Although it arrives a little later than Apple, Google has finally decided to take the step. Apple stopped giving support to 32-bit apps from iOS 11, and it seems that Android will do the same from August 2021, but in a way that benefits users with 32 and 64-bit phones, and that will only hurt the developers. Google gets more serious: all new apps will have to have a 64-bit version in 2021 A year ago, Google launched a notice to developers: as of August 2019, all 32-bit apps should also have a 64-bit version. This is done to prepare the ground for Android versions and devices that only support 64-bit code.
Now, Google has published an even more detailed roadmap to go one step further in this transition. As of August 1, 2019, all new apps and updates that include native code must have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions to be published in the Play Store.
This rule will affect apps written in C or C ++, or those that have associations with native third-party libraries. Therefore, it does not apply to those apps written in Java or Kotlin, since those apps are already prepared for 64-bit devices.
Users with 32-bit systems will also continue to receive new versions
As of August 1, 2021, Google Play will not include new apps that do not have a 64-bit version. Users who have phones with these versions directly will not see applications that are only available in 32 bits, including games made under Unity 5.6 or earlier. The developers will have until that date to release updates for that limited number of games. From there, they will not be able to release updates for them. Thus, all new applications and updates that reach the existing ones must have a 64-bit version.
In this way, Google will continue to support 32-bit apps, as well as devices that are only compatible with them, while allowing those with a mobile and 64-bit operating system to enjoy those versions. These new rules do not apply to Wear OS apps or Android TV, since neither of the two systems supports 64-bit code yet.
As we see, all these changes affect developers negatively, while benefiting users. The fact of having a compatible mobile with only 64-bit apps has several advantages. For example, having fewer libraries, applications take less time to download. These apps can also access more RAM, in addition to operating more quickly because 64-bit operations are faster, since in a 32-bit system it takes two 32-bit operators to get the same result.