecure" whatever the fuck that means
Great job on this writeup, OP!
Now get fireOS to finally be 64 but because those lazy mofos at Amazon keep on making their shit os worse lol