Android DEV releases Android L 64-bit emulator image for x86 Intel CPUs

As Android L prepares for a system wide release, Google has just released the Android L 64-bit emulator exclusive to Intel x86 chips. This release targets app developers to test and optimize their existing and upcoming apps for the 64bit architecture and be ready when Android L will finally release to the public.

Having a 64-bit environment will allow developers to access higher memory space, allow a larger number of registers and a new instruction sets. Allowing access to higher memory space, 64-bit operating system will now recognize devices with more than 4 GB of RAM ,thus allowing manufacturers to include higher RAMs on future devices. Currently OEM’s have gone to a maximum 3GB RAM on their existing devices, with 64-bit support, devices in the future will have to start at least with 4GB of RAM as a standard.

Apps built on Java will directly get the benefits of 64-bit but apps built on Android NDK will need to have a few changes to support 64-bit environment by compile apps into 64-bit architecture by including “x86_64” in the build target or use the catch all code “APP_ABI=all64” inside their Application.mk.

This release will also allow developers to develop and test apps for Intel’s Bay Trail and Atom processors, but what developers are waiting is the emulator for ARM. NVIDIA’s Tegra K1 and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processors are just two example of processors built on 64-bit ARM processors. Google is yet to announced ARM based emulator and developers have hope that the Android DEV team would release that soon.

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• Android L 64-bit emulator finally out, only for Intel x86(androidcommunity.com)

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• Google releases 64-bit Android L developer preview emulator image(venturebeat.com)

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• Android L x86 64-bit Developer Preview Emulator Image Released(cnx-software.com)

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