Given the extra effort to build, support and manage installation of both 32 bit and 64 bit Windows apps, is it worth supporting 64 bit apps?
Apple will soon be chastising developers with shame messages on every 32 bit Mac app launch. Is there any indication of Windows limiting 32 bit apps in the near-ish future?
No, on the contrary…
In the Microsoft Store guides, Microsoft even encourages you to upload a 32Bit build (to reach a bigger audience).
So unless your application really needs 64Bit (e.g. because of 32Bit memory limit), there is no advantage at all.
Absolutely worth it, all other major development systems have had 64bit for years, on Mac & Linux 64bit is THE standard. The only place 32bit is appropriate at this stage is on embedded micro-controllers. MS has a great 32bit compatibility layer, but that is just a stop gap to get to 64bit.
We stopped using Xojo after more than a decade of use ( REAL/Xojo ) because of the lack of 64bit support and being able to ship Xojo based object libs. With some limited 64bit support now, we are taking another look.
There aren’t shipping 32bit desktop processors, all Intel, AMD, and a good portion of ARM are 64bit. Again 32bit is a great embedded controller, but if you aren’t doing 64bit, you have already lost the race.
64 bit Windows has been available for years.
From thousands of shipped apps, the number of enquiries
I have had about 'do you have a 64bit build’?
One person.
No choice on Macs because Apple are shaming developers for their own bugs.
On Windows, 64bit isnt necessary unless you want to address gigs of memory or drivers that only exist in 64bit versions.
Shipping both adds a couple of hours per release, and complicates the website/sales a bit.
On Mac it’s not about shaming developers, it’s about shipping a 64-bit-only OS meaning smaller binaries, smaller test footprint and mildly faster execution. Macs have shipped with 64-bit processors for a long time now (I think if you can run 10.7 and up you can run a 64-bit OS) so it makes sense to drop 32-bit support if you’re targeting the latest OS already.
I’m not aware of such a push on Windows, but I am intrigued by this thread. Are people still installing / using 32-bit Windows 10? On 64-bit hardware?
The main reason for us to go 64-bit on Mac is that Apple simply doesn’t fix bugs for 32-bit any more (as much as they used to).
So features break with OS updates.
I am not saying the the “size” of a 64bit compiled app is a bad thing… in my example… 30Meg is “nothing” these days…
what I was doing is disputing the claim that the compliations were smaller
Christian … NO IT IS NOT SMALLER… it is almost 2x the size[quote=376942:@Dave S]32 Bit - app bundle is 16.6meg and internal binary is 6meg
6 Bit - app bundle is 30.1meg and internal binary is 19.4meg
so 1.8x larger bundle and 3.2x larger binary… that does not equate to “smaller footprint”[/quote]
Well, I think that Apple wants to shame developers, and personally attack all of us here. Because that’s the only reason they could possibly have, right?
are both 32Bit and 64Bit builds using the LLVM compiler?
or are you comparing Xojo’s own 32Bit compiler with a build of Xojo using the 64Bit LLVM compiler?
[quote=376953:@Jürg Otter]are both 32Bit and 64Bit builds using the LLVM compiler?
or are you comparing Xojo’s own 32Bit compiler to a build with Xojo using the 64Bit LLVM compiler?[/quote]
both builds were using Xojo… from the same version of Xojo… all I did was change the drop down
but really… is it worth arguing about… it is what it is…
Having ONLY 64-bit is in fact larger than ONLY 32-bit. But when an OS (or app) needs to supply BOTH then having BOTH 32+64 bit by definition HAS to be larger than either single version.
IMHO, it seems like Apple wants to get OSX to where it will no longer support 32-bit apps at all (eventually) whereas Microsoft is content to support the 32-bit compatibility layer long term.
In iOS, with the App Store they basically no longer download a “fat app” with support for both. Instead it downloads the resources needed for the particular device doing the download.