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◆ Main question

I want to know how long I need to provide a 32-bit version of my Android Application. For that I would like to know how many users have a smartphone that supports only 32-bit. If possible, I would like to see how that value changed over the last couple of years, and how it differes for different countries.

That being said, just an absolute value comparison (out of XXX Android devices YYY support only 32bit) or a percentage value would already be great.

◆ Further specifications

When I say Android device, I mostly care about devices that let user use my application, so I imagine smartphones and tablets. Though, I think it is difficult to get separated values depending on the type of device.

◆ What I tried and found

Google makes it necessary to support 64bit Applications from Aug. 2019. With this shift the necessity to support 32bit grows smaller, which would result in an decrease of work.

The only number I found is from 2017: "Today, over 40% of Android devices coming online have 64-bit support".

Source: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/12/improving-app-security-and-performance.html

SecretAgentMan
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Morimoto
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  • Is continuing to provide a 32 bit version causing challenges? Java code doesn't matter. For C libraries, it does matter but it generally isn't hard to get 32 bit libraries with the 64 bit – Gabe Sechan May 30 '19 at 03:24
  • As for tablet vs phone- there is no difference. One has the ability to make calls via cellular or wifi, one can only use wifi. That's the difference. You can find breakdowns by size on https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/ which breaks it down to small, normal, large, and x-large. As of now, 86% of devices are normal, 8% large, and 5% xlarge. – Gabe Sechan May 30 '19 at 03:28
  • this in general is the wrong place to ask people to find you statistics. – Vladyslav Matviienko May 30 '19 at 06:29
  • @VladyslavMatviienko Do you have recommendations where I can get help finding statistics? – Morimoto May 31 '19 at 04:52
  • Looking for the same, do let me know if you found any stats around this :) – AA_PV Oct 08 '19 at 13:38
  • @GabeSechan, yes it does with Xamarin, as 32bit only APK is 37MB, 32+64bit APK is 71MB. That's unacceptable. So I am thinking to get rid of 32bit support, and move on to 64bit only - thus I am also looking for similar statistics, how many users may I lose? – Zoli Nov 22 '19 at 10:52
  • @Zotyi If you really care about size, don't use Xamarin. Its adds a ton of bloat for all the C# runtime. You already decided you didn't care when you chose that platform. – Gabe Sechan Nov 22 '19 at 16:17
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    @GabeSechan, it's not true. I care about the size within the xamarin limits. Increase apk size by 100% is unacceptable, regardless of the framework you use. Xamarin started to support app bundles which solves this problem, however I don't like giving my key to Google... You know what is unacceptable : releasing 32 bit systems in 2019. I saw e.g.: lots of 2019 huawei phones 32 bit... Pity – Zoli Nov 24 '19 at 08:03
  • @Zotyi You can shrink the apk size by nearly 50% by not using xamarin at all. So if you cared about apk size, the time to have cared is long past. You can try building split apks, the play store may still accept them. Given that the only reason to need a 64 bit processor is to easily address more than 4 GB of memory and mid range devices from this year like the 3a still have 4 GB of RAM, 32 bit builds are going to remain a thing for at least 2 or 3 more years. – Gabe Sechan Nov 24 '19 at 08:54
  • @GabeSechan: https://developer.android.com/google/play/publishing/multiple-apks - this looks promising – Zoli Nov 25 '19 at 09:41

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