18

So I thought I could now upload my app using different NDK compiled libraries for targeted CPU architectures but it seems like that's not possible.

Anyone know how to upload to the Android Market different APKs each containing libraries compiled specifically for different CPU architectures?

I haven't tried this and seems like a waist of space, but can we include multiple compiled libraries in one APK?

Update:
Apparently when the user installs the apk the unsupported libraries will not be installed on the device. This is good but the user still has to download the entire apk wasting bandwidth.

Jona
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  • did you ever find an elegant solution for this? I too am having this issue, my native libraries are way too big to be duplicated for each architecture so I would prefer to have seperate APK's – Dean Wild Jul 13 '12 at 10:01

5 Answers5

12

Well, finally Google Play allows to have Multi-apk targeting!

"We have added new functionality for apps that use multiple APK support. You can now target each APK to a specific native platform."

Jona
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9

Unless you have a bunch of code for your app, I would suggest just putting the native code for the three architectures that android supports and the moment, armv5, armv7, and x86. It willl triple the size of the code portion of your apk, but 3*(a small number) is still a small number. You can do this by modifying your jni/Application.mk file, or creating it if you don't already have it, and add the line:

APP_ABI := armeabi armeabi-v7a x86

This will compile for all three.

Note though that there's a bug with the current ndk (ndk r6), that tries to link the x86 code to the arm code. This is fixed if you get the AOSP project, source.android.com, or you can just wait until google releases r6b, which will likely have the fix. Otherwise, if you you don't want to do that, you can just leave off the x86 portion of the line for now, and release your app without x86 code in it, and push an update when the new ndk comes out. I'm not aware of many popular devices that use x86 instructions yet.

Leif Andersen
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  • Thanks for your response! So you are saying I can compile into one library multiple CPU architectures? or I'm completely not understanding :P – Jona Aug 14 '11 at 13:42
  • Sort of, you can compile multiple CPU architectures into one APK. What it does is compile one library per architecture, and then runs the appropriate library at run time. This is why your APK gets a bit bigger. – Leif Andersen Aug 14 '11 at 14:40
  • Ah ok, so essentially I would have a couple .so under my libs folder. I thought that the actual .so lib would be compiled with all the architectures, and that wouldn't make sense :P... Yes as you said, my libs are a bit big, around 2.5MB :( so this would kinda suck for many users... Somehow using the Android Market multiple APK there should be some hacky solution..? – Jona Aug 14 '11 at 18:20
  • Ah, yes, 7.5MB would be a bit big for an apk. But I've seen bigger production apks, at one point wasn't the angry birds apk around 14 MB? Although older phones certainly won't be able to open apks that are that big. – Leif Andersen Aug 15 '11 at 15:49
  • Ok, I'm still trying to figure out how to put few APKs - one per architecture. That's because my native libs are huge - 5-8 MB for each arch. Does Google Play snoop the internal lib/ subfolders to see what natives does it have? – WindRider Jan 04 '14 at 10:26
1

Please see Multiple APK Support in the Android documentation. This details some of the specifics of releasing multiple APKs of the same product/application.

As for the NDK specifics, and as already mentioned, you can utilize multiple platforms / ABIs in the APP_ABI value of your Android.mk.

NuSkooler
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  • Yes, I was aware of the multiple APK support. In regards to NDK my libs are way to big to include different builds in one APK... – Jona Sep 17 '11 at 15:35
0

In new Play store developer console if you want to add multiple APK than you must need to use same package name and same keystore key but different version code. You have publish app then first upload Apk e.g mobile_release and rollout for production, after when you upload another apk, you should choose option RETAIN on previous APK also with current APK.

  android {

        // To create different apk per abi
        splits {
            abi {
                enable true
                reset()
                include 'armeabi', 'armeabi-v7a', 'x86'
                universalApk true
            }
        }
    }

    import com.android.build.OutputFile

    // Map for the version code
    ext.versionCodes = ['armeabi': 1, 'armeabi-v7a': 2, 'x86': 3]
    android.applicationVariants.all { variant ->

        // assign different version code for each output
        variant.outputs.each { output ->
            int abiVersionCode = project.ext.versionCodes.get(output.getFilter(OutputFile.ABI)) ?: 0
            output.versionCodeOverride = (abiVersionCode * 1000) + android.defaultConfig.versionCode
        }
    }
Anderson Silva
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You can declare supports-gl-texture in your AndroidManifest.xml for each separately compiled (and re-packaged) app. This will provide Market filtering, so a single user will only see one version of your app.

CrackerJack9
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  • This could be promising... So for example armv5 which filters? I want to separate armv5 and armv7 along with the new x86 devices... This is obviously a hackie way of doing it but could potentially work... I just can't believe google didn't provide this type of filter! :( – Jona Aug 14 '11 at 13:40