Benefits of using android 64?

[marcanw]

Hi

Harmann has now released several new version of the AIR SDK. Major change is the android 64 bit support.

In the meantime Google gave a grace perido of one year for the AIR based app. So no hurries.

However I was wondering what would be the benefits to switch to android 64 bit build (while I think I should still build a 32 bit as well).
For those who already switched to 64 build, could you tell me if you see some benefits switching to it on 64 bit devices:

- Is it more stable?

- Do you see a perf difference?

Thank you for your feedback

[Lars Laborious]

I think the grace period is for app updates, but for any new apps you need to upadte to 64 bit support. The Starling forum have been discussing it here: https://forum.starling-framework.org/d/21956-recap-about-the-current-situation-with-google-play-stor...

[marcanw]

You are rigth but it isn't my question.

I would like to know what is the experience of those who switched to android build 64 (so surely an upgrade).

If they could tell me what differences they noticed, particluary stability, performance, apk size, ... 

[Leo Kanel]

So 64bit didn't bring much changes in AIR. Don't expect to see eye catching differences in performance. In my benchmarks I had a few ANEs running a bit faster due to 64bit but that's it. In theory you could access more ram (for example I own a smartphone with 8gb RAM which of course can't be used by a 32bit app), which again doesn't seem to make much difference.

The biggest gain in AIR33, is Harman fixing issues that Adobe failed to.

[marcanw]

Thx Leo_Kanel

So it's air 33 not the 64 bits that is really interesting here. And I already did the jump to 33 for that.

But I was wondering if specifically the switch to 64 was really bringing something, outside the drwabacks like rebuild all the ANE, have a bigger apk, ...

[Leo Kanel]

Right now, I don't see any shocking benefits from moving to 64bit. I even tried benchmarking heavy operations to see the difference between 32bit and 64bit. In most cases there was none if no ANE was used. The only reason to move is the enforcement by Google as Apple did a few years ago.

The good thing out of it, is that we will finally get App bundles (maybe) as Harman is working to make that for Android.